She Speak

Now that my children have grown up to an age when they neither demand my attention nor my involvement as much as they did earlier and my husband being too busy with setting up his own businesses at an age when people plan their retirement, I have been reflecting on my womanhood for a while, with all its glory and ignominy, trials and trivialities, triumphs and failures. 

As I reflect on my life retrospectively, I would like to believe that I have contributed to cementing my family together in more ways that one, as a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a wife, a mother, a cheerleader, a bread earner, a homemaker, and above all, a bridge between the sane and insane elements of life’s dynamics. My professional occupation as a teacher and personal responsibility of an educator to my sons notwithstanding, I could do it all as I could distinguish clearly between the right and wrong. I attribute this to my formal and informal education and the ability acquired through it to assimilate life’s teachings and put them to good use. 

I am a firm believer that education is the key to women empowerment, in more ways than is evident on the surface. A woman, as the key binding force in her family, is supposed to be the care giver not needing any backend support. Paradoxically, I have experienced this through my entire life while being a part of an otherwise educated, modern, caring, loving and closely knit family of mostly men of various ages. But far worse off are those hapless women who are not empowered like me. I have seen the extreme plight of women in subaltern families due to their social, physical and educational deficiencies in spite of being bread earners in their own right. So many of our maids have been thrown out of their homes by their adulterous husbands and have not found gainful employment due to lack of education and vocational training. Many more of them are physically assaulted daily as they refuse to pay for their husband’s hooch but still go back to the same roof after a hard days work as housemaids, just because they have no exposure to other crafts. Many, not being educated themselves, are not able to inspire their children to go to school and aspire for a better life as they are themselves unable to help the children at home or afford private tuition.  

Being an educator myself, I feel it is pay back time for me. I have time to spare now and I would like utilise my time to make a difference. I want to leave a legacy for my children that they can be proud of and that would inspire them in future to raise above mundane routine and assume a larger role in life. I want to apply my strong belief and conviction in the power of education and its impact in improving quality of any life, more so, of that of a poor woman. For quite some time now, I have been searching for a worthwhile organisation, working on women empowerment programmes, with which I could get involved, an organisation where education and training would be the prime focus and where women would be inspired to stand firm on their own feet. I was searching for an NGO who would help fund a woman’s venture and empower her to assume the mantle of a decision making member of the family. I was looking for an organisation which helps challenge archaic and gender biased rules of the society and the woman to become the harbinger of that welcome change. Change for a better and brighter future for poor women of our country and their families.

I think I have found the organisation I was looking for. It is me, myself. So let it all begin where it begins.

The Peoples' Speak

I was born in a year which saw the US Marine launch the infamous 'Operation Deckhouse Five' in the Mekong River delta in Vietnam. It was also the year in which Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defected to US via the US Embassy in New Delhi. Martin Luther King Jr. denounced the Vietnam war in a religious service in New York and the Beatles sang the "Summer of love". As race riots spread across Washington D.C., a violent peasant uprising erupted in Naxalbari in Bengal. That year the British Parliament decriminalised homosexuality and Pink Floyd released their debut album,"The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" in U.K. While Walt Disney released his last full length feature "The Jungle Book", Zulfikar Ali Bhutto founded the Pakistan Peoples Party, nearer home. It was a year that saw Gabriel Garcia Marquez publish One Hundred Years Of Solitude and President Charles de Gaulle veto British entry in EEC. The year was 1967. 

1967 was also a watershed year in the political history of West Bengal. For the first time in the history of independent India, the Congress Government was dislodged by an United Front Government headed by Ajoy Mukherjee. This Government saw the coming together of some Congressmen, the Leftist parties, the Gorkha League, the right wing Lok Sevak Sangh and some independents. This is significant in the sense that all non Congress political forces joined hands together to dislodge the Congress but could not keep their own flock together for long. Another watershed incident happened as President's rule was imposed in West Bengal for the first time, following the break up of the United Front due to inner fissures and contradictions. When elections were held in 1969, UF came back to power with a thumping majority, but only for a year. The front broke up again and the state went back to President's rule till Congress came back to power again in 1972 for a full five year term. Then came the horrendous emergency. With the brain behind the emergency, Sidhartha Shankar Ray heading the Government, Congress lost the elections, and this time for good.

