On a Sunday I like to die

On a Sunday, I like to die. I know some of you, may not view being dead as a useful state to be in, but sometimes one is better off as a corpse. A corpse has certain privileges which are not enjoyed by a non-corpse. But more on this later. First I have to tell you about some incidents.

It was early morning on a Sunday in February, about a month or so after my wedding. The rising sun was still too weak to pose any significant challenge to the winter fog that hung outside my bedroom window. I had just started stirring without fully emerging from slumber, prompted by the gentle pressure building up in my bladder. A quick realization that it was Sunday pushed me immediately back towards sluggish dormancy.

My arm reached out under the quilt across the bed, looking for the extra-warmth whom I had newly-wedded. I thought a sleepy, spoon-cuddle should be able to fend off this minor attack against the bladder bulwark. But my outstretched hand could not make contact with the aforementioned e-w whom I had n-w. Further investigative taps at various locations on the bed yielded the same result. Classifying her as missing-in-action, my arm retreated from its failed mission and coiled up once again against my chest. But by now my bladder, sensing possible victory against my sleep, pushed harder. My sleep, however, wasn't going to surrender so easily. It directed me to trundle out to the loo, with my eyes firmly shut, do my stuff and return without letting even a chink of light hit the retina. So off I went to do as instructed.

It couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes later that I returned, eyes still shut as per plan, and lay down. Just as my butt hit the bed, I realized that it didn't feel the same. Like a sleeping dog, who is off guard duty but still wants to check out an unusual sound, I opened one eye. The landscape around me had completely changed. The bed was neatly made up, the quilt folded under the pillow and the bedcover had been spread. The very same n-w, instead of providing e-w, was sitting cross-legged sipping her coffee, looking out of the window, taking in the sight of the languid, dull-orange sun. At that moment, I woke up fully to the realities of my newly married life.

Fast forward nearly three decades to Bombay. Life has changed. Attacking my sleep is now an institutionalized, outsourced process. My duties include answering the door, when the bai rings the bell at 6:30 in the morning, and picking up the newspaper which could lie anywhere within two metres of the entrance. Very often, to avoid the risk of the door accidentally shutting behind me, I have to keep one foot firmly planted while doing a forward lunge with the other leg and reach down to pick it up - an activity, you would agree, is not designed to bring cheer on any face at that time of the day.

Over time, I started holding this against the bai and I think she too sensed a pattern in my daily scowl. We, therefore, have developed a mutual animus. This hostility manifests in her stalking me from room to room. Within minutes of my vacating my station in the bedroom and plonking myself on the living room cushion she appears there with her broom, like a witch looking for a prey. She then stares down at me without speaking, till I get the message and move myself to another part of the house. But there is no escaping her. Many times, I am reasonably sure that she has already cleaned the room where I happen to be, but reappears there just to spite me. Unfortunately, she has got total support of my wife in treating me as a marble on a Bagatelle board in my own house.

Things came to a head one Sunday when I was lying on the bed, eyes closed, hoping to extend the night by an hour or so. Sensing her presence, I opened my eyes. "Bhaiyya uthiye, bistar bichhaana hai", she said. And before I could say anything, she unashamedly caught hold of the corner of my comforter and started pulling it away to fold it. This was the last straw. I jumped up and stormed out of the room, appealing to my wife to arbitrate on this act of deliberate harassment. But she didn't think my plaint was even worth registering.

So I had no option but to take matters in my own hand. Since that day, I have developed a deterrence against her aggression, which I use every Sunday. While the bai is attending to whatever it is that she does in the kitchen, I lie on my back on the bed and cover my torso completely with a white sheet from head to toe to disguise myself as a corpse. I lie still, hoping that when she enters the room she will think that I am dead and leave me alone. No one, not even an evil bai like her, will think of disturbing a corpse or pulling away its shroud. But just to be sure, I am trying to persuade my wife to sit beside me and wail.

