Blue Christmas

 Tomorrow is December 21. The day of the winter solstice it is. The night will be the longest and the day, as a corollary, the. shortest. In the day/date itself is thus inured a sense of sorrow, of deep sadness because we always associate the night with darkness, despair, depressed feel, the down and out mood, in brief.

 Since 1990 hence, every December 21 is observed what is known as the 'blue Christmas'.  Blue as a colour is often associated with grief and sadness. It is also a symbol of the infinite skies and the interminable oceans together creating the indestructible horizon.

In the spoken, the typical native speaker way, version of English, there are, however, very many expressions that indicate the sadness, the blue  that we often associate with unstated unhappiness.

December 21 is the day dedicated to the pre-Christmas purging of all  these griefs, grievances, grumblings, and so on, hoarded over the year.  Rather like the "michchami dukkadam" by the Jain community is this blue christmas day.

Given the twenty-first century unhappiness-es of multiple varieties, such a day is indeed the need of the hour, eh, nay, of every Christmas so that on that day, on December 25,  there is sheer happiness everywhere.

Pratima@ New times require new rituals and different paradigms! 

For me, however, every  twenty-first is always blue as it marks the mensual death anniversary of Papa! I always keep a fast each and every twenty-first.

Human Rights

 Human rights are actually as old as the French Revolution, though formally they were assigned a day, December 10, in 1948. Why is December 10 so important? On this day is declared the Nobel Peace Prize every year and the UN Prize in the field of Human Rights every five years.

Yes, in an unequal world after the cruel history of colonization and after the horrendous two world wars and the very many crimes against humanity committed therein, human rights are indeed important. After 1945, too, many heinous crimes against humanity have continued world wide. Hence the need for the annual remembrance.

Let us take the rights such as fair election and peaceful assembly. Look at how they are mocked at in our own country. When the results go in favour of your favourite party, the EVM and the VVPAT are the best. Otherwise, they are villains much worse than all the baddies of Bollywood!

Look at Markadwadi. The bizzare decision to conduct their own voting by ballot paper is as much against the constitution as the scaling of the Red Fort during the farmer agitation or currently the climbing atop the North Gate. There is the Supreme Court to decide such issues. Otherwise, such ugly demonstrations are nothing short of the Capitol attack in the U.S.!

Human dignity, irrespective of differences due to gender, ethnicity, race, class, region, religion, language, caste, matters the most. That is the essence of the concept called human rights. Huge need right now to preserve them as the capital and the deep state stampede over them across nation states. Hence the importance of the basic human rights. 

Pratima@ Actually, the 'pasaydaan' of 'Dnyaneshwari' is some proof of how universally and uniquely human rights have been thought of in our own country, nay, state!

Parenting Styles

 Remember some time back in the U.S , there was a huge furore over a Chinese mother's child rearing techniques. In the wake of that debate emerged fanciful terms such as helicopter mother, hothouse parent, and so on. Well, these days, next to being a teacher, if there is any other role equally difficult, it is being a parent. You cannot chide or control the ward in any way, while you alone would be considered responsible, if anything goes wrong.

So let us discuss major parenting styles which apply, rather, stick, quite well to student management as well. The first one is the neglectful. Such a parent is least concerned about the child's behaviour. Such a mom, for example, would allow the child anything and everything so long as her own mobile or kitty party or versions thereof or travel time is not curtailed!

Next comes the permissive parent. This laissez-faire personality pampers the child silly. The brat can be up to anything, can insult anyone, this type of father will give a knowing, indulgent smile as if the child has achieved some great smartness.

Next come the authoritative parents. They now belong to history books. This type was the 1940's style, or rather the "Aawara" style of parenting. None would even dare to think of it now.

In my opinion, the best style of parenting, or even of student management, is the authoritarian. Yes, there are certain rules of "this far and no further" variety. The ward knows the set boundaries ( arrived at through open and regular sharing of opinions) that must not be crossed for one's own good. There is never harsh punishment, but lots of praise and rewards for even a minor achievement. A conscientious attempt is thus made for the all-round, non-impulsive growth of the ward. Thus were my parents.

Well, there has to be some discipline as children do not drop down from the heaven as ready-made-for-the-world kind of adults. They need to be spruced up, right? Over- smartness, arrogance, vicious malicious behaviour have to be curtailed. Otherwise, such individuals would be a torture for everybody who has the misfortune of coming in to contact with them! Independence is indeed valuable. Children as they grow up must, however, be made to realise that with great independence comes great responsibility, right?

