Recently discovered this great writer Harlan Coben. I am enjoying his books! They are thrillers set in USA and I love his stand-alone novels. Unfortunately, I did not like his Mickey Boliter series which are apparently very popular(blame me and not this writer! ). Hope Harlan lives long and comes up with more and more such thrillers to keep me happy!
Also read the fiction novel, "American Dervish" by Ayad Akhtar about a middle-class Pakistani family in USA. It was realistic(and what a sad reality for Pakistani wives who have to put up with the value systems in their families !) flowed smoothly and moved me.
It is so sad that sufism is being systematically stamped out by the stupid, concrete-thinking, morons who advocate for a harsh, brutal, unjust interpretation of the Koran. (the violent, idiots are taking control in many countries east & north of India and stamping out modern and moderate muslims)
It is also sad that one of the lovelist religions of the world, Zoroastrianism, whose birthplace is in Iran too is dwindling slowly.
Buddhism, another lovely religion advocating for non-violence and one which held sway in Afganisthan, too has been stamped out in that country.
My comments on the dwindling of Zoroastrianism & Buddhism have nothing to do with American Dervish.
September 2012: Tried two new authors this month i.e. Lee Child (Reacher series '61 hours') and Karin Fossum('Black seconds'). Stopped reading Lee Child's book after a few pages and found Karin Fossum's book good but the pace of Black seconds was a bit slow.
Now reading the books set in modern Russia i.e. Red to Black by Drydan and his next book Moscow Sting. Will briefly tell what I think of these books when I finish.
The reason I gave up Lee Child's 61 hours is that I find the books written in first person, more often irritating than not. The first person writing seems to make me think the person is bragging and that puts me off. Also something about the style of Lee Child put me off. I am realizing how difficult to be a hero and write in first person and not sound boastful! Few authors who have written in first person have impressed me...To kill a mockingbird ofcourse is the best of these first person books. I also like Dick Francis books, several of which seem to be in first person. Books by James Hadley Chase and Alistair Mclean in first person too are pretty good. I will add more to this list as I recall them.
I am planning to revisit the Perry Mason books and Donald Lam series of Erle Stanley Gardner shortly. I am getting sick of the new crime fiction books. The Perry Mason series are so refreshing to me now...the crime is so straight forward, the motives are straightforward, the people are so real and believable, the author focuses on the plot and wastes little space and words on descriptions. The minimal presence of sex, absence of perversions such as pedophilia, motiveless cruelty, torturing, etc make these books 'not-sickening'. Another great thing : it is only the bad person who gets murdered in most Perry Mason series! The absence of computers, the greater presence of people and their skills than reliance on science makes the characters in the Perry Mason books interesting.
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(23rd Aug 2012)At the outset, let me say that this piece is based on my observations of arranged marriages that I have seen in the last 25 years or so. Since I belong to the Gowda community of southern Karnataka, I have more interaction with these people...and the failed arranged marriages I am talking about are mostly from this community. The Gowda community is pretty diverse; we have Gowda family of rural and urban backgrounds; belonging to lower, middle and upper economic status, at many levels of literacy, etc. The failed arranged marriages I am referring to are mostly from the families I have closely interacted with i.e. middle-class, educated, professional background Gowda families . These are families who are settled in Bangalore but who originated...I mean their grandfathers were farmers in villages of Tumkur, Chitradurga and Mysore districts.
What I have observed of the marriages of several close relatives and belonging to my father's generation ( In 2012, I am in my forties and my dad is in his seventies) is that all of them were arranged marriages...arranged by their parents to spouses from the same caste, sub-caste after checking on the horoscopes, etc. At least 50% of these marriages have unhappily married people, who are staying in the marriage as they simply did not know of arrangements other than (1)staying on with the husband/wife, (2)or the wife returning to parent's house if husband and in laws were impossible to live with and (3)being widowed/widowered. There is severe bickering in these marriages but as the modern psychiatric,sociological and psychological labels such as 'battered wives', 'controlling', 'autocratic', 'paranoid',etc were unknown to my parents' generation, they did not think of their marriages as 'troubled' but accepted it as their fate!
Happily, there is a slow but steady increase in the number of Gowda yougsters refusing to enter into arranged marriages; many of the current generation'fall in love' and marry a person of their choice. The yougsters studying in the technical courses such as engineering, medical , dental seem to meet with less opposition from parents (when they 'fall in love' and marry) as opposed to the ones studying BA, B.Sc and B.Com! Talk of biased parents! Inspite of the gradual increase of those entering love marriages, there are still a huge number of today's youth who are either opting for or forced into arranged marriages. I have seen many of these marriages fail miserably...not over time like in my parents time, but from the very first few weeks of marriage. There are many many reasons for this and the focus of this article is to give my take on the reasons as to why these marriages fail. I am hoping that the youth who intend to enter arranged marriages think about these causes and try to avoid them. The reasons are in no particular order...I am writing them as they come to my mind. This para is written on 17th Jan 2016. I just saw a lovely movie "Meet the Patels" which is about arranged marriage. I enjoyed this movie a lot and it speaks positively about arranged marriages. I loved the parents of this Patel guy; his parents, both dad and mom are such a lovely couple...charming, articulate ,pragmatic and both believe in arranged marriage. I suppose this movie is a documentary and so I think everything in this movie is true. People who read my bitter rant against arranged marriages should see this movie which is positive about arranged marriages. Then the reader is this article will get to see the positives of arranged marriages! Inadequate information about the family or person one is marrying: To me, this is the most important or the only explanation as to why arranged marriages fail today. Analyzing the failed arranged marriages I have seen in the last 5-10 years, the biggest cause of failed marriages is the lack of information about the person one is marrying or lack of information about the family. The missing information may be major such as a serious mental illness in either the bride or the groom or minor information (but big enough to make it break the marriage) such as not knowing that the person one is marrying is aloof and not as social as one wanted. Here are some (of the true cases and) issues the person marrying was not aware of in the broken marriages I know of.
One marriage failed as the bride did not know the groom was suffering from schizophrenia.
In another, the groom was acting 'weird' and not consummating the marriage .
In several failed marriages the bride or the groom informed the spouse, immediatly after marriage, that he /she was not interested in marrying but was forced to by the parents. Let me add here that I have seen many men & women of my parents generation who throw this in their spouses face daily for years and years!
In some, the groom was extremely controlling and paranoid and violent.
In at least one marriage, the groom had concealed from the bride's party that he was already married (and not divorced). the bride divorced him after she came to know of his earlier marriage but by then she had gone through this expensive bigamous wedding!
In another instance, the groom, who was already living in USA, 'with a woman'. He obeyed his parents when they suggested an arranged marriage with another lady; he intended to leave his wife behind in India, to look after his aged parents...while he returns to USA, alone, and continues to live in bliss in the US with his girlfriend!