When the Left Front came to power in 1977, I was just ten years old and knew little about who the new Chief Minister Jyoti Basu was or what Left politics was all about. For the next 34 years, I experienced the Left rule in person, growing up in an era of strange societal contradictions and strong political divisions. As capital took flight away, persecuted by militant trade unionism, we were relentlessly fed with glorious tales of reversal of undemocratic practices of the emergency era, establishing Panchayeti Raj, redistribution of land to the landless labourers, the stepmotherly treatment meted out by the Federal Government, building of a power plant by raising blood donations from the public, etc. However, we could not help but get deeply distressed about the Marichjhapi massacre, the killing of saffron clad Anandamargis, the indifference of the administration to the Bantala rape victim, the near fatal attack on a youth Congress leader named Mamata Banerjee and so on, right upto the recent police brutality in Nandigram and the killing fields of Netai. We hated the imposition of complete control of the Party over all spheres of the Bengali life. The ugly face of CPI(M) was on a perpetual roadshow.The leaders became increasingly aloof, the followers increasingly arrogant and the Party increasingly immune to people's feelings over these long years of unchallenged rule until the Bengali on the street got fed up. We wanted change, 'Poriborton', as was coined in Bangla.

Last May saw a change in the seat of power. Mamata Banerjee, after hobnobbing with the Congress, then the BJP, then the Congress, then with neither, then back again with the Congress, finally became the Chief Minister, winning decisively in the elections and heading a Congress-TMC coalition Government. She started with a bang and we were floored by a refreshing change in attitude and approach in governance! A few months passed quickly, in hope of a new sunrise. The honeymoon did not last for too long though. A new set of power brokers started to spring up everywhere, floating in the hot air of being in Governance and the administration started to act in a partisan manner, just as was the wont during the Left rule. One started to question the very ethos of  change and how this new Government was any different from the past one. There seemed no answer. The change makers have, in the meanwhile, turned into changed masters. TMC has started to emote the ugliness of CPI(M), more often than naught. 

One after another the present Government is failing in its prime duty; to be a Government of the people and not of a political Party. How can the CM vilify a rape victim and not apologise ? How can she pull up two honest and upright police officers for doing their job well ? Why is she in denial about not being able to stop hapless farmers from committing suicide as her administration is unable to buy their produce ? How can she call a ghastly attack on the media by her party men concocted by the media itself to up their TRP rating ?  How can she attack her partners in Government as a B-Team of the Left while she herself is siding with the Left in opposing SEZ, draft land acquisition act, FDI in retail, privatisation of banking and insurance sector, model lokayukta bill, Teesta water treaty and proposed nuclear power plant in Haripur, all of which are in agenda of Left's opposition to the Central Government ? And the General Strike of today ? Who made sure that the strike is successful in Bengal ? Who else but Mamata herself, by announcing that her party will actively oppose the strike on the streets of Bengal. A consequence was the killing of two CPI(M) leaders in Burdwan just a few days back in the hands of goons supported by TMC, which the CM maliciously termed as a result of infighting within the opposition party. She has vitiated the relation with the Federal Government so much that the purse strings that should have been loosened specially for Bengal, has been tightened even further, plunging the state into deeper financial crisis. She has neither been able to evolve as an able administrator, nor a leader of the whole of Bengal. Neither has she been able to condone impartial governance, nor condemn violence across all societal levels. Indeed, nothing has changed, absolutely nothing. And despair is setting in among people who voted for her. 

Let me go back to my year of birth. Bengal is no Vietnam and we can very well do without the race riots of Washington D.C. or the eruption of armed conflict at Naxalbari now. Many fair weather friends have joined the ruling dispensation and they would not take long to defect, like Svetlana did, when the tide starts turning. What we do need is someone like Martin Luther King Jr. to denounce and break this terrible circle of hate and violence, of denial, insensitivity and in-humaneness.  We need our bands to sing a new Summer of Love and our writers to write a new Solitude. May be a Disney of today will make a new Jungle Book, a new Floyd will sing a new Gates of Dawn and a new tolerant society shall emerge, open to even radical out-of-the-box ideas. We certainly need a headstrong De Gaulle to veto the continuance of Bengal's killer political practices. And if no one takes cognisance of our concerns, we would have to look for a new option, just as Bhutto provided one, when Pakistan was desperately looking out to fill in the vacant space of democracy in their body polity. It is, after all, about us, the people. For the people, of the people, by the people. 

