Our Mental Health – Fear Psychosis Grips Us in the Wake of the Ayodhya Verdict

30 th September, 2010.

Time: 1.24 PM

It is just hours before the Supreme Court will pronounce its verdict on the "right to land" on Ayodhya. Schools have been shut down. Offices closed. IT companies have asked its staff to work from home today (Thursday) and on Friday. There is a mad rush of people wanting to rush home - just before the verdict is announced at 3.30 PM. I hear the zipping past of vehicles, with aggressive honking. It deafens the quiet office.

Why don't we stop and not rush like all the rest. Why don't we pause and not get into mad hysteria that is going on around us.

Has anyone asked this question – what is happening to our minds? Why are we gripped with fear? What is this fear that cripples us? Why are we afraid? Of whom? why? why now? How rational are these fear?

What explanations are we giving our children? What reasons have they been told? Why are the schools been shut down for days, and teachers introduce them to words like "communal", "violence", "demolish", "curfew". Are they asked not to go out and play in the evening?

Does anyone listen to a child and ask if the child wants to stay home or be in school.

Schools are shut down for the second time - one a few days ago, when the hearing for the deferring of the verdict was being heard. I asked my seven years old nephew why he was at home. He struggled to utter the word "communal" and kept saying "common violence”. May be that is what it is! Do we correct a seven year old that it is “communal violence” that refers to a situation or incident where violence is perpetrated across ethnic lines, and the victims are chosen based upon ethnic group membership. The communal violence occurs when aggression cannot be contained anymore and burns like a furnace.

Do we take the time to listen to the questions they ask us? How do we answer the questions? Are we going to scare them, like how the school did, by telling them that the schools will be shut down due to the fear of violence. Is this the growing trend that our children will be accustomed to?

Do we now introduce this fear to a child, like we do when a child does not eat its food and the distraught mother says “guma will come now, if you do not finish you food fast”.

What are we teaching our children through this?

That we need to go under-cover when there is the possibility of fringe elements taking the country to ransom just before the “highest seat of truth and justice” is going to declare its verdict. That we as a nation feel we can wage a war from our homes, watching sensational news on television. That we are checking-out with friends through SMS if he/she is safe in the house - with windows and doors shut.

That we need the constant presence of police and paramilitary forces to take the city to siege – for that is security.

For all the other modes of communication can cause an upsurge, anarchy, is curbed by the government for security reasons.

What is the state of our health? I am not talking about the symptoms of a common cold, or flu. How healthy are we. Health is well-being of our mind, spirit and body. If that being true, then what is the state of our mental health?

Is anyone taking a moment to think about what we have allowed ourselves to become, forcing ourselves to stay inside closed doors, than to be performing our normal work, to say, I will ensure the country functions in peace - and that it is important for justice to prevail, no matter how hard it is to swallow the truth.
That I will not let fear grip me, and I will come to the rescue of a person in dire straits, who may well not be of my community, my religion.
That I will tell my child that he/she needs to respect each of his/her classmates and not allow fear of the adult to control the innocent mind.
That I will set free the fear of fear.
That I will not allow the political might that is caught in the mire of politics divide to fragment our country further.

That for the sake of my own sanity, I will not give control to the "other" to rule my mind and hold me to ransom.

~~~*~~~

Listen to My Eyes

Listen to my eyes
They speak to you
Through the dark twinkling eyes
To be with you through your eyes to comfort


Speak to my eyes
For they answer to you with genteel touch
The fire of foreboding in your cat eyes
To want to be, and yet unwilling


Listen to my eyes
They yearn for a smile
That radiates through the soft eyelashes
That closes the eyes from revealing much


Listen to my eyes
Hush the conversations in your brain
Through the ears you can touch
The pulse of my being


Whisper to my eyes
They will not let you down
For you can speak the unspeakable
To be your constant

Whisper to my eyes that judge not
The summation of who you are
The mighty ocean of conflict buried in the eyelids
My eyes will hold that one delicate eyelash fallen on your cheek


Listen to my eyes
They are with you
In sight to brighten your world
To look beyond the horizon as the waves nudge it


~~~*~~~

When Xenophobia makes us Inhuman

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” ~ Gauthama Buddha

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“Justice just for the sake of justice is not right... Krishna said if a lie saves a life then it is better than hundred truths. I don’t want to go into that Masjid if it comes up or visit the temple.” The fear of being lynched, raped, abused, hurt, torn, humiliated grips my friend just days before the Supreme Court pronouncement on the ill-omen verdict of the Babri Masjid that was brought to dust.

She would rather live in quite seclusion, hiding away from the glares of people who look at her in her Rida, curiously. A stranger, with strange outfits. When a burka draws enough attention as it is, people do not know how to place the “out of ordinary”. We tend to look at the world in its stark dichotomy – and we miss to see the fact that people are a summation of different faiths, culture, looks, and what have you.

