Mother?

By: Shyama Laxman - January 29th, 2012  Filed under: Law & Institutions, Our Bodies, Relationships & Marriage, Society 2 Comments
“I missed my periods”. Shantanu looked up from his newspaper.” Does that mean you…?” “Possible. Or maybe just hormonal imbalance like the previous time” I cut in without waiting for him to finish. I didn’t want any anticipation to be built up only to be disappointed later. We had been married for five years now. It had been a mutual decision to not start a family until two years after the marriage. The passage of the years from two to five saw an increase in the questions from family elders. My in-laws were progressive people and that was a relief. They didn’t lament about passing away without getting to see the face of their grandchild. They were also not worried about the lineage coming to an end as their eldest son had already added two grandsons to the family. Their concern was that late pregnancy might create complications for me and the baby to be born. In a polite manner they were telling me that I was nearing thirty and my body would not be the same as it used to be five years back. Sadly the biological clock ticked only for women while men’s potential was not time bound. A few years back newspapers had an article about a farmer in some remote village of India who at sixty seven had fathered a baby boy. “I will pick you from college in the evening. We will visit the gynecologist for a test. I hope it is positive news this time”. I hoped so too. Much as they tried, my in-laws could never hide their ardent desire for another grandchild.

*****

            Ting…ting… “Hello. Hi Padma.Sure I will be there at four”. Padma was a close friend and my obstetrician. Now that I had finally conceived I had decided to rely on her during the full course of my pregnancy until the delivery. Padma and I had been school friends. We had always been together till our choice of careers took us to different cities in India. The friendship however survived despite the distance. After years we were back in the same city. I was more than happy to have her beside me. I trusted her skill and acumen implicitly. More importantly I trusted her as a friend. I was in my fifth month of pregnancy and Padma had asked me to come over for a pre-natal check up. Shantanu and I had decided not to opt for an ultrasound examination. We wanted to keep the sex of the baby a secret to be revealed to us only at the end of nine months. It gave both of us something to look forward to apart from the obvious fact that a baby was on its way. Padma however felt that an ultrasound was important to get a confirmation about the health and well being of the fetus. I had read in the various journals that she gave me, that apart from determining the sex of the foetus, ultrasound also brought to light fetal abnormalities so that preventive measures could be taken. I had wondered what ‘preventive measures’ could have meant. “So how are you feeling?” Padma’s room was bright and surprisingly for a hospital, inviting. The walls were painted a light shade of cream and the white marble floor shone. The windows had white blinds which were drawn apart partially to let the sun rays in. It was strange that the walls were not adorned with pictures of chubby babies which are a regular feature in maternity clinics. Instead there was one large, brightly colored Tanjavur painting of a cherubic baby Krishna with butter liberally smeared on his face and more in his hands. In one corner of the room was the ultrasound machine to the side of which was placed a bed. She asked me a few questions and then made me lie on the bed so that she could begin the examination. I think I saw her squinting hard at the monitor. Presently she turned to me and asked me to get up. “Why didn’t you show me the image of the fetus?” “I will send the CD home. You and Shantanu can watch it together”. I felt she was ill at ease after the ultrasound was over. The word fetal abnormalities kept ringing in my ears. Neither of us could meet each other’s eyes lest something untoward was betrayed through the gaze.   