Tree Hugger

I want to talk about trees today. I was sitting in the backyard in a rocking chair, at about 1600 hrs, this afternoon under this Shirish tree. Which by the way, belongs to the family Fabaceae . I realized what an absolute pleasure it is to just sit under a tree. And since I absolutely suck at all that transcendental stuff, I went back in time to see all the trees I have met growing up. My first favorite tree was a crooked palm tree which grew at an angle of about thirty degrees to the ground. It made an excellent slide and was perhaps the only tree I could climb up for a long time. Then there was a tamarind tree that threw itself over a really deep well in my uncle's farm. It was so inaccessible that it was somehow more enticing. Close by, was a big mango tree. We used to try and swing upside down from it, with our knees locked firmly on the branch. The girls usually got an earful if the group got caught doing that, mostly because we never bothered to change from dresses into trousers before we set out for this adventure. I liked walking down the street to see the Parijat flowers fall on the ground, very early in the morning.  If you collect enough flowers and squish their red stems on your hands, it faintly resembles the color of henna.

And the ugly jackfruit trees we saw as kids on a trip to the beach, in Konkan! I always wondered what kind of desperate circumstances could have led humans to explore the insides of a jackfruit. And how pleasantly they must have been surprised! My grandmother had a special place in her room (and her heart) for Bakul flowers. We used to go to the temple and get strings of bakul flowers and use them as bookmarks. Later I saw these enormous trees in the gardens of the Red Fort in Delhi. Summer always reminds me of the Gulmohars. On those unfortunate days when you have to step out into the scorching sun, an eyeful of Gulmohar can soothe your mind. But the best Gulmohary memories I have are from the Jacaranda lined streets of Brisbane. It was a treat to the eyes to see the streets burst into purple every summer.The road to my school was lined with these Yogi Banyan trees. They were all sacrificed for bigger roads. But they still have a place in my heart. I remember driving under many tree-canopied roads around Kolhapur. It is one of the best kind of journeys. On those kind of roads, it is really easy to forget where you are going.

Uff! And who can forget Frangipani flowers? They used to be my favorite accessories when I played "Seeta in the forest". Gardenia flowers, jasmine flowers thrown into the water pot in summers, and the Jui flowers that covered an entire balcony in the rainy season -- stars holidaying  on earth. Fall in the US was second best only to the sunset in the midwest. I was fascinated by the weeping willows in the first few days of my life in the US.

It is funny how memories too have themes. And sometimes, your life so far flashes in front of your life with a theme. In my everyday life, Tree Hugger wouldn't be the first adjective I would use to describe myself. But all I have to do is sit in a rocking chair and stay away from my phone (except when I need to use Instagram to take that picture). :)

The psychology of rape and domestic violence

Recently, I have become a fan of Aljazeera. It first caught my attention when I watched the coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict on CNN and then on Aljazeera. Their analysis is well researched and their journalists come from all over the world with many perspectives. Their documentaries make an honest attempt at gathering views from both sides, without too much "reporting" involved.

Their recently published documentary 'It's a man's world' delves into the psychology behind rape. I was a bit disappointed that India was not chosen as a subject country for this study, but the focus is on Cambodia, where the percentage of self-confessed gang rapes is 5 -- much higher than the other countries that were studied. Gang rape is so common in Cambodia that there is a word for it. The men who confessed show a range of emotions but no empathy, or guilt even. The study is innovative in this area because it was based on a "ridiculous" assumption that rapists would actually talk to a reporter, let alone permit rolling cameras. But, they did.  Here's an excerpt from the story.

“What are they like?” A friend of mine asked when she contacted me during the filming of this difficult story, “Are they like a pack of rabid dogs?” While many would like to think that gang rapists are in some way psychopathic, they are actually just like other men. They have mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, girlfriends and every one of them told me they would not want the same thing to happen to the women in their own families.  

Sadly, many of these men feel no shame (their insistence on anonymity stems more from fear than shame)  in accepting that they have participated in a gang rape, because it is like a sport to them. Men are likely to accept that they have forced a woman to have sex with them, than women are likely to accept that they have been raped. It is funny how even the stigma associated with these crimes works against the victim than against the perpetrator. 

