MiM, this is specially for you. Return favor for Chennai Conundrum…..

Scene1: I am reading Bulbul Sharma’s Ramayana to the younger one. Chula is sitting next to me and asks,

“Amma, why is that in mythology, the women always give birth to boys? None of them seem to give birth to girls?”

For this the husband, (MiM, this is your cue for lol, rofl, roflmao) answered, ‘What do you mean, we have Sita…’

Pat came the reply, “Appa, she does not have a father. She was FOUND by Janaka.”

But our man does not let go easily, so he continues, “……Draupadi…”

Countered by Chula with, “Appa… she came from the fire. Kings do yagnas drink things, make the queens drink things and have boys. The girls come out of fire or earth, etc…”

Again the man goes on undaunted, “But the Kauravas came out of pots…”

“Because Gandhari could not wait. She took them from her stomach and put them in to pots. The girls do not come out of the womb. Even in old testament the women are giving birth to boys. Eve gives birth to Cain, Able and Seth. They in turn give birth to boys.”

Before the conversation turned to how Cain and Seth were able to give birth to boys when the only woman around was Eve, I had to cut this thread and I did it successfully.

Scene2: Meija is on my lap. We are cuddling on the couch and I tell her, ‘You are the biggest gift that I could have ever received’, for which she replies, “No amma, the biggest gift a woman can ever get is diamonds. That too from her husband. They told in woman’s day in all the advertisements.” The advertisement industry can now retire in peace, looks like they have done a pretty awesome job of putting ideas in to the young generation.

As news of Vishawaroopam comes out, what I am hearing is, ‘Sad, but he deserves it no?’.

Translates to, “Kamal has been arrogant in the past, now he is humbled and humiliated.”

Just like one loosely comments, ‘She was raped? Well what did she do?’

Do we congratulate ourselves that we are impartial to men and women when it comes to victim blaming?
Must we be shocked at our spiraling speed towards intolerance?
Must we work on objectivity and empathy?
Must we be ashamed that we are so malleable that any one can pull us in to a political farce and manipulate us to their advantage?

Where does this victim blaming come from?

Does it come from India’s spiritual core that believes in Karma – one suffers by his own actions.

Is it our way of developing resilience?

Or is it our way of burying our head like an ostrich and say, ‘Even if I had done something this would have happened because of his karma. So I don’t have to do anything. This is not MY problem.’

Many many things are going on, just no time to update. But this I can’t resist!

Last Sunday was Surasamharam, the last day of war between Lord Karthikeya and the demon Soorapadman.

Since I wasn’t showing any signs of educating the children on this, R decided to step in. Youtubeducation took place while I was busy at work.

He showed them Kandhan Karunai(Tamil movie 1967) in which Shivaji(Veeravahu) is stealing Sivakumar’s(Murugan) thunder with his thundering thighs, that are strategically exposed by the mini skirt he is wearing. Lets just say that the costume designer was well ahead of his time. More over, Shivaji’s over acting bordering on inappropriate conduct is best left unsaid. By itself, the movie would have given the children a warped sense of culture. But the key mistake on the husband’s part is that he showed Thiruvilayadal(Tamil movie, 1965) in the morning followed by KK in the evening.

Now the girls are completely confused why Shiva traded his tiger skin for mini skirt(Shivaji is Shiva in AM movie and he is Veeravaahu in PM movie).

Parvathi is played by Savitri in both movies. But she is green in AM movie and ‘regular’ in PM movie. So the question about ‘where did green Parvathi’ go? kept popping up every now and then.

Gemini being Shiva in PM movie with the same actress as Parvati in both movies did not help one bit.

Having KPS as Avviyaar in both the movies just added to the confusion.They can’t take the fact that KPS is universal Avviyaar and that she majored in ‘Avviyaar’ in her acting course.

They simply believe that both movies are the same with  something gone wrong with Shiva and Parvathi!

I can’t wait for Karthigai Deepam and the following culture education!

Dinner table conversation.

I am telling a story, Meija is complaining that I am asking her to eat food. Chula is doing good.