All these true cases, reveal that families, going into arranged marriages are not always truthful and can be very very deceptive. On the other hand it also reveals that there are families which can be duped easily....inspite of their education, experience and intelligence. The families hide major problems such as mental illnesses when they get their mentally ill son or daughter married. The other party would not have done 'due diligence' before marriage. I know that due diligence is not the right term but I hope you get what I mean...that you should obtain as much information as possible about the person/family whom you want to marry, before you decide to go ahead with the marriage. The second reason arranged marriages fail today is theexpectationsthe brides and grooms of today have about marriage. While in the past i.e. my parents days, women had lesser level of education;were mostly housewives and did not work outside the home and were expected to have few expectations from the husband. If the husband had a job, did not have 'bad' habits like drinking, gambling or womanizing, he was considered 'good husband material'. However, today young adults have much higher expectations from their partner. They want to be matched in looks, want someone who has similar interests, have expectations about the partner's education, job, social skills, etc. Since women are educated and working, they are no longer (and rightly so) ready to accept a guy just because he is of the same caste and the horoscope matches. The expectations of women have changed drastically . Empowerment of women through education & employment, being treated equally (or almost) as men by their parents and in educational institutions(I hope so!), the concepts of democracy and women's rights and equality, the huge influence of the west have all contributed to women having higher expectations from their husbands than their mothers and grandmothers. I have seen a few marriages break down soon after the wedding in my community as the men expected their wives to be subservient to them! One guy apparently wanted a 'tall and social girl' and when he married one, he objected to her talking to her friends! The young lady left him! While in the past, married people were fatalistic about the person they married i.e. accepted whatever spouse, fate had given them, now people are ready to divorce and look for a better person to be with. I am so glad about this. It is better a person divorces than live , cursing and fighting an entire life time and also having children who in turn have endure their bickering parents all through their lives.
Ignoring red flags before or even during the wedding is another major reason for marriages flopping. I find it so frustrating that families ignore several red flags which show up before the wedding and go through the marriage only to see it fail. The trauma for the bride( I have seen brides suffer more often than the grooms), the wedding expenses, the trauma for the several people involved, the years spend in trying to cope with or get out of the miserable marrige could have been avoided if only people heeded their gut feeling, their instincts and the red flags. Here are a few examples: Why the bloody hell do people not get a hint that their daughter will not be happy if she married this guy, whose parents are demanding a big fat dowry? Why the hell do they not realize that something is fishy if the groom makes no attempt to talk to the girl at all...after the marriage is finalized, the groom makes no attempt to phone or talk to the bride and this bizzare disinterest is labelled as reserved and dignified by stupid well-wishers instead of perceiving it as the disinterest it is.("huduga tumba gambeera" is the description for these assholes) While I know several decent Gowdas, I also have seen several crude, rude, greedy, ruthless Gowdas, who think that marriage is one easy way of getting rich. Fortunately they are unable to act decent even for the few times they meet with the bride's family before the wedding. Yet, the bride's family does not react to their greed, boorish behaviour by running away from this family...they go ahead with the wedding! Some parents are aware of the red flags but still go ahead, hoping that thier son or daughter will cope with the issue or that the issue will go away! Talk about wishful thinking! Consenting to an arranged marriage, though not happy with the person selected : Consenting for reasons such as ' I may not get another offer' , 'I am getting older.. what if there is no one else out there:I have seenquite a few arranged marriages which flopped, where the bride or the groom was not at all interested in the person they were marrying but still agreed as they were forced by family or were themselves worried that they may not get anyone else if they refuse this one. I feel really sorry for these people. Some of them seem to have self-esteem issues and their stupid parents attack their self-esteem even further(instead of being supportive) to brow-beat them into consenting to the marriage. I have heard mothers tell cruel and mean things to their daughters to bully them into agreeing to marry the guy they have found; they say things like,"You are dark. Still, he has agreed to marry you. If you refuse him, we will not be able to find anyone else, willing to marry you." Or, "You are nearing 28. All guys are married by the time they are 25 these days. Where can we find some for you if you get older?" The attack on self-esteem can be anything...you are too dark/fat/short/tall/ not educated enough or too educated! Can you imagine, attacking a girl by saying she is too educated or too tall? These are things of pride in the west but here, they can be reason for a groom rejecting you! I have seen a dark-skinned friend of mine, browbeaten into an early marriage to the first guy who came to 'see her' as her brother and sister-in-law (my friend's dad died when she was a child) thought she will not get any other offers. I have seen men and several women who have been married(through arranged marriages) to people who were intellectually and in other ways incompatible. They seem to have married their spouses as they did not seem to have the hope that they will find someone more compatible if they wait. People simply endure and do not really enjoy marriages when they are not compatible intellectually or otherwise. When Indian youth go to such great trouble to find a pair of pants or shirt which 'fits perfectly', why the hell, do they agree to marry someone they hardly know and spend the rest of their life, trying to 'fit' or 'adjust' to the other person? Instead, they could get off their fat butts and find someone compatible? People unfamiliar with arranged marriages will wonder why their families did not find compatible spouses, when they were searching for brides and grooms. Parents can get only some information about a person such as his or her level of education, age, looks (photos are given), etc. If the family is new to them, they know nothing of them and can only go by the information the family gives them. They can infer or guess only some facts by the family's or the prospective bride/groom's behaviour in the all-too-brief meeting when the prospective suitor comes to the girl's house to 'see her'. The families are treading blindly when they enter into marriage alliances with families they hardly know! They enter into the marriage allaince, hoping for the best! To me arranged marriages are like blind dates set up by your parents...only it does not end after one date if you dont like your date...you are stuck with your date for life, whether you like it or not!!! Let me add an example here. A girl may assume that if the guy whom her parents have found has a professional degree( such as engineering, dental or medicine...these are 3 well-loved degrees in my community!) he must be bright. But the guy may turn out to be average or even dull as he has got into this professioal course by paying donations to the college and passed his exams with great difficulty. It is very very difficult to gauge a person's intellectual level, when he coes to see the girl and talks little or not at all! The girl has to simply assume he must be 'okay' or 'bright' if he has passed engineering and has a job now! Not to sound callous, but I have come across several super-duds who have passed out of Indian medical, dental and engineering colleges! I am going off-topic here but more than 50% of Indian youth passing out from Indian medical, engineering, dental, colleges are ill-qualified for their jobs. They get into the colleges though they have neither the brains nor the aptitude; their parents shell out huge sums of money(if you dont have good marks, you need to shell out money to join....then you pass the exams by bribing and then you get a job by bribing and then, if you are a male, your father's investment in you comes back in the form of dowry....so there are several super-dud professionals wiht degrees but not even common-sense in their heads...let alone, technical expertise, in their area of study...why do so many people die in Indian hospitals? Why do Indian buildings fall during the construction stage itself? It is because of these morons who bought their seats in the colleges and bribed and passed and bribed and got their jobs) My sincere advise to the young people going into arranged marriages...Please don't ! I will be writing some more on this issue shortly. Pardon me for going on and on about this but I have seen three young arranged marriages break this year and I am boiling mad about it! XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (24th Aug 2012) I got a few more ideas and am continuing this article. Search-fatigue is another major reason for mismatched people getting married. I have seen several parents, go through a lot of prospective bride or groom's briefly or elaborately and start feeling exhausted by the search and reach a stage when they simply want the marriage to be fixed, over and done with. Let me explain: When parents search for a suitor, their examination of a suitor may be brief ...for example, decline a proposal within minutes or seconds as they spot reasons for this match to fail such as ...horoscope not matching, too much of an age difference , looks not as expected, gotra being the same or unsuitable for other reasons, and so on. But for the proposals which appear seemingly okay, at least initially, they spend a lot of effort and time in tasks such as the suitor visiting the girl's house, lots of talk and discussion between the families, and sometimes the boy and girl may meet more than once. Inspite of investing so much time and effort the marriage proposal falls through for some reason sometimes. If this happens often, the family and the girl/boy to be married, start feeling exhausted and then they decide to be 'less choosy' and want to simply be done with it...so the exhausted parents force their ward to simply agree to whoever they 'next' meet i.e. when they are at their most exhausted or the person getting married will herself or himself simply agree as they are fed up with this process! I cannot imagine how one can reach this stage of indifference, when they are making the most important decision in their life but this unbelievable thing happens so often! It is very very important the