But kudos to Aljazeera for presenting a perspective that actually answers the WHY behind rape. It will take at least an entire generation to see the kind of parity we want to see between genders as far as this issue is considered. That estimate also assuming that the stigma around reporting rape is reduced by the work of media, the women and most importantly, the 4 in five men who don't rape. 

The first Muslim

A few days ago, I came across an FB post with a Wikipedia link stating the "fact" that "Hinduism" accepts "atheism". Although the post was apparently intended to educate people, in the comments that followed, a discussion about believers and non-believers ensued. In that, the author mentioned how there is no equivalent word for non-believer in Sanskrit (synonymous to Kafir) and how, the priests in Kashi would never issue Fatwas against various anti-Hindu acts. 

Religious facts can be obtained from various sources with little or no perspective, or worse, with the wrong perspective. The inclusion of atheism in the Hindu philosophy has been explained beautifully by Prof. Amartya Sen in the Argumentative Indian. It is also true that there was a time when education of women was not only accepted in the Hindu society, but also appreciated. Women were allowed to perform religious rituals along with men. The concept of  "Swayamwar" (where a woman chooses her husband) was accepted. For that matter, there are people who are now going back to those principles. The Dnyan Prabodhini foundation in Pune has ordained female priests. Their weddings are a far cry from the mainstream Hindu weddings. All the vows are explained to the audience in their language of choice and the girl can choose the "Swayamwar" ritual instead of the Kanyadan (where her father gives her away). 

BUT there was a time not very long ago (compared to the age of Hindu civilization) where women were married off at the age of under ten years, without education, without any means to support themselves, to men much older than them. Usually, these girls ended up being widowed at a very young age. Their heads were shaved, they had to give up all earthly pleasures (ornaments, sweets, flowers) and were reduced to maid servants of the house. It was not long ago, that we actively practiced untouchability. It was not long ago,   that women were burnt alive on the pyre of their dead husbands. Changing these customs was considered the hobby of the "ultra liberal", educated men, and was always met with strong opposition from the contemporary Hindu society, especially by the higher castes. One of the most fortunate outcomes of the evolution of the Hindu society is that we think of women as well as men, when we think of feminism and emancipation of women. The shoulders that we stand on belong to both genders. 

The point I am trying to make is that religion is just like language. It is open to influence.There is always a spectrum of followers in every religion. I heard this talk on NPR the other day about a book titled  'The first Muslim" by Lesley Hazleton. It is a book on the life of Prophet Muhammad -- the first Muslim. Ms. Hazelton is an agnostic, born into a Jewish family. She went in "search" of the first Muslim and found something that contradicts the image of modern "sword/bomb-wielding" Muslims. She talks about how Islamic fundamentalists follow a "highlighted" version of Quran, where everything is taken out of context. Prophet Muhammad was in a happy monogamous marriage for twenty four years. For most part of his life, he was an active proponent of non-violence. He tried to make common people aware of the exploitation they faced at the hands of the rich. He advocated respect towards women. He shared his early thoughts about Islam (which was not really labeled Islam yet) with his wife.

Her TED video (above) has over 700,000 views (please watch it till the end). It makes me wonder why some of the most eloquent and thought provoking religious commentaries I have read/heard have been made by agnostics.

Radicalization of any religion comes with its institutionalization. Gautama Buddha never wanted to label his journey as "Buddhism". In fact, attaching an "ism" to Buddha's philosophy is its greatest defeat. Buddha walked along alone to realize the "truth" for what it was for him. It is HIS realization. And his teaching is not as much in the eight fold path as it is in following the source of your suffering, detaching yourself from the causes of suffering and attaining happiness that does not cling to your circumstances. The guiding principles of Buddhism may help this process, but it can also be done without thinking of Buddha, by just being honest with oneself. For every radical, there is always a reformer. Sometimes, the reformer comes in the body of a fifteen year old Afghan girl. 