Fear leaves her waking in the night. The nightmares do not set her free. She hears the voices of the mob. She sees the blood in the eyes of unruly mob, who believe in a doctrine that is considered sacrosanct – all in the name of religion. All in the name of cultural subjugation. All in the name of creating one order. All in the use of force that only I will prevail, and all other forms that are “unique”, “few”, “other”, “them”, “they”, “it” will follow the I. Cultural xenophobia sets loose.

Her dreams take grip of her. She is not sure if she would be safe taking her little child to the school bus that stops down the road. She does not know if the children in the bus will look at her son curiously. She knows it, because her son has been asking her difficult questions. She knows because her son has few friends. He may be little. But the questions he brings back home are one that adults have orchestrated. When I assure her that not all are fanatic and even though our country continues to be blown to smithereens, justice must be prevail, her anguish cannot contain her. “ Big Talks lava.” She tells me. I try to tell her, "I know, Ima...I understand".

But do I? Do I know the language of fear? I do know the language of rage, for I have seen people of the “majority” speak in superior tone. I have heard people tell me, “it is a shame you are a Hindu”. How do I know what images haunt a mother who prays that she will see her child in the evening, and above all that the child will be hopeful of living in a land that he feels proud to be in.
“I have seen the riots with my own eyes, I have seen bloodshed and people running... those who never had a say or do in it...it is very easy to talk big and talk of justice... you ask a mother whose child has not come back from school, because the school is burnt...Government cares shit about us.... it will only leave the bullies to deal with us”.

When a Culture is Bulldozed, the Bullies are Set Free to Deal with Us

What will be seen after the pronouncement of the Supreme Court verdict is for time to tell. Knowing the pattern of our mind that is caught in a limited understanding of “culture” I fear the worst. I fear not the mob fury. I fear not the blood bath on the streets. I fear the physiological fracture that will scare the innocent. I fear the hatred that will be buried in the subconscious mind. I fear the rape of innocence that will strike in every child on this earth. I fear the lack of trust that will settle in our psyche. I fear the hate that we will teach our children in our homes. I fear the looking of history as black and white. I fear the look that will invade my space. I fear the failure to see the spirit of religion – that teaches us to move beyond attachments to attain salvation. I fear for each one of us who have a right to an opinion, and yet not bulldoze mine as the word of god. I fear for the loss of faith. I fear for the burning spirit. I fear the cowardice to take stand for the “other”.

Muslims Can Pray Anywhere. You Remain a Hindu Even If You Do Not Visit a Temple


Another friend, Gyan, tells me, “when the verdict comes, it will be a ‘free for all’”. Free for all to strike, kill, attack, abuse. Free for all to make right every wrong. Free for all to kill for every stab. Free for all to join the mob of hysteria. Free for all to lynch at anyone your hands can grab for no apparent explanation or reason.

There is a sense of loss in the voice of my friend who thinks all this is absurd. Why is peace often fought for. “Muslims can pray anywhere, they do not need a particular place to pray”, he tells me. I think that this thought is so beautiful. I tell him that is true with Hindu’s too. You don’t cease to be a Hindu if you do not visit a temple. Why cannot one see the liberal thoughts that prevail with most of us – and yet we fail to understand the essence of life. My friend adds on “people are same, Xians, Muslims, Hindus think they are different... its only the prayer that is different”. I tell him, the prayer too is just the same, the language of offering is different. One prays to let oneself free of the bonding from the worldly, to set free the human failings, desires, pain and suffering, to develop a consciousness that leads to nirvana and enlightenment of the soul.