girl or boy going into arranged marriage keep these factors in mind and take precautions against it. Maintain self-esteem; maintain hope; be realistic; be optimistic...do not marry just for the sake of getting the marriage over and done with! Also do not get brow-beaten into marrying by parents, uncles, grandparents or the marriage broker( I have never seen a marriage set up by a 'professional'marriage-broker but I know they do exist) Another important reason for lousy arranged marriages I forgot to mention till now.... parents with limited contacts, limited ability to judge people, parents who 'feel awkward' to ask around and search for a good match for their child I know of at leastfour fathers who made little or no effort to find suitors for their children when they came to age of marriage. My analysis of why they were like that is this(my English is sounding terribly Indian now but I dont have the patience to edit now!) Three of these four fathers were working in very high government posts; they were honest, never took bribes or ever used their official positions to grant favours to any of their families or friends...unlike majority of government employees in India. They never asked anyone for help during their working period probably due to the fear that they may be asked to do 'favours' in return; This is my take on the reasons why they did not search for matches for their children. Even by asking someone to find a good spouse for their child meant that they are asking a favour and fear being asked one in return...and then they may be forced to compromise their ethical standards! Luckily for them, they had relatives(who did not expect any favours in return) who worried about their children and who did the search and came up with matches for them! In the context of the above para, let me mention that I have seen three such arranged marriages where the brides were exceptionally brilliant and 'decent' ...by decent I mean that they did not date and agreed for arranged marriages. I loved and admired all three of these women and all got husbands who were nice but not at their intellectual level. But they accepted their lot. Can I say they are happy with their marriages as they get along fine with their husbands and have no 'problems'? No. I do not want to say they are happy as I feel I am overstating the happiness. I cannot say, they are unhappy as that is also overstating and untrue. The best way to define their marriages is to say these women(Indian young ladies of the 70s and 80s) seem to accept that they have to get along with whom their parents find for them..that the kind of husband they get is written in their fate and they simply have to 'adjust' with the person they get. They are grateful, if the guy they get is not 'too bad'..... they know or accept that it is near impossible to get someone who is really good or fantastic...that getting someone who suits them perfectly happens only in movies. The bottom line is that people who enter arranged marriages, give up the dream of finding someone they can truly love; give up passion and become very passive...I think giving up passion and dreams is a defense mechanism which helps one to accept arranged marriages. Having dreams and passion and going into arrnaged marriages is an impossibility! Let me add here that I am sick of the bull-shit I see on the internet by people who support arranged marriages saying that they are better than western love marriages...that In Indian arranged marriages, the couple fall in love 'after' the marriage. It is such bull-shit nonsense! I have seen several who cant stand their spouses and have to endure them for years and years and the only reason they present a 'happy-marriage' face is because appearences are so damn important in Indian society. Remember, these are marriages which took place in the 80s; most of the youth of the 70s and 80s whom I know(are Bangalore based, middle-class, Hindus) were conservative, focussed on 'studies' and expected their parents to find matches for them. None of them ever dated or befriended members of the opposite sex. I have seen daughters and sons of these kinds of fathers simply agree to marry as they knew that their parents will not make any effort. This is such a crying shame! I have seen a father who was lost in his world of 'spirituality' and his kids had to hunt their spouses themselves! This man's wife would nag him but to no avail! I have seen another father who is a procrastinator and would always rush off to do something non-urgent and totally unimportant/irrelevant while his children aged, waiting for him to find matches! If the children, especially girls had tried to date and find a groom themselves, they would be labelled as 'fast' and 'not of good character'! Talking of procrastinators, I have seen a procrastinating father of grown daughters, who would rather help a child find nests of weaverbirds for a child than go to court when his case was being heard! In the 80s and earlier(maybe even now in some families) adult singles were expected to marry the matches found/approved by their families and not supposed to mingle with the opposite sex and find a partner for themselves. There was another father(who probably thought he was a big-shot) who in my opinion was very arrogant and simply did not make any effort to find matches for his children. He expected people to approach him(I think!) and unfortunately, this did not work out. His kids remained single. There is another father who found one or two grooms for his daughter and when she declined this guy or the guy declined to marry her,he simply stopped looking for anyone else. He also didn't allow his daughter to find someone on her own. When he was asked why he's not looking for anyone for his daughter he would rage that she refuses everyone he has found. His rages were so fearful that his family members remained silent. Can you imagine the situation...the girl is not allowed to find someone on her own and her dad refuses to find anyone because she 'refused' the alliances he brought her....Can you imagine being stuck in this stalemate for years, getting older and older and 'less marriagble' by the day while the rest of your friends lives move on? You may be wondering, what is the mother's role in all these cases. Mothers in those days(60s,70s and 80s) were mostly housewives and had no contacts except for relatives, neighbours and friends. Many of these mothers would ask their relatives to find matches for their children and relatives would try their best. I know of one exasperated grandmother, who was unhappy with her laid-back son's slowness in finding a partner for her grand-daughter.Much to her grand-daughter's embarassment, she would take initiative and would ask all and sundry(even complete strangers, sitting next to her on the bus, going to her home-town!) for a match for her granddaughter! She would give the full details of her granddaughter in the bus, within hearing range of about 20 people! My advise to children of such parents is that you should recognize in time your parents personality traits especially those which have a bearing on their finding a match for you. If you have a parent who has any of these qualities, then you better do something about it! Also, check if your parent is a good judge of character. I have seen so many arranged marriages fail as the parent failed to judge the character of the match and the match's family. The ability to judge correctly is so damn important! As one friend of mine crudely put it, arranged marriages are like buying a pumpkin in the market...you have to look at the pumpkins from OUTSIDE and guess which one is good ...and buy it...you have tobuy the pumpkin before you can cut it...and once you have bought it and cut it, you cannot return even it if it turns out to be bad! Parents who are too stickyand reject all matches or the opposite i.e. parents who agree to every single proposal ...even for matches who are grossly unsuited to their children are another set of parents who are setting up their children for future marriage disasters. I just read this article to edit and I am realizing how much one's spouse selection is influenced by parents and how little control one has over it! The more I read this and think about arranged marriage, the more I realize how archiac it is and that it needs to be stopped...or changed drastically. It is time for Indian youth to take charge of their lives and find spouses for themselves. Time to stop giving in to parents and families finding partners. Come on, please think. Who knows you better than yourself? Why do you think a spouse found by your mother and father will suit you better than one you find yourself? Indian youth need to be assertive with families who push them into arranged marriages. They should realize that marriage is one of the biggest decisons in one's life and one which has a tremendous impact on quality of life. As this is the biggest and most important decision, the person marrying should make the decision and not someone else...even if it is the parents. You should agree to marry someone because you want to and NOT because you want to obey someone or make someone else happy or get some nagger off your back...you are the one marrying and living with the person, it is not your father or mother who has to live with the partner...so marry only if you are sure, you will be happy with the person. You are spending the rest of your life with your spouse...your parents may force you to marry someone, but they are not going to live the marriage...you are. It is utter foolishness to marry someone to make your family happy and then be bitter and resentful for the rest of your life saying that you were forced to marry and that you wanted to marry someone else! You are a grade A loser if you do that. It is better to gather courage, to be assertive and say no to your parents if you do not want to marry...instead of being meek and acquiescent with your parents. Please grow a spine people! Dont be spineless and say yes when you mean no....especially for important decisions such as marriage. I have come across many blogs where the arranged marriage concept has been written about very well. Those authors' are witty, humorous and I have to admit with truth & envy that they write better than me. However, I do not want to write about arranged marriages in a humorous vein. I am troubled by the large number of people in arranged marriages who are leading miserable lives, unable or unwilling to get out. Humour helps to cover up the mess; I want to expose the ugliness of arranged marriages; I will not allow humour to make this ugly archiac concept palatable. As I do not find many articles against arranged marriages by guys, I guess, women suffer more through arranged marriages than men. Maybe, arranged marriages work out very well for Indian men! Here are the links to some funny articles on arranged marriages http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/16/living/arranged-marriage/index.html above link is for the article 'Arranged marriage, American-style' http://www.basenotes.net/entries/2800-Blind-Buys-are-like-Arranged-Marriages
ADVISE
TO GUYS GOING INTO ARRANGED MARRIAGES(in India)
My number one advise is that you do not say this to the
girl after you marry her:
“I was not interested in marrying you. I was forced to by my
parents”.