My parents brought us up thus, and I am eternally grateful to them for thus making us better individuals.

Pratima@For the first, and the last, time the blog reaches you this very late. Sorry about it! My parents most indirectly taught us both: punctuality and saying 'sorry,' if one makes a mistake!

N.B.: The mobile phone, too, needs some control, for the user as well as for the person who reads, or intercepts, messages. If you read something, like or dislike it, why not have the courage of showing that you read it? Just now, someone read this message. Well, I realised that there was a spelling error. So opened the blog again. The interceptor had made the vanishing trick! Ha, ha, ha!

A unique tradition

 Can the sound of a word reflect its meaning? Sure it can. This auditory figure of speech is known as 'onomatopoeia'. English is full of many such words. Let me share a Marathi word today. 'Dhundur'. What mental picture does it create? It echoes something misty, slightly vague, a little mysterious, right? Yes, that is the visual, the look of the early morning in the 'Dhundur mass' so aptly named.

Like the Chaturmas, this month, too, is not to be located in any formal calendar. This folk festival is 'celebrated', indeed, it is a wonderful celebration, after the Margashirsha Pournima till Sankranti. Basically it is rooted in the agrarian tradition. 

Around this time, the farmer is comparatively free. So families celebrate this together time by lighting a bonfire with the useless remains of the earlier 'kharip' season, dry shoots, et al. They 'chitchat', to use an Indianism, sing and eat a special breakfast. Rest time, in brief.

My parents made it a happy time for us in the urban context, too. Papa used to bring home heaps of green peas (mutter). The 'harbhara pendi' (fresh from the farm) used to be literally a daily taste. 'Hurda', berries, sugarcane pieces, groundnut peas with jaggery used to be in abundance at home. Fresh sugarcane juice he used to bring while returning home in the evening. To it, Aai used to add lemon juice and grated ginger. Heavenly the drink used to be.

'Kakvi' (an offshoot of the process of jaggery making) with dollops of ghee used to be the standard sweet in the evening. Aai used to make lovely 'amboli's', while her 'bajra' khichdi with ghee and curd-groundnut chutney, lemon pickle and papad as side dishes used to create the divine "all is well with the world" mood. What happy days! 

Pratima@I do try most of these at home. For all of us, every winter, I make matar usal (it never has the taste of the Aai special, however much I emulate her recipe) and gajar ka halwa. The win(n)ter, the 'dhundhur' feel!

The cuppa that cheers!

 It is a misty morning. The sun, too, seems to be refusing to come out of the blanket of clouds. But we have promises to keep with the wall clock that ticks faster than the forever flowing traffic leading us to our various assignments.

Given such existential compulsions, what can get us out of bed, and ready to face the merciless world? For most people, it would be the cuppa that cheers. Yes, a cup of tea! What is this magic potion that most sip the first thing in the morning? 

A concoction of boiling hot water, tea leaves, lemon grass and ginger, while sugar and milk are optional. For most people, it is the true tonic that strengthens. No wonder, there are 'tea-holicks' who drink cups after cups throughout the day which is actually bad for health, given the tanin in tea.

Let us look at another scenario. It is drizzling. The very climate pushes you to eat a plateful of bhajji's, need not necessarily be the onion variety. Which is the cuppa that goes with it? No guesses! For most people, it would be the cuppa that cheers. Yes, a cup of tea!

No wonder, the Japanese have an elaborate tea ceremony that artistically celebrates the drinking of tea. These days, however, tea seems to compete with the varieties of cheese in France. For the real relisher of this wonder drink, such variants as the lemon tea, mint tea, cold tea may not matter much though. They would rather say,"wah, the typical tea"!

Every house has its own taste of tea. Many households, like mine, associate drinking tea with subtle rules of growing up. We never were allowed to drink tea as children, while there are families where even a one year old drinks tea. Each to his/her own, I suppose.

True, Assam to Munnar, India has huge tea estates that have their own colonial histories, too. Yet, whichever might the type you brew, dust to leaves, for many amongst us, tea is a must, tea is the best. No wonder, December 15 is the World Tea Day!

Pratima@Despite this "tea puran" with its "glory be to tea" mantra, I love my coffee the most, though an occasional (not to forget the concessional, that is to say, when one is not at home, but is a guest)  tea or two once upon a time is not a strict no-no!

The dark night of the soul

 Recently was celebrated the Raj Kapoor film festival as part of the centenary celebrations. The most interesting of the RK films in my opinion is "Jagte Raho", a brilliant dystopian satire on the big city life in a period when metros were not even conceptualised.