If you think about it, we can talk about everything that religions stand for without talking about religion. We can talk about compassion. We can talk about respecting each other as human beings. We can talk about non-violence. We can talk about charity, kindness towards all living beings and protecting the environment. We can also appreciate what religions have given us (apart from faith and messiahs) without fastidiously attaching it to the religion it comes from. Anyone can practice meditation, anyone can appreciate Sufi music and poetry, anyone can appreciate the wide range of art, music and culture that emerged out of religious devotion. We can believe in God without believing in religion. Going further, we can create our source of divinity. It doesn't have to come from the "menu" that has been passed on to us. 

But it is a grave disservice to any religion when its teachings are used to proclaim its superiority to other religions. It only creates more polarization and hatred. 

Chocolate frosted sugar bombs

That's one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes strips. There is nothing like waking up to a sickeningly sweet breakfast. Although processed food industry has taken it to a whole new level, I do remember some really happy summer vacations, which included a sickening overdose of sugar. We used to eat fresh "cream rolls" with tea first thing in the morning, at lunch we would have a scary amount of Indian (or Maharashtrian?) version of mango jam (मुरंबा). And I cannot hide my regrets over growing up, when I begin to describe the procedure we had established for eating a bourbon biscuit . It had to be opened first and then the chocolate cream had to be eaten. The left over cookie was usually dunked in extra sweet tea. In summers, we had special clothes to eat mangoes. We were locked out with our mangoes on the balcony to avoid paw prints on the walls. There was sugar available at every meal. No ration. No guilt. 

BUT, all the sugar we consumed was "obvious sugar". There was other food and then there was sugar. It was easy to go off sugar if one wished to do so (who would ever have such a wish!). However, the processed food we consume now comes with a lot of latent sugar.  The food industry in the United States is driven by a wonder sugar -- High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). HFCS has made its way into almost every kind of cheap processed food (burger buns, yoghurts, nutri bars, breakfast cereals, ketchup, pizza, even roasted peanuts!). Proponents of the use of HFCS argue that it is just as bad as eating cane sugar (which by the way is not true). However, the problem arises when HFCS is used in foods that usually don't need sugar. 

As I mentioned in my previous post, this omnipresence of HFCS is a result of persistent lobbying by the corn industry of the United States. Corn growing is heavily subsidized. And the biggest beneficiaries of these subsidies are not just the multinationals that are directly involved in the use of corn but also the leading soda and fast food corporations. Increasing the amount of sugar in any food adds to its, for the lack of a better word, "addiction quotient". The insidious sugar packets that are delivered to us through ketchup and burger buns actually help in getting us hooked on. The manufacturing costs of cane sugar would not accommodate such rampant use of cane sugar in foods such as breads and yoghurts. Hence HFCS just adds an excess amount of sugar to an everyday on-the-run diet. 

This  is an enlightening piece about HFCS. It is often argued that the human body processes HFCS in a process identical to cane sugar. But it may not be true. HFCS consists of unbound fructose and glucose (in a ratio of 55:45), while cane sugar or sucrose consists of bound fructose and glucose (in a 50:50 ratio). Unbound sugars are absorbed rapidly by the body. Moreover, fructose is absorbed more rapidly than glucose, and is converted to fat by the liver. However, it has not been rigorously studied whether these biochemical differences would lead to increased risk of liver and pancreatic diseases. So essentially, the food industry is using its consumers as an experiment. 

Going beyond the details of sucrose Vs HFCS (interesting slide show there), it is not the kind of sugar that poses the bigger risk. It is the amount of sugar, and more importantly the amount of latent sugar, which is a bigger concern. No matter which culture/nation you come from, in order to eat healthy, you have to be in a position to control what you eat. And being able to cook your own food is the best way to control what you eat. 