Two days later Padma called me to meet her at the hospital. She had wanted to discuss something important. I was prepared to hear the worst. As promised she hadn’t sent the ultrasound CD home. “Lavanya you will have to listen to what I have to say with utmost patience and composure. I am sure we can do something about it. Ok?” she looked at me waiting for a response. “Stop building up dramatic tension and come to the point Padma”, I said trying to sound brave. “You are carrying conjoined twins”. Had I heard her right? Did she say conjoined twins? Siamese twins? Those things which are attached to each other? “Lavanya did you hear me?” I had heard her. She had said in plain and simple terms that I was carrying conjoined twins. No amount of sophistication of terminology could cover up for me the fact that I was carrying a freak, two freaks in my womb.  My stomach was churning and I felt the morning’s meal surging up my system. I rushed to the toilet in time so as not to vomit on Padma’s clutter free table. “Are you ok? Take some water”, she made me sit down and handed me a glass of cold water. I was feeling sick. After waiting for a few minutes she began. “Let me explain to you. Conjoined twins are a rare occurrence among human beings say one in fifty thousand cases. It happens when the division of the fertilized zygote stops mid way leading to an attachment between the fetuses at the point where the division stopped. The reasons for such an occurrence have still not been established but it is…” “Oh shut up Padma. I am not interested in your medical jargon”. I retorted. My ears were turning hot and red. I could hear my breath coming out in fast pants. My heart pounding at my chest.  The realization had still not sunk in. How can it happen to me? I lived a healthy and disciplined life and so did Shantanu. Was his sperm the culprit? Or was it my egg? Was it bad timing? What if we had waited for some more time? Perhaps then I would have been among the forty nine thousand cases of normal pregnancy. “Lavanya I understand your pain but …” “No you don’t understand and you cannot understand till you have something similar taking shape inside you. So don’t pretend Padma”. I knew Padma was not to be blamed. How could she help the zygote not splitting into complete halves? Yet I went on ranting at her and she listened to it all patiently. I felt I was losing my sanity. I was angry, sad and in shock. “Look Lavanya as opposed to olden times, things are improving now. In your case the attachment is at the sacrum, at the base of the spine. It is comparatively easier to separate such twins and they have sixty eight percent chances of being successfully separated”. “Separated? Do you think I am even going to give birth to it?”. Padma looked at me perplexed. “I want to get rid of it. Abort it”. Preventive Measures was the only option I had. “Are you crazy? Abortion in the fifth month is not a sensible thing” “I don’t care. I will not go through the rigors of labour only to bring freaks into this world. Abort it. God willing I will conceive again. If that doesn’t happen I will adopt. But just to make an example of myself I will not give birth to these aberrations. I don’t care to be called a model mother.” “You stand the risk of losing your life. Do you care about that?” Padma’s resolve at composure had given way and she yelled at me hoping to make me see reason. “Then what the hell should I do?” I barked at her. At last the plethora of emotions creating turmoil inside me settled themselves in my eyes. I cried. She held me tight. “I don’t want it Padma. Just the thought that it is there inside me repulses me”, I said between sobs. “Does Shantanu know about this?” I asked her. “No I thought it best to tell you first.” “Help me Padma. Please do something. I don’t want it” I wailed. My wretchedness forced Padma to say something which wasn’t the best of things for even a human being to say let alone a doctor. “Lavanya there is a high probability that conjoined twins are still-born. I will not let you risk your life by going for an abortion. But in your case we can hope that the babies are…” she didn’t finish her sentence but I got the import of her words. “What if it is not born dead Padma?”, I asked with tears in my eyes and a strange resolve in my voice.