This is one disgusting sentence, many a bride has to hear,
the moment, a minor tiff occurs between the newly weds.
·Please develop a spine/ develop some courage to
say”No. I don’t want to marry” to your parents when they pressure you instead
of taking our your anger against the poor girl after you marry her!Even if you forget about ethics and decency,
at least thinklogically….It is better to say No to
your parents before you marry ; there is no logic in whining and
torturing the girl you married, AFTER you marry.
·(3)*Please tell your parents you do not want
dowry/gifts/”a honeymoon” paid by your father-in-law.
Remember that the girl may keep quiet about you and your
parents expecting dowry/gifts, etc but thinks very poorly of you. You would die
of shame if you hear, what girls who give dowry think of you and your parents. These are some of the things you and your
parents were called by me and my friends who were discussing your rapacious
greed when you loot the girls family in the name of marriage:
Bunch of losers
Sons of bitches
Beggars
Greedy snakes
Dirty bastards
Family of whores and prostitutes.
The rest are unprintable.
Do you really want to demand dowry, when this is the opinion
the girl has of you???
·Remember, the girl’s father has worked as hard
as your father. Why should he alone spend for the wedding? Why the hell cant
your son-of-a-bitch father, share the expenses??? I am not calling your father
son of a bitch, but one irate friend of mine is calling all Indian men, who do
not spend for their sons’ wedding as bastards. I know she should be more polite
but I also agree that you guys deserve it.
·Another advise to the families of guys going in
for arranged marriage is, “Please do not ask for a “grand wedding”
when you guys are not spending a penny
for the marriage! The girl’s family is not a bank for you to loot! Do you guys
have any shame or decency at all???
·Guys. Please do not think you are being smart or
clever when you couch your demand for dowry or a grand wedding in honeyed
words. The girl and her family are not stupid and can read between the lines. They
may be too polite to let you know that they can read your intentions. Please
remember that whether you are crass enough to ask for the money upfront or to
ask later in a veiled manner…it is the same. You are nothing but a ‘very
demanding set of beggars’ or bhikaris as my friend and mother put it. If you
want to be thought of as beggars, then go ahead and ask for dowry. If you want
respect, then forget about dowry. The irony about today’s Indian guys is that
they are so shameless that many openly say, they would rather have the dowry
than respect as respect is not of practical use to them!
·Guys, also realize that it is a very very humiliating
and hateful process the girl goes through, when you come to her house with your
parents to “see her”…….Girls hate it but have to submit to their parents wishes.
Remember, many girls curse you and your parents, and if God exists, their curses
may actually work!
·After coming to the girl’s house, eating like
pigs and going away, it is disgusting that you do not have the courtesy to
inform the family quickly whether you want to marry the girl or not…you keep
the girl and her family wait in a state of tension, for days together. Please
do have to courtesy to inform, immediately.
·Guys in the west, Please do not think that you
deserve a beautiful girl who will bring a fat dowry and whose father will spend
for a grand wedding, simply because you are in USA.
·Guys. You should develop social skills and know
how to interact. Most of my friends who had to meet guys when their families
were looking for grooms, found that the guys going in for arranged marriage
have miserable social skills, are poor at conversations(how the hell do they do
their jobs as engineers, doctors, etc, when they can’t form 2 decent
sentences?) and have no clue, about interacting with women.These days, girls do not want to be married to
a guy just because he is an engineer or doctor or whatever…girls want husbands with social skills, ability to dress
well, interact well with a range of people ….
·And one comment all my friends have to say to
the dozens of spineless Indian guys in
arranged marriages, who are making their wives lives miserable…because they did not want to marry
but were forced to against their wish by their retarded and evil parents…..SHAME
ON YOU!
Here is another comment for guys going into arranged
marriages….A girl from Andhra who married a doctor(MD medicine) was heard
saying this to her friends on her wedding day, “ We got him quite cheap. Only 18 lakhs!”…… Are you guys a commodity to be sold to
the highest bidder?
Guys going into arranged marriages……Please Please Please get
yourselves a conscience, some morals, some respect for yourselves and for
women, get yourselves some spine to stand up to your parents, get yourselves a
reality check and PLEASE realize that you are not only nothing special but
actually quite banal….
·One thing, I cannot understand about both guys
and girls going into arranged marriages is this…..when you do so
much research before selecting a course to study, or before buying a house or a car or even a simple pair of
jeans, how the hell can you select a life partner, after seeing a girl/guy for
a few minutes! Don’t you think, selecting a life partner deserves greater
research…don’t you think you need to know your future life partner well ,
before you agree to marry….
You can always discard a shirt, which you
bought in a hurry…it’s no great loss. But can you so easily discard the person
you married in a hurry? This is one
mystery of Indian arranged marriages I can never understand. I have seen Indian
girls relentlessly going from shop to shop to find the perfectly matching
blouse piece for a sari…a girl can spend two days to find the right colour
blouse for her sari …..and yet the same
girl, agrees or disagrees to marry a guy
after she meets him for a few minutes!
Before someone says, why are you not telling the same thing
for girls going into arranged marriages, let me inform you that girls have a
lot less freedom, even today in India…I have seen girls locked up and beaten
for refusing to marry the boy chosen by
their parents. This does not happen to boys…they have more freedom.
Lot of Indian girls think that Indian guys go in for arranged marriages as they are
too lazy to exert themselves or too socially clumsy to find a girl on their own….
And they very well know that all they
have to do is tell their parents the
kind of girl they want and and their parents will find many and aksk him to select one!
Three relatives of mine are visiting the US & Canada
now. They are 2 women and a man, all in their sixties. While one lady has a
Bachelor’s degree and the man is a retired doctor, the other lady has finished
high school. All three were born and brought up in villages, but have lived their
adult lives in a major south Indian city
and are of middle class background. I have explained their backgrounds above..this is because I cannot understand, how with this middleclass,
urban Indian background and education, they
could still behave in really exasperating ways!
All three of my relatives have children, who have settled in America(USA & Canada). This is their first visit to the USA & Canada. This type of visit is typical of all immigrants to USA & Canada .....The pattern runs like this: kids come here to study, then get a job in USA and then settle here for good. Parents visit to see them and also see the country....parents also visit to help their adult children by looking after their grand-kids.
Now about my relatives' annoying behaviours!
The behaviour of the 2 women, which bugged me the most was their
refusal to sit on the toilets, either at home or in the public toilets. They
have this firm unshakable belief that the toiletseats are dirty and they do not
want any part of their body touching it. They stand to pee ...ergo..there is pee on
the toilet seat and on the floor! I end up queuing up outside the toilet my relatives use in all public bathrooms, so that I can
go in and wipe the toilet seat! I do not want people in North America hating
all Indian women, because of these two, messing up the toilets! I have
repeatedly and gently told them, to sit and pee but they still messup the toilets!
Another behaviour of theirs
which is bugging me is that they avoid eye contact and do not greet when any
friendly stranger greets them on the street. If I happen to be around when this happens, I
jump in, smile at the greeter and explain that they do not understand English.