Koffee with Karna

(The camera starts with a high shot in a darkish room but quickly pans down and across as the lights fade-in. It zooms in to show a rather dapper looking Karna, wearing a steel-grey, open collar kavacha with a golden yellow pocket square)

Karna (to the camera): My first guest tonight, is the daughter of a king and a wife of many stalwarts but is equally famous in her own right. She’s been variously described as independent, assertive, courageous and a woman of substance. Her debut appearance as a heroine has reached epic status. Please welcome to my show tonight, the gorgeous – Draupadi

(Draupadi walks down an indoor staircase dressed in a fiery red, off-shoulder evening gown with a slightly low neckline. Karna gets up to welcome her and they air-kiss)

Karna: Welcome to your first appearance in my show, Draupadi. Thanks for coming.

Draupadi (settling down on the couch): Well, since you had come to my ‘show’ many years ago, I guess I had to return the favour. But I’m very excited to be here.

Karna (laughs): Well, I haven’t forgotten that day, you know. But we won’t talk about it tonight. I notice that you’ve discarded your usual sari for a stunning bold dress. Do you feel safe in such ‘non-extendable’ clothes? I mean if you had been wearing this on the fateful day, Krishna may have a problem adding gown after gown. Its not designed for such stuff. (smiles)

Draupadi: Thanks. You men are always correlating safety with clothes. And you make jokes about it. It’s just the way your mind works. Anyway they told me your close friends, Kauravas, aren’t going to be here tonight. So I guess I should be fine. And I know I am very safe with you, Karna. (winks)

Karna (with mock embarrassment): You’re the one who’s supposed to spill the beans on this show, not me. Let me start off by asking, what did you think of your debut role?

Draupadi: It was a great experience. They don’t write too many epics with substantive roles for women. Normally the women are expected to just follow the hero or get kidnapped just so that the hero can come to save her in the climax.
So when Vyasji approached me with the script, I loved it. It was what I call a multi-layered epic. I’m so happy that it’s done so well at the box office. It shows that the audience tastes are maturing.

Karna: But despite having played such a strong character you’re not considered a role model for young women? How come we have thousands of Sitas but not many name their daughters after you?

Draupadi: Well, I don’t really know, Karna. I do think about it sometimes. I know Sita is very talented and has a great fan following. I am not comparing, but I find her roles very passive. She is what she is because of Ram. And yet what you say is true. It’s a reflection of our societal attitudes. I think we find it easier to glorify women who are submissive and silent even when they are victimized, but are reluctant to accept an outspoken lady in similar situations. The men feel less threatened that way.

Karna: You think the fact that you have multiple husbands and that they themselves have other wives has something to do with it. The ‘our culture’ thing, if you know what I mean.

Draupadi: Could be. Also, that they gamble. And drink. People are judgmental about these things. But in the end, I’m happy that they at least come across as real people with human failings and strengths.  But to each their own. I’m not in the No 1 rat race and you know that. (smiles)

Karna: That’s an honest answer.

Karna (to the camera): I’d like to now invite my second guest tonight. The most popular and yet the least understood person of our times. Even calling him a ‘person’ is perhaps confusing. Sometimes a man, sometimes god and sometimes even a godman. He’s a director, actor, friend, philosopher, guide as well as an author. His ‘Do-it-yourself’ guide to living has been on the top of the bestseller list. Please join me in welcoming to my show tonight, the scion of the Yadav clan, the all-in-one – Krishna.

(Krishna enters smiling beatifically, wearing a crisply starched cotton pajama kurta with a black half-sleeve jacket with the buttons open in front, looking like a politician from the northern regions)

Karna (to Krishna): Before you came we were talking about Sita. Now we can talk about Gita. You know ‘Sita aur Gita’- Hema Malini, he he (The joke falls flat. Krishna just continues to smile).


Karna (to Krishna): Tell me Krishna, what made you act in the epic? Was it something you always wanted to do from childhood?

Krishna: Not only from childhood. From my previous births. And it was not my want. It was my destiny. My karma. Anyway, on earth we are all actors. We are acting all the time. Even when we do nothing we are still acting.

Karna (with mouth open impersonating a goldfish): Uh? ok.

Karna: But how did you get cast for your role. You were not from the industry – not a star child, or anything like that. Did that matter?

Krishna: No, never. If you’re good, or trying to be good, it doesn’t matter what your lineage is. Only how you act matters. And even more than acting what matters is your intent.