*****

            “I am sorry Shatanu. The baby was still born” “Does she know about it? “Not as yet. She is asleep”. When I woke up I saw Shantanu sitting beside me. His eyes were moist. He broke the news to me about the baby being still born. Baby! Padma had not betrayed me to Shantanu. I had borne an equally devastating fact inside me for months which I did not share with him. Tears welled up in my eyes. He was crying at our loss and I was crying at my lie. A year later our daughter Veda was born. The grief of the past began to be quickly forgotten from the moment of her conception. Padma had taken a transfer back to Bangalore. The communication between us which earlier was not dependent upon proximity had now almost come to a stop. I knew part of the reason for this could be traced back to what had transpired in her consulting room two years back, to the culmination in the labor room.  …Veda is growing up beautifully. She is the cynosure of her father’s eyes. I am the disciplinarian. As women we are conditioned to believe that motherhood is the most important thing in a woman’s life. Do you hate me for the choice I wanted to make? I don’t know whether they were still born or whether you just decided to keep them away from me since you knew I did not want them. It doesn’t matter now. When you told me I was carrying conjoined twins, the image of monsters sucking at my breasts became indelibly etched in my mind. I knew I could have never loved them even if technology could do significant miracles to make them appear as close to normal as possible. In a country where the birth of girls is frowned upon how much chance would children with deformities have of an upbringing which is devoid of at times pathetic and at times failed attempts at treating them ‘normally’? Negligible if you ask me. I didn’t want to be the mother of children who were merely coping with life and the meager possibilities it offered to them. I didn’t want families, friends and neighbors to discuss them during parties in their cozy living rooms, or while driving down to work or during a trip to the grocery store; discuss them not for all that they could have achieved but for the obvious things they lacked. And Shantanu, his parents, his brother and sister-in-law; how much support do you think they would have lent me? The onus is not just on the mother. Did you give that a thought? Or did you just have in front of your eyes a woman who was challenging and flouting the code of motherhood by wanting an abortion? … I stopped mid way, deleted the email meant for Padma and signed out. So much time had elapsed that now questions and explanations had ceased to become important or even necessary.

Is Female Fasting a Covert Form of Social Violence?

By: Dilnavaz Bamboat - October 16th, 2011  Filed under: Our Bodies, Relationships & Marriage, Self, Society 15 Comments
    I HAD INDEPENDENT CONVERSATIONS WITH two friends recently, about the same topic. Both friends fasted/will fast this week, for Sharad Purnima and Karva Chauth respectively. Since I had never heard of the former and the only knowledge I can claim to have about the latter is a sappy scene from DDLJ, I got to thinking and reading more about the subject. I wanted one question in particular answered: Is gender-selective fasting (females, in all cases I read about) a covert form of oppression, and consequently, socio-cultural violence? For ease of understanding, let’s focus on the more widely publicized karva chauth. The etymology of Karva Chauth is largely unknown, although bolstered by many possible hypotheses. One theory states that this was the time of year (on the 4th day of the dark fortnight of the month of Kartik) that travel away from home and military campaigns commenced, which led women to fast for their husband’s well-being. The festival also coincides with the beginning of the rabi crop cycle, and hence may have also been a form of prayer for a good harvest, given the transactional nature between deity and devotee in Hinduism, where striking bargains and ‘bribing’ deities is acceptable practice. While Karva Chauth is predominantly a Northern and North-western ritual, it exists in numerous variations all over India (it is less pervasive in the North-east), but always involves women fasting for male kin--specifically, spouses. To understand the ritual, I also read about the zeitgeist in which it originated. Since we do not know when exactly women began practicing it, we can assume that it was either during the Golden Age of Hinduism—when women were officiating priests and gender-specific practices like child marriage, sati, etc. had not crept into mainstream society—or it began during a time of uncertainty and oppression for women, when their marital status was all that kept them from a life of wretchedness and societal abandonment. In either case, it appears clear that Karva Chauth was adopted and implemented for women’s own preservation, i.e. less for their husband’s well-being and more for their own, since their existence was so closely tied to their spouse’s. In 2011, my friend’s husband is not going to war. Both she and her spouse travel with equal frequency. And while both my friend’s happiness is certainly closely linked to the well-being of her spouse, her existence and survival is not. It is even less so in the case of the friend fasting for her brother. What then, drives urban, educated women, one living in Bombay and the other in San Francisco, to go a whole day without food and water? I turned the question over to them. “I am from UP,” one said, adding a sad emoticon to our screen conversation, “it is an important day there.” She explained that there was pressure to follow the ritual and it was hard to say no when “they connect the fast to someone you hold dear,” in this case, her brother. Both she and my other friend were a trifle apologetic about engaging in something that they understood at a cognitive level was illogical. “It does embarrass me,” the other said, “that I who talk of women’s rights and the empowerment of womanhood so frequently, undertake the fast anyway.”  