The tale of two Ghosts

The Ghosts have risen, again.

Our house was infested with supernatural activities for decades, many decades, and we had actually got quite used to them. We knew the table manners well and were at the best of our descent selves whenever we felt their presence among us, the hapless living beings. And off course, not daring to antagonise them, we had actually devised a method of peaceful coexistence by not trudging on each other's feet. Our Ghosts, omnipresent and omnipotent as they were, use to lord over lesser mortals, and, the newspapers were full of their ghastly tales. But we ignored and carried on with life, knowing the inevitability of survival at the cost of discretion. And then something changed. Suddenly, the Ghost attacks that used to be so far away, started happening nearer home. And we were jolted out of our stupor. We felt intimidated and our reaction was rather sharp and swift. We called the Ghostbusters in and they had a field time. It was the Ghosts' turn to be petrified and they kept on apologising for their misdeeds, though carrying on with their killing spree on the sly. But we had already decided to turn them out for good. For three years, we fought with the Ghosts tooth and nail and truly believed in our ability to bring in an ideal change. And finally the Ghosts fell. And they left our home.

We breathed easy. We were ecstatic. We felt, after decades of subversion, we were liberated. A new dawn came with the promise of faith and hope. We felt we would not have to constantly look over our shoulders any more. We were finally lord of our own dwelling. Finally, we could trust. And we breathed a sigh of relief.

We started to unlock all those rooms that we had kept barred for decades, ever since the Ghosts had taken possession of each one of them, one by one. Layers of dirt and grime had piled up on the floor, cobwebs in every nook and corner, and, the plaster crumbled all over the place. In came the sweepers, the masons and the painters. They started to clean up the place with full gusto and enthusiasm. We were happy to host them       

at home, relaxed in the confidence that they would do a good job of it. We got busy with our own lives as usual. The team kept working, cleaning, repairing, painting, as is their wont.

We had then gone for a short vacation, timing it in a way that we would get back to a newly done up house, fresh from months of rigorous effort by our trusted team, on whom we had absolute faith and confidence. But we were in for a rude shock. We saw the house locked in, as if, we were banished from our own home!  We could not believe our terrible luck and a what a deep sense of betrayal it was ! We inquired from our neighbourhood and were told in hushed tone that those whom we had employed to cleanup and repair were Ghosts of a different kind, actually worse than the ones we were forced to host before. 

It seems we are destined to pay the price of believing in the new Ghosts in the garb of servers. The police, as usual, says they can only act against the living, not Ghosts. We surely need to call in the Ghostbusters again. Our battle continues as homeless Living to get our home back from the Ghosts again, this time the eviction being from the whole house though. But can we really trust the Ghostbusters now, that is a million dollar question !       

The unfairy tale of a dainty Doe

I am ploughing deeper and deeper and so are my fellow burrowmates. My ears are perking up at the sound of my own dewclaws scratching against the soft earth. My kits are shivering, petrified as they are, as if knowing by instinct that they are born prey animals, poor fellows. Foxes, Badgers, Lynxes, our tormentors are many and everywhere. Some chase us to funeral, others love to play with our fears before they gobble us up. And coming to think of it, not trudging on anyone's toes, we live only on some nondescript timothy grass that grow in the wild and hay that is fodder for timid idiots like us any ways. Why, why on earth are we intimidated, tormented, persecuted, and assaulted, as though we are criminals of the worst order ? 

Let me tell you a tale, that has suddenly led to this vigorous digging and the urge to keep away from the sights of our predators, at least till the dust settles. My friend's doe had gone out to look up the moon and say hello to her, last weekend. Her kits were snugged comfortably at home and she was in no hurry to return to her burrow soon. I passed by her that evening, but swaying as she was in the soft cradle of moonlight, she did not notice me, nor my cherry wink. She seemed almost inebriated, lost and happy. Oh ! how happy she was, very happy. A few rabbits, whom I had not really seen before, were entering the forest, as I looked back, one last time, before calling it a day.

And the morning after was terrible, I tell you. Those rabbits whom I had seen last night were jackals in rabbit's garb. They knew where my friend's doe was, unprotected and unsuspecting, lost in her own world. And they had come to assault her and violate her in every way possible. She had fought like a tigress, but was battered and bruised beyond recognition. Somehow she had managed to give them a slip and return to her family in the wee hours of the morning. And there she was, traumatised and speechless, shivering and badly shaken up. We begged and implored with her to make a complaint to The Great Lioness, but she was in no state of mind to think this through. 