I cant understand why
my folks cannot even return a smile…even if they do not understand the language,
they are surely able to get the friendliness of the greeter through his or her
body language, and smiles.
Refusal to try any food other than Indian food is another
thing which rankles with me! We end up spending a lot of time, hunting for an
Indian restaurant in a new city we are sightseeing in…time which could be used
for more sightseeing. But my folks insist on Indian and refuse to try anything
else. Once when I could not find any Indian restaurant, I took them to a Tim
Horton’s and got them a sub. The women pulled out all the meat and vegetables
between the two pieces of bread and ate only the bread! One lady especially was put off by dried tomatoes, claiming that it was meat!
Curiosity about the personal aspects of people, relentless
gossip about the relatives and their issues, morbid curiosity about others was
another whole set of behaviours I witnessed in my two visiting lady relatives.I too had gossiped
and probably been rude to some extent whenI was in India, years ago…I cannot deny that…but I do not think I was this
rude!
The final and most bugging behaviour of theirs was the
constant comments (usually negative) and advice coming from these two women. If I make a list of their advice and
comments, it would be endless! Here are
a few comments and advice of theirs.
“This food is too salty in this sambar. “ or
“The salt is too less in this rasam”.
“Why do you have so many things in your house? Throw out the
things.”
“Why don’t you buy another house? This does not have enough
storage space”.
“Get rid of your dog. Why do you want a dog?”
"Why did you buy this furniture (patio furniture for our deck)
You could have bought some gold jewellery instead”.
"Why do you use artificial jewellery? Why dont you buy gold?"
"Why dont you also join a company? you can earn more"(the lady who made this comment has no clue about the job I do, but feels free to give this advise!)
One lady, especially, has very little positive to say about
anyone and makes her comments in a matter-of-fact, bland tone.From what I can infer, she does not mean to
hurt…she simply makes these comments and seems to have no insight about the
impact her comments can have on people. Thinking back on all their comments and conversation, I wonder if they even think, before they talk? They are so quick to comment...they do not even finish seeing or eating or whatever...but are in a rush to comment, criticize or advise!
I keep wondering …Is it
that, in my extended family, brutal honesty is bred into us while politeness, tact, gentleness, regard for others
feelings, social skills, decency, etc are
left out?
Or is it that, I have been out of India and forgotten how
rudely Indians behave…and have got used
to the Polite Canadian ways ….
Frankly, I cant understand why the behaviour of my visiting relatives, is
shocking me…. I had been used to this behaviour when I was in India for the
first three decades of my life! My relatives have not changed...they are the same…but I seem to have changed after coming to Canada and maybe I have become sensitive to these things! If I record and replay, even a five minute conversation of my relatives(not just the ones from India..even the ones from Canada and USA)...one can find about 50 brutal, disparaging, condescending, sarcastic, uppity comments and hardly one or two positive comments! (here is one bit I remember: Me: We went on a trip to Havana. Relative whose spouse is a doctor:Oh. Secretaries go to Cuba for a vacation.) This particular lady puts her foot in her mouth, every single time she talks!
One last sad-funny thing about my relatives was their
absolutely materialistic attitudes when they saw the houses of the various
cousins they visited. They were impressed by the size of the bigger houses and unimpressed
by the smaller houses. They advised the cousins with smaller houses to get
bigger ones! They did not spare a thoughtabout how the person with thesmaller house will feel when they comment like that. They did not try to
understand that some people would like to spend their money on things other
than houses…that people have big houses for a reason and small houses for a
reason.Their materialistic outlookwas so strong that they failed to appreciate
the aesthetic aspects of the beautiful things around them…especially in the
smaller houses. They did not seem to even see the original art work in the
small houses, the beauty and old world charm of the old houses (they loved the new
houses and did not like the older ones), they did not appreciate the friendly
lovely neighbours….All they could see was the big size of the houses and
newness of the big houses and the things in them….they simply could not
even see, let alone appreciate anything else.
I should probably not expect them to have an aesthetic sense
similar to mine, considering that we do not share backgrounds and experiences
(though we do share the same DNA) but I am still saddenedthatthey are not able to appreciate
so much of the beauty around them. I think they would be unimpressed and put off if I had shown them creative ways of recycling things or showed them items altered to repurpose them for other uses...I find this altering and reuse of items very exciting, aesthetically appealing and creative but my two female relatives would rather throw out the old things and buy new things meant for the job instead of recycling & repurposing. I am now able to fathom, how creativity is crushed by Indian parents!
I feelreally sorry for one of the ladies whose child
has the smallest house of all the cousins…ergo, the least successful of the dozen cousins who
migrated to America over the last 25 years!
She had been happy
with her child’s house when she first landed in America . She loved the house and enjoyed
it. Once she started visiting relatives and sightseeing all over
USA & Canada and saw the huge houses of her nephews and nieces she seemed
to become aware that her child had a 'small' house. I hope that at some time, she understands
that her child is content with what he has and loves his home and is happy and that happiness is the
most important thing…not a huge house or wealth!
I hope my folks stay long enough to appreciate the
non-material beauty of America….such as the polite behaviour of people, the
safety women have at home, work place and in public places, the respect,
comforts and priority given to disabled and aged people in all places, the attention to
detail and aesthetics in buildings, houses, gardens, and even the humble
bus-stands, the absence of corruption and hassles (which the common man in India faces daily). I think they need to live here for at least 6 months to get a deeper understanding of these two countries in the American continent. Right now, they are blown away by the overtly visible ....they have not yet had time to see and experience all aspects of life here.
I have been a bit harsh, criticising my folks here.
Given more time, they may probably get a deeper understanding of life in America
and slowly evolve. I know for a fact that I did change a lot after coming to Canada.
These are the books from Toronto Public Library I was/am reading and enjoying. This list includes only those books I really liked and wish to reccomend others to read.
1)Saudi Arabia Exposed:Inside a Kingdom in Crisis by John R Bradley.
2) The Eye of Jade by Diane Wei Liang
While the first is by a journalist and tells about Saudi Arabia today, the second is a crime fiction and tells about life in China today. Both books are highly readable(Bradley's more readable, though it is not fiction!).
After reading Bradley's book, I was inspired to borrow again and read a crime fiction book set in Saudi Arabia i.e. ' City of veils' by Ferraris. I am also thrilled that her new book i.e. Kingdom of Strangers has been released! I am waiting to get my hands on it...Hurry up TPL! Give me the book soon!
Incidentally, Ferraris is an American lady who was married to a Saudi-Palestinian Bedouin when she wrote her first book "Finding Nouf". By the time she wrote her second book, City of veils, she had seperated from him and moved back to USA. Her books reveal how claustrophobic life is for Saudi women. The more I read books set in Saudi and other Gulf countries, the more I grateful that I was not born there! Other books I read recently set in Saudi Arabia, include The Ruins of us by Keija Parssinen, which reflects life of a Saudi family and the emotional difficulties faced by a son born of an American mother and Saudi father. A Gentleman's game: a queen and country novel by Greg Rucka. This is a thriller about a female assasin of the British government who kills a terrorist.
I did borrow a few other books set in this region but stopped reading half-way through. The books may be good but for some reason, they did not hold my attention i.e. Wolves of the cresent moon, The sand cafe and The desert contract.
A few other books I have booked at TPL as the reviews impressed me include:
American Dervish..I generally read only crime fiction but I am going to read this, though it is not crime fiction. I was impressed by the review and curious about the story. Lone wolf and Stone rain by Linwood Barclay: both are crime fction. This author is new to me but I liked one book of his I read and so I am reading all of his. Caught by Harlan Coben..I have never read any book of this guy...but a review of this book revealed that this story also has a televised sting about sexual predators and I want to read about it. I remember seeing a program on tv which was a sting operation and I had found it very very entertaining! I know it is bad of me to find this entertaining but I found it so funny when these guys got caught!!!