I too had a dream

I was looking for that one "unputdownable" book since I came back to India. "I too had a dream" (as told to) by Gauri Salvi is a highly addictive account of the journey of Dr. Verghese Kurien. I was first pushed towards reading this book after I read this news. At the time, I was still a post doc at Michigan State University (MSU). So the fact that Dr. Kurien did his masters there, made me feel oddly happy. As I began googling him, I came across this,  which obviously led me to Shyam Benegal's  Manthan. After watching Mathan, I had made a mental note that I am going to read more about this. 

Dr. Kurien did not want to be a dairy engineer. He went to MSU with a sincere intention of studying  metallurgy, even though his scholarship terms clearly stated that he would return as a dairy engineer. He took nominal dairy courses (sadly, MSU was and still is one of the leading universities in dairy engineering in the world), and returned with a cocky assumption that he is going to work for a large corporate. However, when he was asked to cough up Rs. 30,000 for the expenses government incurred on the account of his education or work at a dairy for five years, he chose the latter. He was sent to Anand, Gujrath, with a note on his documents that he would not make a good employee. He had nothing to do for the first year at Anand. He would send his resignation to the government every month, urging them to release him instead of wasting more government money. In what might be called a sudden turn of fate, he had to get his act together to help Tribhuvandas Patel, who was organizing a farmer's ilk cooperative under the guidance of Vallabh Bhai Patel. Kurien started as a technical expert and then never looked back. The book is full of many amusing and enlightening anecdotes. But I think I would like to share some of the important points Kurien makes. 

1. Foreign Aid and subsidies

Kurien elaborates the role of foreign aid and subsidies in the development of people with remarkable perspicuity. In the late sixties, India faced an acute shortage of milk. The per capita consumption of milk of the nation was steadily decreasing and it was necessary to build infrastructure, and supply chains that would resolve this. Kurien along with a visiting professor from Harvard, Michael Halse, wrote the proposal for "Operation Flood", which was implemented from the early seventies through nineties. In 1998, India surpassed the US in the production of milk. And today we are the  world leaders in milk production. This could happen because, instead of accepting excess milk powder that European countries were willing to donate as aid, it was sold at market prices, after reconstituting and packaging as milk. The revenue collected from that aid was used to buy infrastructure to start co-operative milk societies all over the nation, which are still in operation. So instead of feeding free milk to Indian poor and creating more demand (potentially for foreign investors), it was used as a long term investment. Kurien is also skeptical of the various subsidies that the farmers around the world get. It is true, even today (and even in the developed world) that subsidies usually benefit lobbies and corporations more than the farmers. In some cases, subsidies actually create a lot of unwanted problems even for common people (case in point: the various ill effects of the corn lobby in the United States). 

2. Foreign Investment

Amul rose to glory at a time when India had highly regulated foreign investment policies. At one point Nestle invited him to discuss their intention of setting up a plant in India. The chairman of the board, casually mentioned that Nestle could not delegate the work to 'natives' because it is highly technical. Kurien stormed out of the meeting reminding them that they were actually talking to a native. Although over-regulation of foreign investments has led to problems of the other extreme for India in the late nineties, the nationwide networks which were built for farmers during the post independence years would not have been possible if we had left the country open to investment. I have a placard-waving-hippie inside my mind when it comes to most of these issues, but I genuinely believe that farmers should be able to earn good money, no matter where they come from. 

3. Take expert opinion with a pinch of salt

It was a "well known fact" when Kurien started his career that you "cannot" manufacture powdered form of buffalo milk. All experts, from all the leading milk producing countries (New Zealand, Denmark) endorsed this view. However, it was made possible, on a commercial scale at Amul. This reminds me of so many rampant expert opinions that are currently being thrown around in the petroleum and bio fuel industry. It is very important to find out for whom the said expert works, before accepting his views as gospel. Often expert opinions are also driven by the collective opinion of a particular lobby that the expert works for. 