Standing up for Truth

It is for the majority to protect the fewer, the weaker. Being a majority, we have an obligation to protect the vulnerable around us. If we cannot stand up for truth, then no religion is worth following. It is a disgrace to say I am a Hindu, I am a Muslim, I am a Christian, a Jain, a Buddhist, a Non-religious- spiritual person.

~~~~*~~~~~

Tales Untold at Funerals

Death is a truism. Funerals are a tradition, like marriage or christening ceremony. The gathering of people is part of the paraphernalia that goes in each of these traditions. There are moods that live through the rituals – some surreal, but mostly the stream of consciousness taking the sublime. You often know through death that this is what will happen to you to. You get to see a live show of what will happen when you are dead. The person dead is suddenly called not by the name – but in non-animate words – body, It, corpse, and yes off course in the singular tense. Grammar changes soon after life is transformed to no-life or death.

Taking my parents to a funeral of a close relative is a moment when truism struck. Death always happens to the other. You are still spared of it. Dad's cousin has lost his wife. This is one uncle I am fond of. I am not too fond of too many of my relatives - I maintain a quiet distance from most and abstain from personal attachments. I walk up to him and quietly make little enquires of how it all happened. There are a couple of my aunts whom I like (for there is no apparent reason why I should not otherwise). They too soon got into the conversation of narrating stories of the wonderful person the deceased was.

Narrations of events, stories of growing up and the bonding of the couple, the wife leaving her husband in this world, all inter-weave into one ‘narratology’. My uncle speaks of how wonderful his wife was (the past tense soon taking a syntactic change in death). Everyone around endorses this, often sighting that this nature had come to the deceased through her mother. It is said that when my uncles mother-in-law passed away, the cow that was attached to her had wept and not eaten for many days to come - such was her nature.

The conversation continues of the age of uncle’s wife. The theory that saves emotional outlet is to rationalize death: She died “fairly” young and saved the family a lot of pain, dying peacefully in her sleep. Treating her through the years, because of a bad kidney transplant was painful. The husband was always kind-hearted and despite his inability to cook, he had dutifully followed instructions: the amount of salt needed to be put into the stew, the methods to cut vegetables, and the number of cups of water needed to cook rice. He had learnt to scrub the utensils to its right shine and administer the medicines to her regularly.

What touched me most was that here was a husband who was trying to hold on to the person - that had suddenly turned to a memory through the stories- while she was right there. Laid on the floor, dressed in her wedding sari. Incense sticks letting out the smoke filling the room with a strong smell, conflated with muffled sobs of her children and loved ones.

Everything sounded grand and perfect and free of human failings. I like to hear the perfect stories of liberated individuals. Here was a woman who had not asked anything from her husband – not a house, not jewellery and silk saris, not anything. Therefore, he felt he needed to thank himself for such a marriage to a woman who was one of a kind. The pangs of seeing her go before him is something he needs to learn.

My aunts and my father though thought it was a wonderful way to die. To die in sleep, quietly, without a fuss. Then the theories of what could have been the last few moments of her death is discussed with greater intensity. Each ones impression of the last moments of death is interesting to hear. The dead person is not there to correct them of their fantastic tales of the probable.

The dutiful husband’s yearning for his lost wife, fit in well to my romanticism of marriage, love and death. To hear my uncle say that he was privileged to serve a wife, a kind hearted mother, sister and all the roles she took, one who was always giving and not asking for anything back, fit in well of the romantic and grandeur notion of an ideal marriage and a dutiful wife. My heart was touched hearing this. Uncle had done much for his wife, through the illness and beyond. Each of the mourners that thronged the house discussed this aspect in what were clearly different impressions of a grand tale of the dead.

My aunts who are widows, thought that it was a good death that my uncles wife should have got – she had died “muthaidi” - died such that she was ordained in her wedding saree and her mangalsutra was still on her. Unlike my aunts who had to remove all those symbols of a married woman. To be a widow meant removing the essence of life. It struck me that my aunts who retired as schoolteachers should speak like this. I wondered if they wished they had passed away before their husbands, or they just glorified the patriarchal narrative that is etched in their consciousness.

No matter what the tales are and how the story ends, no matter what cultural consciousness people live and die with, it does not matter how you die. What matters is how you have lived your life.

The stories told in a funeral are often one that is civil and polite. It struck me then (as it does with the rare funerals that I have been to) that it is better to live a life such that when you die, you do not have people saying “Thank god for Death that this person is gone!”


~~~~***~~~~

Un-Word

I let not words
Travel to my lips
That spring from my heart
To resonate your name in silent shiver

I let not utterances flow
Calling out to you
In the breath of tender affection
With arms stretched

You cannot listen to my silent whisper
Nor can you see my hands
Open to the world
For you to clasp it back

I hold on to the words
That stirs the heart
A thousand beats
To tell you tales of my then in silence

Feeble texture of thoughts in images
Throb my veins to a hushed quiet
Silent utterance means more than words
I whisper silently to my heart that cannot reach you


I have known silence filters
Settles down through the being
Where the pain soothes to numbness
To see the threshold of the aching heart raised