One last book is 'Decorating Junk market style". I hope this is the same book I had read and loved a long time ago. I will let you know, when I get this book.
31st July: Yep. This is the same book and I loved browsing through it!
Enjoyed reading Caught but did not like another book by same author i.e. Live Wire.
Enjoyed Kingdom of Strangers too.....a crime fiction set in Saudi
Now looking forward to reading a novel set in India i.e. The Sarishop by Rupa Bajwa.
Once again, I am so immensly grateful to the Toronto Public Library which makes my reading possible...free of cost!
If I were in India, I would not have read even one tenth of what I am reading now because of ..(a).poorly funded public libraries which do not have english novels ...at least the type I read;(b) few private circulating libraries where one pays to borrow books and they still cannot afford to buy all the books I want...(c)buying books to read is out of question in India as the salary one makes is not adequate...buying 'foreign' titles especially is expensive.
I had, till now, been easygoing about certain traits in people such as laziness, procrastination, inefficiency and so on. These traits did not upset me much and I would forgive the display of such traits easily. My reasons for this easy forgiveness about such traits: Lazy people or procrastinating people(or whatever trait) are basically 'good & decent' people ; "all human beings have faults";"these people are not evil"; "everyone is careless sometime"; "I too am careless at times". Infact, I have been very forgiving and accepting of any triats or behaviours which I believed were not "evil' or had 'evil intent' underlying them.
I had however, been very unforgiving about behaviours such as lying, cheating, stealing, harming others, wilfully hurting others, jealousy, etc. I found these impossibly hard to forgive as I believed that these behaviours were evil or had an underlying 'evil' motive .
Something happened recently that made me rethink my easygoing attitude towards the traits I believed should be forgiven, as they were 'not evil'. I am now, no longer, easy-going about these traits.
Three to four weeks ago, someone close to me was drastically affected by the laziness, procrastination and inefficiency shown by a HR staff in his organization. Here is the bald, brief version of the story.
Due to the inefficiency of this staff in HR, my friend did not get his H1 visa; consequently the great job and pay he had been offered a week before was withdrawn. To continue to stay legally in USA, he shelled out his meagre savings and quickly enrolled into a university(a third rate one at that!). By enrolling in this university, he got his student visa and will not get turfed out of USA. His future plans have been put on hold for one more year..plans including clearing bank loans, getting married, visiting his family, buying a better car,etc. Thanks to the inefficiency, procrastination, laziness, lack of knowledge and sheer pig-headedness of this HR staff, my friend's path went from prosperity to basic existence!
My friend was badly upset for a week but thankfully he has recovered....he is a pretty resilient guy and I hope he has not become permanently embittered by this experience!
Traits such as laziness, procrastination, inefficiency, stupidity, carelessness, do not fall on the 'good-evil' dimension. Yet, these traits or behaviours are NOT innocuous; These traits too can have terrible effects on people's lives.
The lazy person or careless person may not have any evil intent when they do things but they can still cause serious harm to others. For example, people have died due to doctor's carelessness; people have been killed by an engineeer's inefficient work on roads and railways; lives have been ruined by procrastination of the people in power. The list goes on and on.
. A lot of grief can be caused by 'good, decent and well meaning' people who display behaviours which can negatively impact others lives. Detective Thomas Hauk in 'The Wire' is one example who comes to mind. His carelessness, procrastination and stupidity had such terrible consequences on the lives of others...it was unbelievable and unpardonable.
The sad fact of life is that, there are people with such traits in powerful positions, where they can cause a lot of grief and continue to cause grief, year after bloody year. Yet, they are not removed from their positions or asked to improve or punished! They continue to damage the lives of people by their unchanging stupidity, carelessness, etc.The HR staff I mentioned above, has affected not just one peron's life this year but at least a few! This staff has procrastinated in the previous years too, leading to other employees not getting thier H1 visas in the same way as my friend; yet the management, has not done anything about this!
The same thing is seen in other organizations too. I have seen people, who mess up other people's lives, Yet these people, continue, in their positions, without any improvement.
In one organization, dealing with mental health, I have seen two people, a psychologist and a psychometrist doing almost zero work, year after year for decades! Yet they have neither been kicked out or reprimended and made to improve. The psychologist has now earned about a million dollars(about 90k per year) doing nothing and so has the psychometrist!!! The work load on thier collegues is more as these two bums dont do any work. If you want to know, they do no other work too at the organization such as teaching students, participating in research or attending to the extra works which are there in any organization. The psychometrist thinks she is fooling everyone by giving a gift to all in her department i.e. a handful of chocolates and a greeting card! Does she think, that the people are fools who will fall for her chocolates??? I am so pissed off with these two but I am not in a position of power to kick them out! I wish I had the nerve to do something about this...but the cowardice which seems to be a malise in either my department or in Canada is affecting me too!
Recalling my childhood days, I have decided that the happiest moments of childhood were when I was reading the Ladybird books for children in the Malleshwaram City Central Library on ? Margosa road or ?Sampige road in the 70s. This library had a large space in front of it (If I remember right, the library was facing the large space of it's own backyard and not the street in front.) These ladybird books had the loveliest illustrations and to this day they remain a great favorite of mine. The books I read included Snowwhite and Rosered, Rapunzel, Sleeping beauty, Cinderella, Dick Whittington & his cat, amongst several others. These stories are available in many many forms such as, as a story in an English text book in schools; in a book of stories for children without illustrations and in illustrated story books for children. These stories have also been illustrated in a myriad different styles in different publications; the Ladybird publication house itself, has republished the same stories with new styles of illustrations over the years. However it is only this particular artwork which could put me in a trance!
I discovered through googling, that Vera Southgate was the writer and Eric Winter was the illustrator of these lovely pictures. These books have one page of writing followed by one page of art work illustrating the story and these books mesmerized me as a child. The illustrations were the best part of the books for me. As a child in 70s India, I , of course, did not know a thing about hard-bound books or soft bound books, or what a font or font size is or about the texture of pages of books. Yet, I think I unconsciously also appreciated the fact that the books were hardbound; the size and weight of these books were ideal for a child; the font, the size of the font, the textures of the pages( I remember the texture, now, after more than 35 years!!) were just perfect. I would literally go into a trance when I read these books. I read these books over and over again, staring for endless hours at the illustrations and daydreaming. I especially loved the ? water colour paintings of cottages (roof covered with thatch/hay) in the middle of the forest which is depicted in many of the stories such as Snowwhite and Rosered, I loved the paintings of the gardens (The witch's garden in Rapunzel) in some books. To me the art work depicted the picture of an ideal, perfect and beautiful world, somewhere out there in England, where I could not go but only dream off. I simply cannot describe the rapture I felt, while gazing at these illustrations! At that young age, I actually believed that these stories truly happened and that the places and people and animals did look like it did in the art-work! Those fairy tales seemed to be happening in some heavenly place and I was in Heaven when I read those books. The clothes of the princes and princesses, the palaces, the illustration of the weeping willow tree in one of these books, the forest in which Red Ridinghood walked are unforgettable. I wonder if the impact of the illustrations on me would have been different if they were in oils instead of water colors. Who knows? Later I saw several other books and the newer Ladybird book editions of the same stories but none of them were as attractive to me to read as the ones illustrated by Eric Winter. Now when I google, I do see, new illustrations done in various styles such as in Manga style, but they do not enrapture me. I wish the illustrations had never changed but then, who can prevent change? It is as unstoppable as the passage of time!