There is this criticism that Amul could not be repeated in other states. It has a lot to do with the rigid bureaucratic structure that we have come to accept when it comes to anything related to the government. When I hear the word co-operative society, the next word that comes to my mind is corruption. However, when I think of "for profit" corporations, the next word that comes to my mind is exploitation. We live in a world where corporations have not just restricted themselves to exploiting human beings, they have also done a lot of irreparable damage to the planet. The politics of profit often replaces the brightest minds with the "corporate conscience", where simple, age old concepts of taking collective responsibility of our planet, are replaced by some convoluted logic "backed by research". We all have had the misfortune of witnessing 5 million barrels of crude oil gushing into our ocean as the "world's best technical experts" watched it helplessly for three months. 

Sustainable growth can only be achieved by creating self-enriching loops. It is just as true for people as it is for the environment. It is high time we start using the words "nurture" and "profit" together. I think the Amul story has those words written all over it. 

No. I don't think so.

Sunday Times is one of the reasons I came back to India. Waking up on a Sunday morning and picking up the fat TOI, with a hot cup of tea, has always been one of the happiest moments of my week. But these days, newspapers and news channels make me gloomy, mostly because of the rampant acts of misdemeanors, assaults and casual instances of disrespectful treatment of women of my country. In the past few years, my brain has become more and more sensitive to a thought that was mostly subconscious through out my early twenties. Initially it started off  as a comparison between Indian women and Western women. Of how our values are built and how we look at life. There is a clear difference, and for that matter, I am not even a stereotypical "Indian" woman. And that is the problem. One cannot generalize a typical woman of any culture, religion, social class or nationality. We become what we go through, what we endure or enjoy growing up, how our mothers treat us and most importantly, how our fathers treat our mothers.

Women are expected to follow certain rules in every culture. Some conservative politicians/gurus never hesitate to jump to conclusions about how following Western culture is causing girls to get raped. But what does the contemporary Indian culture have to offer? With all the famous 100 crore grossing Bollywood movies, which always include a mindless item song? How are we helping young girls realize that their bodies are not up for abject objectification, if Kareena Kapoor flaunts her size whatever body in skimpy Indian clothes to a song that literally asks the man to devour her with alcohol? And then she proudly tells an interviewer that, for this song she had to have a slightly voluptuous figure, because the song is "desi" (establishing her power to control her body any which way she wants). Together with the lyrics, the lewd facial expressions, the dance moves it is worse than what a short skirt can do to "Indian culture".

Irrespective of the cultural trends in the media, it is equally true that we cannot control the media. We cannot control what the society/media wants men and women to believe. It is not practically possible to stop the advent of any culture or trend in a democracy. You cannot restrict  individual freedom. Moreover,  using our freedom with responsibility takes a lot more conscience and care than following somebody's diktat and being disgruntled about it. This kind of freedom also helps in building better/ safer societies.

 But I am starting to believe that a significant part of how men treat women happens at home. The most influential person in a young girl's or a young boy's life when it comes to perception/treatment of women is their dad. And one of the most powerful relationship dynamic we grow up observing very closely is that of our parents. It has long been proven that a supportive family helps women come out of a lot of traps that they encounter when they step out of home into the real world. Our parents' voice often becomes our inner voice and our parents' choices often deeply influence our choices. It is easier to shrug off/ fight against the media and popular culture. But it is difficult and sometimes impossible to trace our bias/fears/emotional problems back to our upbringing without an intervention. It is difficult for many women to accept that they have a choice. That they can walk out of an abusive relationship. That being healthy and happy is more important than being "taken" or "married". That there is also such a thing as emotional abuse, where being constantly belittled for lack of intelligence/beauty/personality can lead to a long term loss of self respect and esteem. Most of these things are considered okay because the abusers often sound confident to the point of making them believe that "this is how the world works".