After a few days she gathered herself back, rather gathered back her courage, and went to complain to the wolves. Who does not know that wolves are The Great Lioness's eyes and ears, headed by the Little Cub ? She thought she would get justice. She thought the wolves would get the storks pick up the jackals and take them to task. Oh how naive our doe was ! The wolves laughed at her, and, lo and behold, wanted to spend another moonlit night with her in the woods, exactly at the same spot, where she was violated by the jackals ! What would you do, if you are in a similar fix ? You wouldn't go to the Bard and let your ignominy be made public, would you ? But my friend's doe is different. She went ahead and did just that. And then all hell broke loose.

A good alpha wolf, having heard her story, decided to act. She did not know from before, otherwise she would have acted way earlier. But the wily wolves did not rest. They went to the Little Cub, and juvenile that he is, fed him with all kinds of cock and bull theories about a great conspiracy to malign the Lioness. The little fellow did not waste a minute and went running to report to his mother immediately. And then came the shocker. The Great Lioness, without even checking the facts once, with an aplomb, declared, from her high rostrum, that my friend's doe is out to destroy the greatness of her Empire and that she is a nuisance to the society ! Lo ! The poor poor victim became a poorer victim for the second time ! The Little Cub went even further and dragged us, the doe's friends, into this so-called conspiracy against the Lioness ! We had almost given up hope of survival but then something happened. Something that none of us ever expected to happen.

The good alpha wolf, dug in her heels, and, no matter what the Lioness said, no matter what the Cub said, went on with her business as vigorously as ever, and brought the evil jackals to justice. And then the birds stated chirping. And the Bard started singing. And the flowers started to bloom. And the river started to gurgle. And the Lioness sulked. And the Cub hid his face. And then, admist all this fun and frolic, a thought suddenly dawned on the whole rabbitdom. When the Lioness is on the prowl next, and when ever she decides to be, she would certainly look us up. She would almost surely like to see who had caused her such disgrace and who dared to defy her golden words. We have heard that the good alpha wolf has already been pulled up for her indiscretion. We must be next in line. So we are ploughing. And hoping that we go down deeper where she cannot reach us easily. Whether we would die of hunger, waiting for her till she comes, we do not know. But for now, this seems to be the only safe bet : act as if one does not exist and hope she would get busy with other pressing issues. She is a very busy Lioness any ways. And floating in the air are stories about an old Red Lion breaching her territory somewhere, which seem to be bothering her no end these days.

          

A Park by the Street

Our Queeny dear is in the Royal Mess, as this is to be, from now on, her official residence. Any Royal, once diagnosed with foot-in-mouth disease, has traditionally and irrevocably been banished by the Parliament of Owls to that coveted address, following the two-hooting convention. Henceforth the Royal Court shall be held at the Courtyard and shall be a far merrier affair than the mess that it was, while being conducted at that wretched Redyard so far. The Mess has been refitted befitting her Supreme Status. All ghosts have been barred from entry without proving their debtly credentials. So has been the living, either vitiated, violated or a victim. A Special Protection Team has been deployed around the Mess, and I tell you, with such experts in expletives, that even the most dreadful would find themselves wanting in ammunition, when the need arises. The air in the garden has been imported in crested sacks from her favourite hills and the fauna from that    dreaded jungle she so aspires to hunt in with her hounds some day. And the log gates of the great barrage has off course been repaired to feed the canal that run through. The sole trouble has been with All The Queen's Men though, being too fond of their present predicament, they are in deep dilemma whether to move in with her or show their undying loyalty by some other means. One man in uniform has decisively decided to be her chaperon, or may be it is the other way round, but that seems to be an exception for now. We, as loyal subjects, held a candle light vigil to pray that her stay in her new abode be comfortable and that she may happily live there till the rags wear out. The intellectuals, shame be upon them, were strangely missing from such a important congregation. Meanwhile though her detractors charged full steam with their Twilight Brigade today, blocking right of passage right through the Queen's Capitol, her grass root empathisers were far from being either outwitted or outnumbered. Imagine all this happening in a day ! Long live our Queeny !  And long live the Court Jester, her soul companion (where change is  the sole constant) !  Long live the Owls too !