My heartfelt gratitude to Eric Winter, who I was sad to discover is dead.
Here are links to the pictures of the book covers of those books.
Just a while ago, I was bemoaning the fact that certain plants, birds, insects, I grew up with in Bangalore are now missing. One of the plants I mentioned was the tumbe hoovu(Leucas aspera-common Leucas) I was surprised and happy to see the Tumbe Hoovu plant, being sold at Toronto's Canadian Super Store today(June 3rd 2012) in their gardening section. This store was selling the red Tumbe Hoovu plant i.e. the Salvia Coccinea and not the white or pink flower ones, common in Bangalore, in the past. Years ago, the red Tumbe Hoovu was rare in Bangalore, while the pink flowers were commonly seen in house gardens. The white Tumbe flowers(Leucas Aspera) grew wild, in empty lots, farm lands and at times in homes. This white flower was supposed to be a favorite of Lord
Shiva! (Any wild flower, which are not popular was supposedly
liked by Shiva. I wonder why? Even the flower of the milk weed is
supposeldy a Shiva favorite. Are the unwanted, unpopular less beautiful, common things liked by Shiva...Like ashes, Bilva leaves, Tumbe flowers, snakes, etc) The botanical name for the two flowers are different i.e. Leucas Aspera and Salvia Coccinea, that I wonder, if we, in India, are calling two different flowers of two different species by one name
My childhood days were like any of those Bangaloreans living middleclass lives or lesser in the seventies. We did not have what we do have today: we did not have a telephone, gas stove, fridge, television, furniture such as a dining set, car, ‘own’ house and so many other things we own now. (We did have an electric and kerosine stove, immersion heater for hot water for bath, a radio and an iron box)Today, my house is overflowing with books and clothes and electronic and electrical gadgets, and so many other things while the house of my childhood was almost bare.
That Spartan life however had countless happy hours which I remember to this day; I think I am missing that happiness now,because of the overeasy and abundant availability of things . The pleasure one finds in small acquisitions is great when one has very few things around. I still remember I had a small wooden box and I had filled it with chalk pieces, ‘balapa’ i.e. another type of a chalk piece, bits of candle, a matchbox and some broken and some intact marbles I had found on the road. I think I also had a stash of safety pins and hairpins. This collection was precious to me and I often opened the box to look and enjoy my store of things. I also remember feeling immensely proud and happy when the electricity failed and my grandmother asked me to give my store of small candles. Todays kids have tons of toys, games, books, electronic toys and what not. But I doubt that anyone of them experience the pride and joy I did when I gave those candles to my grandma !
I remember picking several objects on the road and bringing them home as I thought it would be useful to me or my family at some time. Usually the items were nails, bits of metal, hairpins and I cant remember what else. Even these items were a source of great pleasure to me (Was hoarding, a habit I developed early?)
I seem to remember having more happy times when I had less of worldly possessions ; I have gradually become richer and I did buy things I had wanted. However there has been no proportionate increase in the happiness or excitement when I acquire these things. I have also noticed that when I had less things, I used them more.
There was a time when there were a mere handful of books(mostly Enid Blyton & Indrajal comics) at home. I spent so many happy hours reading them over and over, and each time of reading/rereading was a pleasure.
I would get storybooks for each birthday and I would read the books over and over again till my next birthday ! (There were’t any public or private circulating libraries near my house then;). There were a few favourites which I have read so often that the books practically fell apart.
Now I have tons of books at home and there are so many of them, I have not read at all and several half read and discarded books. The same goes for clothes, dvds, vessels in the kitchen, vases, footwear, ornaments, etc. The more I could afford and the more things, I got, the less I actually used them. These days, I seem to have stuff, lying unopened for months after buying ! Now I seem to get more excitement in the search, hunt and chase for an object than in actually using it. The excitement seems to disappear once I have acquired it and there is only a little bit of pleasure when I use it. Which is really really sad!
The same applies for movies and television. (There was no television in Bangalore in the 70s and my house did not have a television till the mid 80s). I was taken to one film a month as a child and I remember running the movie in my head with various changes ( I am the heroine !) daily and getting a kick out of it. ( This type of daydreaming is the cause of my poor academic performance). I have spent countless hours in these fantastic daydreams. When my dad bought our first television, I did not miss any program, however boring it was ! If you remember, there was only one government run channel initially and the programs were beamed only for a few hours every evening. And the programs were boring documentary types.
Subsequently, movies were shown every week on television and I obsessively tried to see all but of them. However, I could no longer remember them all and even started getting the story lines mixed up ! Now I have become so picky, that very few movies hold my attention or interest. I wonder if I would have been different that is enjoyed the movies, however mediocre, if I had been deprived?
I am happy to say, I still derive a great deal of pleasure out of television serials even today ! This maybe because I deprive myself of cable ! I don’t have cable ( after getting into a major argument with my cable provider) and get only about 6 channels daily of which one is French and two of foreign languages and I end up watcfhing only three channels. I really enjoy seeing the serials available on these channels and I watch them in spite of the sometime-blurred and double images !
I have also bought a few dvds of some shows and watch these same dvds once in a while. I pray to God that I don’t ever lose the ability to enjoy shows!
I think the word I was looking for while writing all the above paragraphs was “jaded”. Now people are jaded with the surfeit of things they have... while in the past, due to scarcity, they could appreciate and enjoy the few things they had.
I can remember all the toys I had as a kid though I am in my 40s now. But my nieces cannot remember the toys they bought last year I think ! They have so much and therefore play less with each toy and do not care to remember them.
There is a lot to be said for poverty or deprivation. I definitely got more pleasure out of each book/movie/toy/thing when I had very few of them or had very limited access.
Now, however, trying to find things which interest me seems more fun than after I find them and actually participating/enjoying the activity. For example, when I go to borrow a dvd movie, I scan several and can rarely find any movie which interests me enough to borrow. I go to a library and browse through many and often come out with nothing. But the browsing gives me more happiness than seeing or reading what I find!
I am wondering what could make me so indifferent to things I enjoyed so much in the past. Am I jaded? Am I depressed? Am I getting old and is it true that the older you get, the less you enjoy ? Am I becoming picky and so it is only a narrow range of things which I enjoy instead of the entire spectrum of books or movies or whatever? Is it a change only I experience or a lot of others do? Am I becoming tired or lazy? It’s difficult for me to pinpoint what reason is affecting me. It may be a combination of them or only one of them. Am I losing the ability to enjoy things?
For example, my home in Toronto is filled with tons of books which I am yet to read ......I dont have the 'mood' to read. However, when I go to India and cant lay my hands on books to read, I read whatever I can lay my hands on without being picky !
When I am in a place with limited access to things I love, I revert to my childhood practice of completely using up what little is accessible and enjoy it ! Does the easy availability to things lessen my ability to enjoy them??? Is it that I can enjoy only when I am deprived and given things in meagre quantities ? Is it that I can enjoy only when I have suffered a bit like waiting for it or suffer in some other way? Does owning things make me feel comfortable/complacent about owning and make me postpone actually using or enjoying the item? The same goes for the dvds I have, clothes, accessories. Food too. When I have one sweet or snack item at home I relish it but when I have stocked up, I just don’t feel like eating anything ! (maybe I am lying about food. I think food is something which I am never tired of or feel 'jaded' about !)