Would her spouse join her and abstain from food as well, I asked. “Oh no,” came the answer, “he can’t stay hungry.” I get the power of social conditioning. If this is something you have seen female role models do and have been told it is an expression of love and concern for a dear one, you are likely to not push the envelope and err on the side of caution and tradition. What interests me is that neither woman gave much thought to what they were subjecting their bodies to (even if it is just one day—unless the doctor recommends it, is an entire day of abruptly denying your body food and water healthy?) and that there was minimal questioning of their partners’ non-opinion on the issue. I am aware that we are talking of an 18-hour time frame. Ramzan is a whole month of similar deprivation. But do remember that in the case of Ramzan fasting, both genders are expected to do it, and not for each other. I will admit that it isn’t the fasting per se that bothers me as much as the social expectation that one gender must undertake it for another, while being provided compensation in monetary forms (jewelry, clothes, make-up, henna, etc.) Many of you may say there is no coercion and you undertake fasting of your own free will, but you may want to consider whether free will exists in a vacuum, without socialization, cultural pressures and gender-specific expectations creeping into the mix. How many of you do this only because your in-laws expect it? How many because you saw your mother do it? Because it's just the way it is and it's only one day and we may as well please "them" and be done with it? My individual conversations with both friends were full of banter and joking about how they need to sneak in some gajar halwa and how a Parsi (I am one) must never be separated from her food, but on a more serious note, do give this action deep thought if you are undertaking it and question your reasons other than “because they say so.” There is love for your partner/brother/other male kin and then there is logic. And it IS perfectly possible for the two to co-exist. As women, let’s not do ourselves a disservice by blindly going along with what always has been. If you carefully consider your compulsions and still wish to abstain because you believe starvation on your part will help your loved one live longer and thrive, power to you. Don’t forget to tell me how you do it.
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The unbearable lightness of skin colour

By: Nikki Goel - August 16th, 2011  Filed under: Media, Our Bodies, Relationships & Marriage, Self, Society 3 Comments
WHEN THE VERY FIRST group of white men landed in India, they must have been regarded with overwhelming curiosity and incredulity; not to mention, awe. Awe, the feeling of wonder and admiration, is the perfect word to describe an Indian's perception of the white man. Never before have they set eyes on such pinkish, delicate, gossamer skin. It has to be the perfect form of beauty; the form of beauty that Indians think they lack. No one knows when this love-affair with fair skin started but it has definitely come to be revered among the masses. From the time the dark-skinned Indians became aware of a fairer race, they readily took the inferior place while the fairer group comfortably felt superior (as a relevant aside, there is a poignant essay by James Baldwin that describes his experiences as an isolated black man in Switzerland). This has more or less been the relationship between the conquering white race and the subdued dark-skinned race for eons. In the past, dark skin has been viewed with revulsion and frequently associated with baseness. Even Shakespeare portrays Othello in bestial imagery. We would find such racial associations deplorable in the 21st century. In fact, discrimination of any sort is not condoned in most progressive nations. However, it is important to remember that the issue of color is not one of racial discrimination in India. It will not be far-fetched to call it a solely gender-related issue. It is an unwavering belief in people's minds that fair-skinned women are beautiful. One can derive several corollaries from this unstated yet popular axiom. The most obvious one is that dark-skinned women are not beautiful. This may make many an American cringe and deny. But I will deal with that shortly. Fair skin has several associations- beauty, superiority, confidence, self-worth, etc., and such desirable qualities are easier achieved by fairer women. A paucity of melanin makes one a confident and a high-achieving woman! Of course, that is ludicrous rationale. But this belief is deeply entrenched