Karna: But it does matter Krishna. If Draupadi had known that I am a star-child she wouldn’t have…. (bites his tongue as Draupadi looks at him suddenly).

Draupadi: What was that? What is it that I should’ve known?

Karna: No, nothing.

Karna (turning quickly to the camera): In conversation with two hot, intelligent people who’ve seen the world of epics from within and without. Lots more coming up on the other side of this break. Stay tuned.

(This blog was first published in the collaborative blog - Omnium Gatherum on 1st Mar 17)

Freedom for me is….

Freedom for me is….

I am tempted to say “Freedom for me is continuing to sip my single malt and not having to think about writing this blog”. But I fear that would leave you, the reader, feeling a trifle cheated. You don’t buy a movie ticket just to hear the national anthem. You expect more. So, I am obliged to put aside my glass and dive straight into the topic.

I must admit that I am finding it difficult to clearly bring into words where I stand on the topic. I therefore take the help of some reading that I did on the topic a few weeks ago.1

Freedom is understood by most people as the absence of any external obstacles to options available to an individual to determine his/her actions. Such obstacles could be moral (“You should not show too much skin in public”), social (“You shall not offend others”), religious (“You shall wear the hijab”), political (“You shall not criticize the emperor”), gender based (“Women shall not enter certain temples”), legal (“You shall not practice homosexuality”) and so on. Most people agree that there ought to be ‘some limits’ to such liberties but, despite constant argumentation, any consensus on the degree of the limits remains elusive. Because of this inability to arrive at any agreed limits, some people argue that the best way out is that there should be no limits. “Wear what you want, offend all you want, go where you want, do what you want” is their proposed resolution of the impasse. Extreme as this may sound, it is certainly one way to settle the matter.

There is another sense in which freedom is to be understood, but receives much less mindshare. Imagine a person who wants to emigrate and take up a foreign citizenship to have a better standard of living but a feeling of guilt that by doing so he is betraying his nation, is preventing him from doing so. Is the freedom of this individual compromised? The only difference here from the earlier examples is that here the obstacle is internal to the individual. Before you completely switch your mind off from this type of freedom impairment (since the obstacles are internal you can argue that ‘a choice’ was made by the individual), consider the fact that it is politically or collectively possible (and indeed common) to influence, manipulate or coerce such feelings. People living in dictatorships or under authoritarian leaders often display an exaggerated view of national pride. Or take the case of an individual belonging to a minority community who has exercised his democratic rights of voting but the majority government which comes into power as a result of this process, takes decisions inimical to the individual’s interests. Is he more ‘free’ now by virtue of having gone through the political process than he was without it? From the individual’s frame of reference, it certainly does not appear so. He may believe, with some justification, that living in a democracy has actually reduced his freedom. On the other side, the government may say that “We’ve been voted to power on the promise of these precise actions and therefore it’s only fair that we now go ahead with them”. How can one fault their logic either? In this example the obstacle is internal to the system.

At this point of my write-up it is necessary for me to pause and pick up my whisky glass and take a few more sips. This is to buy some time to mentally process this stuff and frame the response on where I stand on all this.

While I would lean clearly towards the concept of freedom being the absence of external obstacles to what you can do or what you can become, I would go further and say that such absence must be guaranteed. It is not good enough that obstacles don’t exist. The probability of the existence of such obstacles has to be very low. I should not only be free; I should also feel free. There has to be a reliable and credible mechanism, which works towards blocking the emergence of the obstacles. In constitutional terms, this could be strong curtailment of the government’s powers through a judicial process. In social terms, it could be emancipation through education. In religious terms, it could be subjugation of religious rights to constitutional authority. In legal terms, it could be individual rights given higher status over social norms.

And in spousal terms it could mean being allowed to have another glass of whisky before coming for dinner. ‘Just kidding, honey. I’m coming right away.’

1.(My examples in the write-up are illustrative of the concepts of “Negative liberty” and “Positive liberty” respectively propounded by Sir Isaiah Berlin, the renowned liberal political theorist in the1950s who has done seminal work in this area. Google him for more.)

(This blog was first published in the collaborative blog - Omnium Gatherum on 1st Mar 17)