I had very few clothes (Wednesday was the day we wore coloured clothes instead of the uniform to school) in my early days and I remember all the clothes I had then and how much I loved those few clothes and the joy I got wearing them. Now, either because we (my family) are better off than before or because Indian society itself has changed, there seems to be an abundance of all things . Yet I do not see a proportionate increase in satisfaction with this abundance. Children today have more clothes than I ever had and yet them seem to want more and are critical of what they have. The same goes for the variety of games, toys, foods available for kids today. I can imagine adults feeling jaded but children jaded?? And bored with what they have and always wanting something bigger or better or more exciting ? I think unless, kids (and all of us) experience some deprivation, they will be headed towards a life of constant boredom and constantly seeking something “more” thrilling or exciting or whatever.
And this makes me think of another idea. Is it that today’s children’s attention span or interest span is getting shorter? I mean that , children or yester years would be happy with one game or toy for many months before losing interest in it but today’s kids, explore a toy for a few days and then their interest fades and they want something new to stimulate their interest. I am not saying all kids are like this or all toys hold all kids interest for a short span of time. I don’t think the constant craving for something new and exciting is so bad. But I am concerned that these days, objects hold one’s interest for such a short period of time and one wants a new item, even before fully trying out the item in hand.
I wonder to what extent this problem is fostered by the fact that rich and indulgent parents frequently buy toys for their kids . If you buy a new toy everyday, why should a child play with a toy you bought last month?
Below is an account of what I went through to reach this stage of ennui and short interest span ….my experiences of financial insecurity followed by security and the pattern of enjoyment during the financially insecure period followed by a sort of ennui during financial security.
As I have told elsewhere in this blog, I emigrated from India to Canada and we had to start from scratch. We had to find jobs, live on less so as to not run out of money before we find a job, manage on what we got in our 6 suitcases until we got jobs. Though we were tense and focussed on getting a job, we did have the time to enjoy lots of things. We had a blast reading books from the libraries, buying used books from the Goodwill stores, watching shows on a black and white tv (someone had thrown out a black and white tv set on the kerb and we got it home), taking long walks and exploring the city, chatting with our families on yahoo chat, watching people ( and their clothes, hairstyles, jewels and accessories, ), etc.
Over time, we got jobs and started buying the things we could only enjoy through shop windows. And slowly the pleasure and joy started decreasing and the same sense of ennui set in. Now I feel the pleasure seems to be more in the chase to acquire something and once the object is got, it is used briefly and lies forgotten in some corner of my home.
One of the chase related rushes I get is when I am bidding for something on ebay. Fortunately I have cured myself of this ebay bidding habit and saved myself a lot of time and money ! ( Or rather, my office cured me of it…I was bidding at work and now the ebay site is blocked at my office computer)
Sometimes I think, I would like to start again, from nothing, as the excitement of the struggle lets me experience a plethora of emotions: I could do with the sense of achievement, the pride, the thrills but I could definitely do without the fears and tensions one has while struggling. The boy who repaired his cycle without any help from the father enjoys the sense of achievement which the boy who was helped by his father cannot.
Enjoying life beats the jaded feeling and ennui which some of us have. If it takes financial insecurity or job insecurity or “not being” rich, to appreciate and enjoy and experience things, then so be it. Many parents ( my relatives and friends and so many good people out there) want to provide their kids with ‘everything” and especially those things they wanted when they were kids but dint have. Parents also want their kids to ‘enjoy’ and ‘not suffer’ or ‘struggle’. I think they need to rethink about the benefits of ‘letting their kids struggle to achieve. They need to rethink the benefits of providing ‘everything’ to their kids. I see this a lot in parents who have had major transitions in their lives…those who moved from villages to the city, from India to other countries, from a lesser socio-economic status to higher. Maybe all parents have this need to provide everything for their kids, I don’t know.
I don’t have kids so it is easy for me to comment and criticize parents ! But I do understand the joys they feel when they buy their kid something ( I am now becoming convinced that parents get a greater kick out of buying their kids things than the kids get in playing with them !) .
I really appreciate the super rich parents who have to exercise discipline when bringing up their kids ! Imagine Bill Gates kids demanding sweets or toys or rides daily . He can afford it and he may want to give it to them to show his love but he has to ‘not’ give in to their excess demands if he wants them to develop good discipline or whatever….. Infact, I think it is easier for a economically ill off parent than for a rich one to bring up kids with discipline ! The ill off one does not need to be disciplined to not buy his kid…there is no struggle as there is no money ! But the rich parent, has a huge struggle on his hands ! He can easily buy but should not . Boy ! I hate that kind of a struggle as I have no discipline at all !
I keep telling my sister, that adversity or deprivation can be a blessing than otherwise as it gives her a chance to struggle and this struggle gives her so many things which wealth (by wealth, I mean, whatever is the opposite of adversity and deprivation) cannot give…the joy of achievement, the struggle which keeps her on her feet and saves her from boredom, the pride of doing it on her own without help. More importantly, the knocks from a struggle harden her and she is better prepared for any new knocks life has for her in future. The failures during a struggle, the taxing of one’s mind and body, all go towards building up the resilience and strength of the person. To be ‘lucky’ and hence to be deprived of struggle is like the body being deprived of essential exercise :one may become weak without facing adversity.
Wealth or comfort or support (support from family for one) really can be an obstacle in itself in that one misses out on valuable experiences of learning, growing, acquiring maturity, and misses on the emotions which follow a struggle: relief, happiness, thrill, anger, sadness. Remember, even emotions like sadness or anger or sense of failure can have positive consequences and not experiencing them can be a loss.
Children growing in families where they lack nothing and children from families where there is some deprivation are equipped differently to face life. I am not saying that one is better than the other. But I think I really liked my “to some extent deprived” childhood.
Deprivation and poverty also has a few other fantastic benefits. Deprivation stokes so many good qualities in a person, most importantly, empathy, compassion and creativity. It helps develop a lot of other good qualities too but I admire compassion and creativity the most. People who are deprived, put themselves in others shoes and picture what they are experiencing. People who have never faced want, often dont seem to get the suffering of someone who is facing difficulties. (if they cant have bread, let them have cake). Having faced unemployment, low salary, difficult landlords, I can easily put myself in the shoes of people who have faced similar circumstances and help them or at least be empathetic. However, relatives of mine, who are basically decent people and who have never faced unemployment, etc lack the imagination to understand the difficulties of the unemployed and lack empathy. They blame the unemployed person and make terribly unsympathetic remarks. When I try to defend the unemployed person or ask them to put themselves in the shoes of the unemployed person, they simply cannot or will not!
Necessity is the mother of invention sums up what I have to say, rather neatly. But I am going to put in my two cents worth here! In the 70s and 80s when I was a child and teen, living a rather frugal life, we would use things in multiple ways. We would not rush to buy things but try to figure out how to manage with what we had at home. Today, in this world of surplus and availability of things for everything, there is no scope for our recycling & creativity. Even if I want to recycle or reuse something creatively, my husband prevents it...he wants the right thing for the right task. He does not want to for example, use the plastic box in which we bought the litter to be used as a garbage bin. He wants to buy an official garbage bin! We would tear up old pants and stitch them into bags to be used for grocery shopping. Now we simply throw out the pants and buy bags for grocery shopping or worse, get the groceries in plastic bags from the shops. I can give hundreds of such examples of creative use and recycling in the past when we had few things and how it has been replaced by abundance and wastefulness today.
This which follows is vaguely related to the stuff I wrote above. I am throwing it in anyway for what it’s worth…….Another odd quirk I have noticed in me---I enjoy some songs (Like Kid Rock’s sweet home Alabama and Duffy’s Mercy). But I lose interest completely if I own the cd. I however get a great deal of joy if I hear it by chance on the radio or someone else’s system. Is it that the moment I own some things, I no longer care for it? Go figure.
