GRANDMA TALES: EIGHT

In the cobwebs of my memories, grandma will always be trapped as the storyteller par excellence. Not because she was able to imagine, create and deliver to us kids stories that could hold us enthralled for hours together. Not either because her stories were unique, coming from an old lady with no education to boast of. Not definitely because she was our beloved grandma who incidentally was also blind. All these factors simply pale into insignificance when you consider the true values of the stories she made for us. They were not mere storytelling sessions for us; for, bundled with each story were a host of lessons and interesting insights. The questions and posers that had us scrambling for answers, observations about us couched in real and imaginary incidents from her own life, and the truths that she had on her own learned about life and living. Truths that we would never forget, for they are ageless and timeless.

Grandma was no different to me than the rest of my kin. I am Ruchi, Rita’s sister. And Rita has already told you about grandma’s close encounter with “ghosts and apparitions”. Pratima and I were quite close to grandma in that she treated us, girls, on a slightly different footing from the boys. Pratima’s kiss and go affair with her boyfriend was something I never knew until I read Pratima’s story about the incident.

Like Rita, I used to feel a bit jealous about Pratima and Aneesh, for they got more than their fair share of grandma. Those were days when we ached and longed to be at Pratima’s house on some pretext or the other, just to catch up with grandma. Brief school vacations would give us such an opportunity, and we pestered our parents to allow us to spend a few days of vacation with our preferred cousins. Grandma expected these visits, and I would say, looked forward to them just as we did.

“You have to come?” Grandma would greet us with an all-knowing smile. She would then call me to her side and run her hand all over. That was her way of finding out how much I had grown up. She would mischievously pat me at certain places and tell me I had to either cut down fat or grow some, depending on which place she touched. It surprised me no end how grandma could make things so easy for us to talk to her; things we never dared to share with our mother. She had the uncanny ability to thrust her hands into our throats, so to say, and pull out things hidden in our hearts and mind. 

Just as Pratima experienced, I too at one point in time, was undergoing some terrible experiences. These experiences mostly comprised of my relationship with the opposite sex, boys. Unlike Pratima, I never got into any problem situation with boys ever. But there was always this natural attraction and curiosity about sex and sexuality. Its something every girl, and perhaps boy, feels. You can feel it when a boy looks at you, not just the look, and the way they look at you. 

I must say that during my early days in the school, the atmosphere was not all that conducive for developing a healthy relationship with boys. Though co-educational, institutions ensured there was the least mixing and mingling between boys and girls. It was an unwritten rule, a convention that the segregation of sexes should be rigidly followed.

As chance would have it, Pratima and I were discussing such things on some occasion in the presence of grandma, even as she was engrossed with something on the TV. Those were not the days when you had 24 hour TV with 100+ channels. You had only Doordarshan, the official channel, where the prime time was taken by a few odd soaps like Buniyaad, Here’s Lucy, Chitrahaar and the likes. Grandma, as you know by now, was an avid movie freak and enjoyed programs on TV. Even as Pratima and I were talking, grandma would constantly interrupt us to ask what the character was doing, particularly when something was happening without a dialogue exchanged.

There was some social drama being played on the TV, where the mother in law was on the verge of turning out her daughter in law from her house for some diabolical reason or the other. I saw grandma totally engrossed with the scene and her face was grim.

“Grandma, was your mother in law like that?” I remarked, more in mirth than serious. Those blind eyes looked in my direction and there was hardly a trace of a smile in them.

“Ruchi, women are cursed beings. They are cursed by God to undergo a hard life. That is perhaps why we all celebrate and yearn to be born as males, and feel miserable when a girl is born. God creates everything with some purpose; you must understand that, though it is really difficult to understand. He created smaller beings to be food for the larger and more superior beings on this earth. Plants grow only to be eaten by animals and human beings. Animals, in turn, are born; feed themselves only to be eaten up by human beings and other greater animals. Water is made and consumed and made again. Amongst us human beings, males are considered superior to women, for the very simple reason that a male is destined to undergo better life experiences than a woman does. And within the category of women, we seem to have constructed some kind of hierarchy, to make us get over the feeling of being exploited and dominated by males. It is complex, this hierarchy amongst women. The mother in law is the queen and emperor of this structure.”