in millions of minds, of both fair and dark-skinned people, that it continues to be a successful discriminating factor in both social and inter-personal relationships. What was perhaps historically an issue regarding races, of the mixing of Aryan and Dravidian bloodlines, it now pervades in the Indian ethos, regardless of race and caste. There is no belief that has gone unexploited by the media. The Indian media has played not an insignificant role in successfully stigmatizing dark skin. It has recklessly and ruthlessly driven in the notion, especially among women, of the superiority of fair skin. Why is this issue largely limited to women? The answer to this is fairly simple. Like any other patriarchal culture, the man decides the norm of  what is to be deemed beautiful; he chooses his attractive mate while the woman is the chosen one. Possessing a fair complexion ensures a woman this coveted position. It naturally follows that she will be found attractive and beautiful by not just one man. Does it empower her to choose from this lot of attracted men, a suitable husband for herself? Of course, not! The notion is inconceivable in traditional patriarchy. The family(read: father) determines the appropriate mate for the woman; but the deciding factors are unrelated to the man's physical appearance. Consequently, it completely obviates the man's anxieties over his own attractiveness or fairness. It can never be so for the woman. In this system of arranged marriages, which still prevails, the dark-skinned woman is passed over for a fair one. The effect this system has on the woman is simply devastating. The media perpetrates this seriously damaging tradition, resulting in tremendous anxieties for the Indian woman. Corporations, like HUL with their fairness products like Fair and Lovely, are active perpetrators of the fairness fixation by exploiting the insecurities and 'shortcomings' of their vulnerable targets, women. The prevailing notion is that a fair complexion makes the woman more 'marriageable' or as I would rather call it, marketable. The Indian media has effectively been propagating this for decades now. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxt7XndHfqE] This commercial is one of the many advertisements promoting fairness products like Fair and Lovely(the very juxtaposition of these two adjectives, creates the semblance of an equivalence and sends a strong message supporting the desirability of fairness). Though there are virtually hundreds of such commercials for the same product, the content remains the same. One need not understand the language spoken in the commercial to gather the message that is delivered. The dark complexioned woman, wearing dowdy, unattractive clothes, with an equally unobtrusive style of her hair, is overlooked by a potential suitor. Her eagerness for a courtship is instantly quelled and along with it dies her confidence. Fortunately for her, she discovers the magic of Fair and Lovely. Not only does it transform the color of her skin, it also fills her with self-confidence, enabling her to make the transition from a frumpy unattractive plain Jane to an ethereal pink-chiffon clad ideal beauty. No doubt, she is now chosen to be a bride. It would be disingenuous if I do not mention the 'revolution' that has taken place in the media and its perception of women. Majority of Indian women are educated and employed and a significant number of them follow fast-track career paths. The marriage context is now incongruous. The companies brainstormed a way of selling fairness to the independent, modern woman. The content of the commercial is modified to depict a modestly attired but ambitious woman, who follows her passion, only to be met with disappointment because of her dark skin. Once again, Fair and Lovely does the trick and her dream is eventually made successful by a man who selects her based on her newly gained fairness. It is hard to believe that these 'new-age' commercials pacified protesters of such products, till the time companies devised new strategies to increase the market share of their products by producing fairness creams for men and also, by expanding into the global market. Additionally, these products now masquerade as holistic cosmetics, employing euphemisms such as 'complete skin-care', 'blemish-free skin whitening' and 'glowing fairness creams'. These camouflaged fairness products are a big hit among employed women who continue to harbor insecurities about their complexion and resort to suppressing their trauma of possessing dark skin. Fairness creams for men is a miniscule component of the elaborate marketing mechanism of fairness products. The men's products are a fairly recent entry into the Indian market; this is merely a marketing technique to explore newer territories rather than an exploitative method targeting a preexisting social stigma.  Globalizing these products has brought about a furor again but at the same time it is being misconstrued as racism. Regardless of how these products and the media have changed over the years, these products still erode a woman's self-worth and promote an unhealthy self-image, that thwarts truly liberated self-expression. Even if one does not care for conformities, it is a tough battle to continuously ward-off impingements by a discriminating society that identifies fairness with beauty and success.