This critique of capitalism wherein everything and anything, including human beings and relationships, are mere commodities with a price tag, is a look at urban realities from the innocent perspective of a villager who witnesses all the idiocies of the so-called upper class bourgeois life.

Based on a Bengali play produced by the IPTA, and directed by Shombhu Mitra, the film is yet another brilliant example of the fifties' superb connect of the Hindi films with the Bengali sensitive intellectual artistry. 

In the Hindi version, too, Mitra continues to be the director. He is the scriptwriter as well, while the dialogues are by A.K. Abbas. If the screenplay by Mitra is a searing critique, the songs written by Shailendra and Prem Dhawan bring out in to sharp focus the irony the film intends. The Salil Chowdhury music uses folk forms to intensify the critical view of the city life. Raghu Karmakar's brilliant black-n-white cinematography captures the dark night of the soul of a nascent nation.

Raj Kapoor has produced this film, which was a huge risk to take, as it is not a typical love triangle, et al, that his filmography excels at. The social criticism, mutant/indirect in his other films, is 'in the face' in this film.

He enacts his typical 'Raju' character in an effective mimicry of the Charlie Chaplin common man, here dressed in a short dhoti. In fact, there are any number of Chaplinesque effects echoing in the film. Indeed, it would not be wrong to say that this RK film shows how mainstream cinema can effectively be as intense as the then parallel art cinema of the Ray-Ghatak variety.

Of course, there are concessions to the Raj Kapoor mode such as the topless Nargis, clothes clinging most suggestively, singing the great "Jago Mohan" bhajan at the end. Despite such co-opting by the pop art, the film continues to be a classic in multiple ways. A must watch, in brief!

Pratima@ Just as Raj Kapoor made social criticism easily palatable for the common man, the tabla maestro, Zakir Hussain, made 'popular' the tough art of  playing the tabla. A great contribution his was to classical music. May his soul rest in peace!

Men's Melancholy

 The tragic news on an otherwise bubbly social media is the suicide by Atul Subhash, an I/T employee, with AI specialisation, at Bangalore. I am not sure of it but, most probably, he hanged himself. Before committing suicide, he wrote a detailed (apparently twenty-two pages long) suicide note. A detailed video of some ninety minutes and a detailed checklist of activities to be accomplished before the final good-bye are doing the rounds of the social media.

I have not checked either as there are extremely ugly details about personal preferences, et al, which nauseate me because it is the peeping Tom mentality which I have always found disgusting. Why unnecessarily interfere in others' lives about which we do not really know much, right?

 Yet, on the basis of the details available in the media, the techie's tragic end  raises many issues. The first obviously is the judge's behaviour. Asking for bribes, otherwise prolonging the case by giving 'tarikh pe tarikh', laughing at the man's plight when the wife publically taunts him "to die" are hardly activities befitting a legal luminary. If found guilty of these nefarious activities, she deserves a sack.

Just as one expects more sensitivity from a female judge, one is equally bamboozled by the menacingly mercenary behaviour of the  wife. Asking for eighty thousand rupees for the upbringing of a two-year old in a two/three-tier city like Jaunpur, asking for crores as alimony even while getting a big fat salary herself are clear indicators of treating the husband as a human ATM!

It is unfortunate that many women think of marriage as a convenience. Well, the society cannot point fingers at you even when you have extra-marital flings on the sly, or openly, as you can always gloss over anything and everything as 'professional behaviour', as ' professional activity', et al.

Yes, women do misuse the anti-dowry act. Yes, women do allow extreme interference, especially by their mothers. Yes, they do misbehave most maliciously  with the in-laws. Yes, they do not want any responsibility, but all the pleasures of all sorts at their beck and call. 

Luckily, now the in-laws are not immediately arrested. Earlier so was the case. Moreover, the husband had to sui motto prove HIS innocence. Many women did take most undue advantage of all possible loopholes, and ruined the reputations of the entire in-law families. Now it is not that easy for scheming wives to live off the alimony, while the husband and his family face living hell due to such machinations. 

When a relationship dies, is it okay to milk it to one's own advantage? It is neither feminine nor humane!

Pratima@The real tragedy is that the media glare thus attained hides more menacingly the harassment, physical abuse many daughters-in-law suffer in the mofussil as well as urban(e) areas. Most mothers-in-law treat the new woman in the son's life as an intense threat. In brief, instead of the male or the female versions, we require a human(e) society!