“But grandma, you too are a mother in law. How did you handle the role when it was your turn to play the emperor of womanhood?”

“Ask your mother. She will tell you better. As far as I am concerned, I have been a failure, not worthy to handle the empire at all. Actually, we women tend to take our roles quite seriously, and therein lies the problem. Taking advantage of the disadvantages of being born as a girl, men have historically built up society to their advantage. The Vedas, smritis and everything speaks about woman as some divine force, while actually relegating them to a lower birth.

When I grew of age and got my periods, I was made to sit in the outhouse. It was not my father who demanded it of me; it was my mother who made me do it. She told me that periods were a time when we woman undergo purification and it was not proper therefore that we partake in normal routines of the household while we throw out our impurities during these days. I initially felt miserable about being left unattended, thrown out in solitary confinement as if I was not part of the family, and left alone to myself. I was enraged with the gods for making women undergo such humiliating confinement month after month.

It’s good that you girls are not subjected to such humiliation these days. But let me tell you, this is just one instance of how we women think of ourselves. It was not like this always. As human beings got more and more organized in societies, we began to discriminate on different social parameters. Caste, religion, sex, and whatnot. The architects of this society, if you consider this carefully, are the males. They became priests in temples, kurtas at home, bosses in the office, kings and emperors and ministers in the political system…and so on and so forth. The women considered themselves to be lucky enough to run the home and the hearth in a limited way. And at home, they began to carve their social structure. Mother, mother in law, sisters, sisters in law, wife, the other woman and so on. 

These TV serials make too much out of nothing. But they still give you insight into a woman’s mind. How clever and cunning she has become, all to create domination for them, as men did. The womenfolk could not dominate as the males did, so they chose to rely on emotions and the innate intelligence to cover up for them. The epics tell us about wicked women who sent their sons to exile, about women mating with gods for some devious purpose; about the seduction of gods by women of great beauty and guile. Most wars were either fought over women or motivated by them. God cursed man with a single great weakness for women so that the scales will be in balance.

“Grandma, why do you sound so bitter? Did you seriously have bad experiences with your mother in law?”

“My mother in law stayed with us, rather we stayed at her house. Your grandpa was the only son and therefore was dear to all. It was a bitter experience all right, to be married off and go to a house full of strangers. There was nothing called the nuclear family at that time, it was all joint family. The first thing I realized upon my marriage to your grandpa was that I had no exclusive rights on him. Every woman, at least I feel so, desires to have her husband to herself, all of him. The first lesson for a married woman is to realize that the monopoly over your husband is a myth. A married woman desires that all her husband’s affection be showered on her. Well, that too is a myth. It is a sin to expect anyone to give you undivided attention and affection. Your grandpa had a lot many people to share his time and attention with. His parents, his patients, his books and study, and his thoughts. They were all already there, remember that. I was introduced only much later and hence had to make space for myself. Not one single element I have described wanted to make space for me.

The art of making a better living for a woman is how she can position herself in her world. The challenge for a married woman is to create space for her and to grow the space without being pushed out in any way. When you start this exercise, you will confront the demons and devils trying to stop you from making any headway. It’s just like what they tell you in the mythical stories. Whenever you do something there is a force acting against you. In the stories, you have demons and such other creatures with odd faces and armed with weapons. In life, you don’t see these terrifying faces. You see the gentle faces of those near and dear to you.

At first, you do not recognize the truth. Then when you recognize it, you don’t accept the truth and even ridicule it. Finally, you have no choice but to come face to face with truth and work your way around. In the hot and heydays of my marriage, I had a tough time understanding the truth. The nights were always nice, with your husband ensuring you get the best attention. The days leave you with the hangover when you are plunged suddenly into activity over which you do not seem to have any control. Suddenly you realize that you have to fend for yourself in the world.

You begin to learn things they could not have taught you in your school and college. Not even your mother and family prepare you for this learning. Every woman has to learn it her way, even though the path would seem well-trodden. We, women, commit the cardinal mistake of trying to see our mother’s face on our mother in law and search for a father figure in our father in law. No two faces can be the same, which is the truth as one gets to know in time.