I call out your name in multitudes
For when I try
My voice cracks
And silence prevails


~~~~*~~~~

Polishing Daddy’s Shoes

Searching for the coir shoe brush and Cherry Blossom Black Liquid Shoe polish that has the grotesque imitation of Charlie Chaplin’s face is not something you are used to – if you are not into polishing your shoes.

The art of getting the right shine and texture in every little hem and stitch of the leather, you take special notice of rubbing the wax on the heal as well. You then follow a slow sedate movement of brushing the shoes that is delicately placed in your palm. You take the folded muslin cloth that is kept for the last ritual. The delicate hands rub and caress the wax on the leather, allowing the shine to grow, lucid and smooth. You tuck your tippy toes into the delicately placed shoes that daddy is holding in his palm or may be when you stand straight adjusting the pleats of your pinafore, holding your daddy’s head, while he ties your shoelace not too tight. He then says “walk away you girl!”

You walk free. Unabashed that it does not matter to kick the dust while walking to school, with the big bag on your back and the slinging of the pink water bottle. You look at your feet all the time and may be dust your shoes with your bare hands to clear the dust that has settled on the shine. You smile.

Daddy knew the right way to polish my shoes. He knew to tie the shoelace perfect. Not too long, not too short – a perfect bow that made his baby girl glow.

We soon grow out of our black shoes and white socks. High heels are fashion. No wax needed to rub delicate stings of High Fashion heels. With every inch that grows in heels, Dad’s age has tripled. Daddy is 70, or may be older. We forget to count their age anymore, as ours takes priority. When he steps out, he loves to wear his shoes. His suede slip-ons give him the grip to walk. No more are the formal shoes on his feet that wore the same intense shine and the same perfect signature knot of firm shoelace that was seen in my tippy shoes. His health has dipped with his soaring age. His legs are swollen due to a thrombosis of the veins. He cannot push his feet into formal shoes even if he wishes to. The love for polished shoes has waned off, just as much as wearing a shirt that may be slightly creased.

Daddy has to attend a wedding this morning. His full-sleeves shirt beautifully contrasts his trouser. He cannot iron his shirts the way he would iron my brother’s apron, when my brother has just entered Medical College. Daddy now gets his shirts ironed at the dry cleaner. But the moment it is brought from the dry cleaners’, he promptly puts it in a hanger. When his boys wore creased shirts and faded T-shirts he would grumble and then iron the shirts for them. For long every shirt they wore for a wedding or a function, dad would come to their rescue. He knew the right way to iron the sleeves and the collar!

I watch him looking hard at the shoe-shelf. There is clear clutter of every shoe there but his. I see him trying hard to locate his shoe. He is making an effort to bend and search his shoes that he knows is pushed to the lowest corner of the rack. I come to his rescue, and tell him “let me dig it out for you”. I spend few minutes searching and pull out his slip-ons. The shoe has fungus all over it. It looks old and clearly it does not match his outfit!

He looks at it, as I place it closer to his feet. He tells me “It’s ok. This does not need polish. Just give me a wet cloth, I’ll wipe the white patches off and that should do.” Whoever notices an old man. Whoever notices the shoes of the elderly.

I tell him, " I’ll polish it for you and make it as good as new in a bit."

I follow each of the steps of shining leather shoes. This is a lesson that I learnt from Daddy. I plonk on the floor, place the shoe “delicately” in my palm. I dust the shoes vigorously. I open the wax jar, pat the choir brush and smoothen out the black shoe polish delicately on the leather. Every stitch, even corner is neatly touched. Then begins the one lesson that my daddy taught me: “ you need to brush as hard as you can, to get the final shine.” I know this is just the intermediate step. I brush as hard as I can. The movement of my hand on the shoe follows a pattern. I brush the heels with added force and rhythm. I am done with the left shoe. I pick up the other. The ritual follows. I take a clean cloth and apply the delicate pressure to bring out the shine. It takes a while. I don’t give up. I hear my daddy say, “it’s enough, don’t bother to work so hard at it. It is an old shoe.” I don’t give up. I allow myself to go with the movement of my hands. The shoe has a shine. Not like new. But, close enough. I smile.

 I take the shoes to my dad. I place it by his feet. I hold it so that he can slip his feet into the shoes. He places his hand on my head for balance, like I did, when I was little.

~~~~***~~~~

I want to Be

I want to be the tree that shades the desolate under a busy road
I want to be the leaf of that tree that catches dust day after day
I want to be the leaf of that branch that falls down by evening
I want to be dust of the leaf that dissolves into the earth


I want to be the flower that blooms in the chill morn of spring
I want to be the due drop that settles down on an obscure forest flower
I want to be the unknown of the unknown and yet be the joy of flowering
I want to be the petals scattered on an un-treaded path that leads to a ruined temple


I want to be the soul of a child that cries to be held to the bosom of love
I want to be that love that holds the child, whispering tenderness
I want to be the tenderness that grasps like the girdle of comfort
I want to be the child that smiles as tears trickle that I was a moment ago


I want to be the agony of your heart when alone, morbid and lost
I want to be the lost, the morbid, the lone, to take in my palm your ruffled heart
I want to be the arguments and counterarguments that loses its intensity in time
I want to be the tear of the dry eye that is delicately filled to the brim


I want to be the breath of your now, to breathe the joys of knowing
I want to be the inhaling of the suffering, to breathe out for you peace and stillness
I want to be the hand that you can hold, when you know your soul churns
I want to be that smile of your face to know that you have found


I want to be the earth from which we are born
I want to be the fire that comes from the earth of love, hate, misery all mingled with contradictions
I want to be the phoenix that burns in hope, every time she burns into ashes
I want to be the hope, the possibility of being when the earth, the river, the cloud breathes its last


I want to be


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