My Cherished Daughter Like a blossoming bud, a mirthful doll, my daughter grows. I wish I could shield her from the evil eyes of the world, hide her within my heart, nurture her talents. How can I hide her. she has to face this very world, size up and stand up to it. Ensconced in the shelter of my love how will she become fearless, fight through the squalls, gain the courage to contend with the storms of life. I hope I will be able to illuminate her way. Please creator, lend me the strength that will inspire my daughter to choose the right path.
(Surekha Sinha, dulari bitiya, 2008a: 97-98, translated from Hindi)
My mother wrote this poem when I entered my teen years. Two and a half decades later, she published it in one of the three anthologies of her poems (Sinha 2007, 2008a, 2008b). On her tenth death anniversary, I re-read this poem to reconnect with her love and started writing this piece to pay homage to my first ally in life’s battles, my mother.
Women are not, and do not have to be perfect mothers. What is a ‘perfect’ mother anyway? My mother certainly was not one. Starting in my early teens though, my mother steered our relationship towards a mutually nurturing alliance that lasted through the inevitable vicissitudes of life, spread across three continents. This trusting bond not only became my source of strength, but also a measure of other relationships, with other people as well as with myself.
The Daughter
My earliest memory of my mother is her crying inconsolably and me as a toddler clinging to her leg in abject terror. Years later, I learnt that it was a time of terrible turmoil for my parents as they struggled to cope with the untimely loss of my grandmother, my grandfather’s emotional breakdown(s) and frequent disappearances, and my father’s valiant but futile attempts to rebuild his career in an alien city.
The complexity of their lives was compounded by the birth of two children in quick succession. My brother followed sixteen months after I was born. My father took me to the hospital and introduced the baby sleeping in my mother’s arms as my new bhaiya, brother. Apparently, between uncontrollable sobs, I told my father, Papa, bhaiya dham – throw out bhaiya – marking my first full sentence.
A few weeks later, I was living with my mother’s only sister – badi mummy, elder mother. She lived in Dhar, hundreds of kilometers from my parents, where I eventually started pre-school. I only remember sepia tinted snatches of memories of the two years that I spent in Dhar.
I will never know the real reasons and circumstances under which I was sent packing to Dhar and then back to Jaipur. Perhaps badi mummy stepped in to help my mother. Or maybe, it was yet another example of my duty-bound mother’s generous heart which ached for her only sister’s deep yearning for a child. What they chose to tell me was that I wanted to live with badi mummy, whom I adored, and thus she took me to Dhar, and later my parents brought me back because of better schooling options in Jaipur.
These two major displacements, or rejections in the mind of my four-year-old self, defined my childhood. I was an exceptionally quiet child in those first few years of being back with my parents, prone to illnesses and accidents in equal measure. At home, understandably, my little brother did not take kindly to no longer being an only-child. At school, my teachers celebrated my quietness with praise, incensing the classmates who bullied me some more. I often escaped into daydreaming and my recurring fantasy was one where my real parents found me and took me away from these people who did not really want me.
Not long after my return from Dhar, my father introduced my mother to her eventual spiritual anchor, Pahari Baba (Sinha, 2008c), and she appeared from under the heavy cloud that surrounded her, perhaps undiagnosed post-partum depression. Within that momentous year starting in mid 1976, she finished her interrupted doctoral degree, started her professorship at the department of music at Rajasthan University, and had her only planned child, for badi mummy and bade papa.
After that, the only times I saw my mother crying was when a baby appeared on TV. She would hastily leave the room, as tears would start to brake through the dam of her dutiful resolve. If I followed her out the room, she would wipe away her tears, smile weakly, and tell me to go back to watching chitrahaar, or whatever else was on TV. Other than that, family life stabilized for the three generations of humans, their furry friends, and the many daily visitors that graced the home of this motley crew. Idealistic and nurturing adults whose approval I craved aided the recovery from my rocky beginnings, and irreverent but loving siblings and friends kept me grounded.
Size Up
As I neared my teen years, my mother and I butted heads on the usual issues – fussy eating, study schedules, chores, TV rationing, and curfews. My brother and I went to the same school, and our very progressive parents taught us the same things to inculcate self-reliance, be it cycling, swimming, household chores, or grocery-runs. Instilling independence of movement in a young girl is dangerous anywhere, but particularly so in a deeply patriarchal society. Public spaces were safe and friendly when I was with my father or even younger brother, but stepping out of the house alone meant claiming public spaces that were intensely hostile to unchaperoned girls and women. At the time of course, I was not even aware of how much my class and caste privileges sheltered me from the horrors of sexual violence that my Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi, Black and Indigenous sisters are subjected to.
My mother’s advice to prepare me to appear in public spaces as a young girl was not to make eye contact with people. Then you would not even know that the lewd comment or insult was directed at you, she had explained. So, I bowed my head and walked through streets where shop owners knew generations of my family, their workers and/or sons trying to startle me with sudden noises or movement too close to me. If I quickened my pace, I heard derisive guffaws and lewd noises. If I looked at them, they hurled some insult at me, which mostly combined a reference to my dark skin and my audacity in thinking that I was the object of their attention. Walking or riding my bike alone in unfamiliar parts of the city was significantly worse.