The thought of me taking my mother in law’s place did not even occur to me till much later. She was the undisputed mistress of the house and family and that was clear as daylight to me. What also did not occur to me was that my mother in law did not seem to look at me that way. Remember, she was the one who had to make space for me at home, and socially, this was the most logical thing to happen. But you know whatever be the necessity when you have to make space for someone you are reminded of the story of the camel and the tent. It did not occur to me that my mother in law would look at me as the camel.

Our social fabric is quite fragile, and we tend to stretch it too tight without realizing it. We assume roles too often, roles that we need not assume, in the mistaken belief that that is exactly what we are supposed to do. With some experience, I found that my mother in law was playing a new role, one which she failed to understand. She was playing the role out of apprehension and fear of being relegated to insignificance by a newcomer, a novice!

In any battle, only two things can happen. Either your opponent pushes you to kill or you push him to kill. When neither happens, there is chaos. In the battle for the household, we women do the same thing, with a difference. We do not push to kill. We are indecisive at all times because we are not sure of what is to be achieved. The wife yearns to dominate the affections of her husband and the husband’s mother fights to retain the affections of her son. We do not understand affections and emotions at all.

The crisis of attention has always haunted me. Is my husband closer to his parents than to me? Does my husband love his children more than me? Do my children love their father more than me? Do my children love their spouses more than me? Do my grandchildren love their parents more than me? These are questions with which women fight forever.”

“And what did you make of it? Do you still struggle with these questions? How did you manage your mother in law? Were you able to make your husband love you more than he loved others? How did he react?”

“Your children have a lot of questions. Do you know why we ask questions? Because we want answers. But questions always do not have straight answers or they may not have answers at all, however much you search for them. Like ghosts and god. You keep asking questions about them forever without deriving a conclusive answer. Look at all those saints and godmen who have spent all their lives thinking about god and demons? Do you think they have told us anything significant? Have we stopped asking questions? The reason is quite simple. Every person has to find his answer. There is no one single answer that will satisfy all. Not one. Look at scientists. They are still searching for life beyond earth. They are still fighting with diseases and viruses. They are still exploring planets. What they thought was the final answer years ago now turns into a question. 

Every woman should search for her answers. There are many answers to choose from and you can do it the easy way. But when you are faced with situations that demand resolution these answers will transform soon into questions. So it was with me. I had soon realized that the affections of my husband would never come automatically to me. They would, for he loved me, but not in the measure I desired. I realized too, that I had to make attempts, conscious attempts, to dominate his mind space, and these attempts would bring me in confrontation and conflict with those others who already had a large presence there. My mother in law gave birth to my husband and had nursed and nourished him to be what he was today. Against this, I had won the love of my husband with one single incident involving the crocodile. Our love was born in the crocodile’s stomach. 

I was, as you can see, becoming cunning and devious. It would have been foolish for me to make any attempts to break my mother in law’s stranglehold on her child. And senseless too, for it was never my intention to walk over anybody’s grave to win my husband’s heart. But my mind and alert senses told me that if I gave in to any weakness or soft emotions, my life would become a graveyard, with no one to cry over it.

You see, these feelings and thoughts do not come with any education. You have to educate yourself to handle your desires and emotions. For a long time, I was torn between ideals, morals, goals, and means even as it became more and more evident that my mother in law had been through this all, and knew how to manage it.

I had options before me, just like we all have options, all the time. With the experience of hindsight, I would call the first option “traditional”. This would mean I pour my heart out to my husband, about how neglected I feel and how his mother behaves. The second option was “Possessive”. Here, I could declare a war of possession with my mother in law and any other person who threatens my survival. I admit that others had greater access to my husband in many different ways, but not as intimate or intricate access as I had the privilege of having. I could think of hundreds of ways of asserting my moral and legal rights over my husband to those “others”. I could match them sword to sword, word to word, and my husband would be duty-bound to stand by me. Then there was this third option “Unorthodox” as I would call it now. Here, I had to first admit this was a crisis for me, and what I do to resolve my crisis would shape my future. Having admitted to this, I needed to match my wits against “others”, not mere rights or emotions. For this, I had to convince myself that I was up to it, had the guts and intelligence to handle it on my own. The beauty of winning this battle would depend on how little blood I shed. The final option, the one I rejected summarily, is to accept the status quo and leave things to time and fate.