[IN THE STORY]….. the carpenter was sad because he couldn’t find a wife. “No one wants to marry a carpenter” he said.

Chula: What about you amma?

Me: WHAT about me?

Chula: Do you like carpenters?

Me: To come on time and finish the work in the house, yes. But I am not looking to marry any one.

Chula: Because you have two naughty children and don’t want any more?

Me: No, because I already have a husband and don’t want any more.

Chula: (bursts laughing), then you will be one wife and two husbands.

Me: And who would want that torture?

Meija: Panchali, she had five husbands.

Chula: Meija. Panchali was an exception. Usually it is one man marrying many women. But usually women marry just one man.

Me: Eh?!

Chula: Amma can you get me Vivel soap?

Me: Eh-What?! What soap?

Chula: Vivel amma. Remember we saw it in an advertisement in S patti’s house?

Me: Why?

Chula: So that I can become fair.

Me: You are lovely as is. Why do you need to be fair? Fairness is no indication of a healthy mind or body. It is overrated.

Chula: It is easy for you to say amma. You are fair. I am not. You won’t understand.

The way she said it and walked away, truly killed me.

At this point I have to add that that we are an ‘almost zero TV’ home. In the past one year the children would have watched less than 10 hours of TV and that too they were ad free PBS programs that we carried back from the USA.

We had a follow up conversation about how ‘fair skin’ is relative. We are all different shades of brown. All advertisements lie, if Vivel truly works, then there will not be one single dark skin person in India. This got her thinking a bit. Atleast about Vivel may not be the solution, but she still thinks that dark skin is a problem.

I would say that this started as early as her preschool where she was the minority Indian kid and was surrounded by Caucasian children. At least the head teacher would address this problem and talk to the circle about how different they all are and that is what makes them unique. But this part is sorely lacking in India. There is a craze on fair skin and it gets reiterated explicitly and subtly.

Isn’t it an irony that fair skinned people are desperately getting tanned while we are frantically bleaching ourselves?! I am sure the Unilevers and P&Gs are having afield day. I think they are the true beneficiaries of this perception they are creating.

One hour of prime time TV carries, on the average 6 fairness cream ads and 4 anti-aging cream ads. Apart from this there are four ads/hour telling women that their hair sucks, four ads/hour for men in which perfect bodied women are sprinkled liberally. That is, every 3.5 min some one trying to make you better by selling you something. Welcome to the macro culture of Des.

PS:

Some one explain this ad. Does she really say ‘I did a skin analysis and was shocked. There was anti-aging.’ Well….. if anti-aging is what they are going ga-ga about, isn’t it good news that that damn thing, what ever it is, already there even before using the product?

To all the girls out there, aging is not that scary. You need to hit 30 to understand what ‘being in control’ means.

And what in the world is this? ‘GO SLEEVELESS ON HIM’? Is this the best tag line they can come with? I am thinking even if I have to-die-for underarms, how unnatural will it be to constantly show them off? Get a reality check people.

PPS: Edited to add Preeti’s comment

“Oh and btw… in that ad, she says ” I did a skin analysis and was shocked. There were signs of aging….”

Looks like my signs of aging-> not able to hear properly. On the bright side, may be they have a cream for that!

The fruits of my womb are playing with a neighbor’s child. They are doing some drawing. I am in the kitchen. The idea is one of the three critiques the work of the other two and gives points. If you accumulate more points then you can use it….. I don’t know, somewhere. It is quite complicated, you see!

Chula: Pick me as the judge.

The other two: NO!

Chula:  Who ever picks me as the judge will get 1000 points. If you don’t  I will give less.

Neighbor’s child: Ok, you judge.

Meija: NO. You think we will get 1000 points only if you judge? I will judge my own drawing and give it 2000 points. We don’t need you.

Me: Dumbstruck.

* KOTUDHU – is a Tamil word that translates to ‘IS POURING’

Yes, a new series….

“Why did you move back to India? Because you have two girls and you want them to get the Indian culture?” is a question I get asked many times.

So here is my observation of the Indian culture that the girls are getting, from the side lines.

Scribed by child1, dictated by child2.