Sometimes, I imagined that the real Kali was walking right behind me, ready to incinerate my tormentors with one murderous look of her blood-shot eyes. Yet Kali plodded on meekly behind me, never lifting her vengeful glance, reminding me of the impotence of her myth for me.
The safe bubble of private spaces was also punctured a few times – by the roving hands of a friend’s father, a visiting uncle here, a distant cousin there. From an early age thus, I tried to blend in my environment by wearing earthy colours and loose fitting clothes to hide my dark skinny body. I wore no visible enhancements to my looks, no makeup, or flashy jewellery, nor bright colours. I even embraced my parent’s preference for short hair to ward off any unwanted attention to myself.
I do not ever remember discussing any of these incidents with my mother. I believe my mother knew though. After all, she had grown up in the same environment and continued to be extremely vigilant about her surroundings even as a middle-aged woman from a privileged family. I was also a witness and participant in the everyday sexism that my mother faced at home and at work, regardless of being a university professor.
Despite being surrounded by progressive family and friends who loved to debate endlessly, we never talked about the toxic street harassment or the many benevolent forms of sexism pervading our experiences. I certainly did not have the language to communicate in a meaningful way, neither did I have the knowledge that women not being able to discuss rampant sexual bias and harassment is a global problem.
Stand up to the World
In my wide-eyed preteen years then, where both Kali and my Ma failed, a new role model stepped into my view field. Kiran Bedi, the first woman officer in the elite ranks of the Indian Police Service, was tasked with managing the notorious Delhi traffic, which had worsened as the city built nineteen sports stadium and several flyovers to host the 1982 Asian Games. Stories about Kiran (Crane) Bedi taking on the rich and the powerful for breaking traffic rules appeared regularly in newspapers and magazines.
Our household received a number of local, regional, and national dailies as well as newsmagazines. I would scour them regularly to read about Kiran Bedi’s courage in the face of intimidation and persecution. The grudging admiration of even those who hated her guts was unmistakable. Give them enough time though, and all our heroes and heroines will eventually fall.
At the time though, my 11 years-old self wanted to be just like her. We already had the same boy-cut hair and wore baggy men’s clothing. All I had to do now was to study hard to crack the highly competitive nationwide civil service exam, which was the gateway to the Indian administrative, foreign, and police services. In preparation for these exams, which were not due until after my university degree, I started studying long hours and far beyond the curriculum in middle school. It became an obsession for the next decade of my life.
Initially considering it a phase, my parents enthusiastically encouraged me to pursue higher grades and extended hours at my desk. They also learnt that they could make me do anything as long as they framed it as something that will improve my chances of succeeding in the civil service exams. It was then that I first noticed a change in my relationship with my mother.
Maybe my dogged determination reminded her of the spark of her youth, or perhaps, the sense of direction prevented me from being a total brat. Either way, as I put my heart, body, and mind into my great escape plan out of my orbit of powerlessness, I unexpectedly found a new friend in my mother.
Illuminating the Path
My mother’s first love was painting. As children though, we got into her paint supplies, and worst still, into her paintings. She finally abandoned her futile efforts to steal time and to hide her supplies/paintings when she went back to full time work. Her academic pursuit, and eventual career, was Hindustani classical music, but she struggled to find dedicated time and space for riyaaz in a household that marched to several simultaneous beats. The only creative activity she could do consistently was writing. In snatched moments long before dawn, in stolen spaces between unbending schedules, and in exhausted evenings after all her duties for the day were done, she wrote – poems, short stories, and hundreds of khayal bandish raga compositions.
Then, I felt that my mother changed from the one who nagged me all the time to study hard and help with household chores, to one who became extremely protective of my time to study and learn. Now, I understand that my extra time came at the cost of the pursuit of her own passions and talents. Her creative brilliance lay un-burnished in the hands of demanding domesticity, despite an appreciative and supportive spouse. Forgetting herself yet again, she became my greatest advocate and enabler. She also made me the first reader of her writings and helped me find my voice.
I started writing poetry, diaries, and letters to editors of newspapers and magazines, some of which got published. I participated in general knowledge quizzes and inter-school debates, and briefly tried my hands at painting and sketching. Mostly, I read. From contemporary print-media to classics from the treasure trove of our family library in the most uncomfortable room on the terrace. My book-hording grandparents had filled the long room on the terrace with makeshift bookcases that were bursting with haphazard rows of dusty books in several Indian and world languages. This ‘library’ was too hot in summers and too cold in winters by virtue of the asbestos sheets that served as its roof. If you braved the elements though, it rewarded you with adventures and insights from ancient India, to renaissance Europe, to communist Russia.