I don't think India is ready for My Short Skirt. In fact, in my personal opinion, it won't work for India. Western feminism will not work in India because India needs to develop her own identity when it comes to women's issues. And the first and foremost freedom we all need is the freedom to say NO. Not just when it comes to sexual offenses, but also when it comes to the decisions of women who hold positions of power (or are on their way there). We don't expect men to protect us as much as we expect them to back off gracefully when we say NO. A NO is not always a rejection of your masculinity/personality/power/ability/intellect. It is not always a unidirectional and absolute dynamic. It is not always related to the protection of our chastity, or the proclamation of our superiority. A NO can actually be about us. It could be related to our desire to have a choice. To imagine a life for ourselves, which may not include you at that point. It could be related to our dreams. It could be related to a fulfilling relationship we have found in someone else. It could be related to our confusions about what we want to do, and the time that we need to figure it out. It could also be related to our doubts about whether we could be right for you (or the other way round). It could be related to a conflict that involves others. It could be against injustice that we think we have the courage to fight. It could be against a malpractice that we do not wish to be a part of. It could be about our money, which we wish to save up for our kids. It could be about a lot of things that are beyond you. And if we get the freedom to say NO, it makes us feel a lot more respected than to have you all eager to protect us against evil (and honestly, we are also very grateful for that).

And this cannot be taught to grown up men who are in jail under rape charges. This has to be taught to young boys and girls. By their moms and dads. In part as as education and in part by example. And I am able to think about this on my own because I have been raised by one of the most influential feminists in my life -- my dad.

Meow again!

Do you remember the candid cat that saw me off when I went to Australia? She delivered kittens in my mom's linen closet a few weeks after I left. One of her daughters stuck around and she had her own litter. Then one of her daughters had three kittens last year and now, she is found gallivanting around with a rather handsome dude cat with mysterious green eyes. She also carried forward the legacy and left us one of her daughters to take care of.

I don't want to like cats. Cat-women friendships freak me out. I have seen way too many women going home to cats. Old ladies sitting on fur laden couches with one of their cats arrogantly perched on their shoulders, little bowls of preservative infused tuna fish and that one corner of the house, where the dreaded litter box sits, with its enormous potential of turning your stomach inside out. I reject all these things associated with cats. And I have had some unfortunate experiences of my own. But it is also true that wherever I have traveled, I have always made new feline friends. Whether it was my friend Kyle's obese cat Doc, or his parents' dainty little eighteen year old Ally cat.
Or Elodie's gracefully French cat Mirabelle (below). Growing up, Elodie lost five cats before Mirabelle, and all of them were called Mirabelle. So for a long time Elodie thought that all cats are called Mirabelle. :)




As  Elodie would approach this, maybe this is related to my childhood. Well, it is. Who can forget those endless hours that my cousin and I invested in throwing cats off our first floor balcony? Or putting two kittens under one upside down cardboard box and watch them go berserk? Or trying to wash them and reacting in absolute bewilderment when they escaped and ran for their lives. We never loved cats. We just tortured them. But it was their fault too. Try torturing a dog. It just doesn't work. Even when they love you, you sometimes pity them. Cats invite dislike. They walk into a room with an air of Oh-I-am-better-than-all-of-you and now, you are going to get up and feed me. When you try to tease them, they would attack you. It is like fighting with an equal, and I personally derive great satisfaction from an even fight. A confrontation of two minds that are equally manipulative, intelligent and ruthless.

So back to the current cat in my life. She has this obsessive need for cuddling. It is as if to her eyes, I am a couch. So I started making her life difficult, just to encourage dislike for me in her mind. I would put her on top of an open door and leave her there. I would pick her up from her annoying cat nap and suddenly throw her out of the house. I also put some diluted Eucalyptus oil on the floor of my room to discourage her from coming in. I only feed her because she fights with me for it with really threatening meows. I put her out and close all the windows to the house. But she squeezes in through the exhaust opening and cat walks all over me declaring her triumph. Her end goal is my lap. And it is hard to concentrate on throwing her out when you are busy writing pointless posts on cats. But nonetheless, most of the times, she wins, only because of laziness on my part. One morning I talked my dad into giving her away. But I don't know how, she mysteriously disappeared for two hours when he was supposed to drive her.

Sometimes she looks into my eyes and blinks slowly, as she sits on my lap. And sometimes she licks the inside of my elbows. I didn't quite get this gesture. I thought it was related to her territorial rights over me, which made me a bit angry. I am not her property! But then I looked it up and found out that maybe, it is her way of, yes, expressing love! I think it is now my turn to run for life. :)