I took stock of the weapons in my possession. The weapons of wit, I mean. I had age and youth on my side, but that was a two-edged sword to have. While the exuberance of youth gives you the strength to battle longer, the inexperience of youth may lead you to plunge the sword into yourself. The one thing I knew I did not have was fear. As a girl, I could walk into a haunted house in search of ghosts, jump into waters infested with crocodiles to save a friend and then swim fearlessly into the crocodile’s open mouth. From the ghost episode, when the images trapped in the light looked like apparitions to us, I learned that most of the fears are unfounded.

I knew I was smart but I hated to count this as a weapon of wit. I needed the guiles of a Rambha that could draw even a saint from meditation; the wits of Birbal and the calm poise of Sita. It was there in me, I knew, but where? How do I discover these strengths in me and more importantly how do I exercise these strengths to achieve my purpose?

What purpose did I intend to achieve? When I asked myself this question, the answers were quite puzzling. Purpose One. Carve a place in my husband’s heart so that he cannot but adore me most. Two; Make my mother in law learn the art of letting go of her son, without the fear of being discarded by him. Three; Make a place in this household as part of the family and not someone from outside. I was puzzled because I wondered how these purposes could be achieved in tandem, without having to sacrifice one for the other.

My dear children, you are grown-up girls. I tell you the innermost of my feelings and experiences, which I did not share even with my daughters. I realized at that moment when the three purposes unfolded themselves before me, that it was my destiny and challenge to fulfill them. It was the greatest test of my character. 

I told you that we women tend to take our roles as homemakers quite literally, without understanding how to make a home. We have these childish notions that if we behave respectfully to elders, submissively to our spouse, and lovingly to our children, we would become good homemakers. We then start projecting a false image of ourselves, as a self-effacing and sacrificing person, who will relegate all her desires and needs to the dustbin just to keep the family pleased. The wife, we think, is respected by the husband because she waits for him to return home and eats remnants of food left by all in the family. She feels that the husband deserves only the best and that this best can be given only by her, the wife. She, therefore, goes about her role, trying to understand her husband’s likes and dislikes, accepting things acceptable to him, trying to throw out things he does not like or favor. She believes that if she models herself to her husband’s wishes, her husband would forever be hers.

The wife, however, forgets that she too has a soul and destiny. By doing so, she allows her destiny to be aligned with that of her husband and commits the cardinal sin of ignoring god’s purpose for her. Also, by willingly submitting to another mortal, perceiving him to be a higher form than her, she faces a disconnect with her spiritual self, God. Thus weakened in spirit, the woman becomes vulnerable to the vagaries of virtually all human emotions.

“Grandma, you seem to be in a trance. What you are saying goes over our heads. You are saying that a woman, in her role as a wife, surrenders her spiritual and moral authority, thereby sinning. But she does all this for the larger interest of her family and children. So is this not a virtue, otherwise, would she not be called selfish?”

“Yes, selfish is the right word. But the most abused and least understood. In my view, it is not all that bad to be called selfish. Who does not act selfishly, for his or her interest? Remember, the giving up of her core beliefs is not for the family. It is for her, to be able to create a place for herself, to be viewed upon as an ideal person, a good wife, an obedient slave. But that is not the only issue. I told you that by giving up her core beliefs, the wife is giving up her choice to be a human being, and achieve the purpose for which she and any other human being made. To get on with the story, I had decided on achieving the three purposes in a most unorthodox manner. I was not going to give my self up for anything, that much was clear. My mother in law, also a human being, would have to understand my role, which she was also playing, as a wife. If I could get my wits around me, there would be a peaceful solution to my problems.

With this in mind, I went about trying to understand my environment. I understood that if I had to succeed, I would need to understand my surroundings and the players involved as best as I can. My mother in law was a simple and god fearing lady. She and I shared one thing and that was the lack of formal education. She was decades older to me, and I resolved to keep that in mind, for she had more experience with life than me. The typical woman of our times had few desires, apart from a good husband, children who care and a household that would run at their command.

My father in law, like my husband, was a doctor of repute. Now, and this is from my experience, doctors differ from a lot of human beings in the male category. They are trained to keep emotions in check, and this they practice with ferocity. If you and I were to deal with problems of patients, we would either have a nervous breakdown or go mad. It requires patience, diligence, intelligence and keen insight of human beings to diagnose their problems. I told you how your grandpa handled the patient who came to him with multiple problems.