Concerned with my long retreats into books, my parents pushed me out of the safety of our curated bubble even more. At 13, I undertook my first solo 12-hour bus trip from Jaipur to Indore to spend the summer vacation in Dhar. At 14, they bought me a bicycle to ride to school and at 16, I graduated to a moped and to high school. Public sphere remained a space to navigate carefully when alone, every setback strengthening my resolve to reach where I will be untouchable. A spate of road accidents though, where I was always hit from behind, did end my days of two-wheeler driving soon after high school. Undergraduate and postgraduate years went by in a flurry of studying and exams, punctuated by carefully crafted socializing which involved overlapping circles of my parents’, brother’s and my own friends. It was now time to attempt the long awaited civil service exam.
Each year, nearly a million young men and women take the nationwide UPSC preliminary exam and only a fraction proceed to the main exam, fewer still go on to the final round of interviews, to fill less than a hundred elite Indian bureaucratic positions. Given that the pass percentage of this exam is less than 1%, my mother suggested that I should also consider enrolling in a PhD program as a possible back-up career option. To which I rudely retorted that she obviously thinks her profession is the only good one on earth.
To appease her though, along with the civil service exam, I also attempted the entrance exam for MPhil in International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), another tough to crack nationwide entrance exam held in two stages. I got through both preliminary exams and then also the JNU entrance interview. Since the three stages of the civil service exams spread over several months though, I thought it was logical to join the degree program at JNU in the meantime.
I was over the moon. My childhood dream felt within my grasp. Family and friends fretted about my parents allowing their twenty-two year old unmarried daughter to move to big bad Delhi, and that too to JNU. Someone taunted that my parents were trying to save money that they would have had to spend on my marriage, implying that I would either elope or become ‘unmarriageable’. After all, JNU’s prestige for its academic programs is only rivaled by its reputation for radical ideas and the political engagement of its students. Of course, the worst objections were reserved for the unbridled freedom of expression, mobility, life choices, and everything in between, that JNU campus offers to its own students, and others who are willing to learn.
It was also a time when my father’s printing press business was unravelling, along with his health. As his disengagement, and symptoms of Alzheimer, grew, my mother took sole captainship of a family coping with unsure fledglings learning to fly. My mother had numerous reasons – financial, social, emotional, and physical – to prevent me from going to JNU.
She watched me teary eyed, as I confidently prattled on about how I was going to use my time at JNU to work toward a civil service career. My parents dropped me off at Godavari Hostel, which was to be my home for the next three years. My stoic father showed no emotion, as always. Fighting her tears though, my mother had said, “No matter what happens to you, I am here for you.”
Looking back, I believe that sentence is the sum of our relationship. Although only now have I been able to appreciate the message inherent in those words. You see, on top of all her other concerns was her fear for my safety. She was not denying the dangers of the world for a young woman, but instead of using them to “hide within her heart”, or within the en-caging safety of home/traditions/culture/customs, she was sending me out to battle with them. It was not a free pass though as I was still expected to do the work, but it was an acknowledgment that there will always be situations and outcomes that are beyond my control for which she will not blame me. Most importantly, she was offering me the ultimate anchor, a home to return to, unconditionally, no matter what happened. Until her untimely demise, and even after an incredibly supporting partner came into my life, she remained that ever-welcoming, non-judgemental, deeply loving home for me.
In a world where women of all ages, classes, and castes are never immune from physical, sexual, emotional, political and other forms of violence, my mother had learnt to guide me from a place of courage and conviction, not fear. I believe it made all the difference to our relationship.
Contending with Storms
The civil service exams did not pan out, but I did finish my MPhil and enrolled in the doctoral program (perhaps in this case, mother did know best J!). Through those tough years of toiling, learning, dejection, and hardships, my mother’s unwavering support felt like a beacon as well as the shackle that kept me on the straight and narrow, mostly.
Three years later, I was married and moved to South Africa. In the ensuing decade, I finished my PhD, started my academic career in South Africa, and then moved to Canada. During the same time, my mother turned into the fulltime caregiver of my father, was diagnosed with metastasizing late-stage colon cancer, and retired from Rajasthan University.
After my father’s demise in 2005, while contending with chemo, radiation therapies, and multiple surgeries, my mother rediscovered her art supplies, recorded two CDs of her compositions despite limited lung capacity, published seven out of the nine books that she wrote in the stolen moments of her dutiful life, all while volunteering for multiple social justice causes. Imagine her creative productivity if she had more time for herself, and not just in the last five years of her life!
Of all the things my mother (and father) did to help me find my words and passions, I am most grateful for their unwavering alliance. It came with a condition of reciprocity though, as long as I put in my best effort, I could count on their support, regardless of the outcome. I think I learnt from them about rights/responsibilities and social contract as much as I did from political thinkers. It also raised my expectations from all relationships – with my partner, family, friends, colleagues, community, or with myself.
A decade since her demise, my bond with my mother continues to feel palpable. The strength I derived from her alliance has given me the courage to walk away from toxic relationships, to nurture loving relationships, to believe that I deserve respect, to trust the love of those around me, and to make life choices based on my conviction and not social pressure. Nowadays, my recurring fantasy is to one day join the ranks of dangerous women, like my mothers and grandmother, who use their unique positionality to make space for those who are silenced and erased.
May we all find nurturing allies and may we be one, not only for those whose dreams are disregarded, but also for those who do not yet know that they may dream.
Meenal (December 4, 2020)
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