The rigors of being a doctor have a huge impact on their personality. My father in law, and by extension my husband, had patience in loads. Also, their minds work with a clinical efficiency that is vastly different from other normal human beings. They tend to be very incisive in their analysis of everything, and by profession, they tend to think of fellow human beings as ignorant and weak.

My father in law and your grandpa were a good team. They discussed everything on the earth which left me and mother in law wondering how much knowledge could be stored in the small brain of ours. Listening to them analyze details, I learned the art of looking at problems from different points of view. I realized what I thought looks different when explained by my husband. 

Most of the time, I would be with my mother in law, and I observed well her routines and behavior. We had four servants in the house, three of them women, and I spoke to all of them, trying to understand how they were supposed to carry out their duties by my mother in law. The fourth, a male, was driver, dispenser and courier all rolled into one.

I resisted my initial impulse to move things around and change the settings of the house. This would come later, and I better wait patiently for that time to come. I admired the efficiency with which my mother in law would go about performing her duties. She spent considerable time with god, and I wondered what it could be that she talked to god about.

I and mother in law discussed a whole lot of issues and she would surprise me with great insights. She explained to me how it was important to be humane with the lesser mortals. I believe that included me, though not specifically mentioned. On my side, I never missed the opportunity to tell her that I was her disciple, sent here to learn about life and living. I wanted her to teach me how to take care of husbands, and she would be delighted. Husbands, she used to say, are divine mortals, born to achieve a purpose higher than the females. That purpose, she explained was to make the woman whole and wholesome. Without the relationship of a male, women are not fulfilled. The fulfillment is biologically necessary, and the experience of a male body is something that even goddesses could not escape. She would dutifully explain how man is a half-woman, and woman half male.

It was the female destiny to ensure the completion of her sexuality. It is not just becoming a mother that makes a woman complete. It is becoming the life consort of the male that is the destiny of a woman. A consort makes, believe it or not, a man complete. I could not but be bowled over by my mother in law. I asked her whether she felt complete, now that she had had a long partnership with her husband. She replied that it was true; God had given her a husband who gave her everything necessary to make her whole and wholesome. I then asked her if I could follow her footsteps and become whole myself. She was moved to tears and held me to her heart. I was a child, she told me, but intelligent. A good learner always succeeds, a bad learner never does. I told her I wished to learn everything about life from her.

It is difficult to be patient and understanding about others. And as human beings, we tend to avoid doing anything that is difficult. There were times when my patience frustrated me and in those times I spoke to god to give me better sense and strength. 

Let me not bore you any further with what I did and did not do. My efforts bore results, and over some time, my mother in law was convinced enough to hand over the management of the house and the husband to me. My husband, like all other husbands, was happy in the belief that I had hit it off with his parents and received no complaints about me from them. 

I had succeeded on all counts, but on attaining success, I realized that there was nothing permanent about this success. I thought I had managed my husband well, but look at what happened when he fell in love with the nurse? I told you about it, I remember telling this to one of you. 

We all do our best to do things that avoid unpleasant consequences, at least most of the time. But no one can take life for granted. I don’t know whether I have become whole and wholesome, but I do believe now that life is all about how you move from one challenge to the other. Any problem is successfully resolved if it stops troubling you further in your life. Also, if you take care of your self, other things get taken care of to a great extent. Every time I have an issue to resolve, I remember your grandpa and what he did to that patient. The patient thought more of his problems than they were, and his perception of his problem made him suffer, rather than the problem itself.

Well, for you girls, I would say this. Man or woman, much more is made of distinctions in our mind than they are in reality. If you live with a man in the belief that men are a dominant class and evil, you will have trouble. If you live with a man, with the belief that you have to be submissive to them and their slaves, you are in trouble. Finally, if you believe, like me, that issues of your life can be resolved by wit and wisdom, well, you will have trouble with this too. The simple fact is learning to face life in all its gore and glory, and make it as worthwhile to you as practically as possible.”

Well, that’s a vintage grandma for you. She can be ridiculously simple at one time and profoundly wise at other times. This was one of the profound situations and as you can see, it has stayed with me all these years.