I hear many voices. Or is my entity the summation of the voices? Am I what Jung called the collective unconsciousness? Do I exist? Does it matter?
Perhaps not to you, reader, as what I have to tell is not my story. I narrate the interspersed narratives that have come to become me. A narrator and witness to the unfolding lives, a listener to the unspoken voices, a mind that houses the stilled thoughts.
Like time I watch, I walk, I continue, I wonder. I present to you an amalgamation of moments stolen from stories of humanity in the present, each story with its own protagonist, with its own plot. The diverse moments are united with one storyline echoed in the questions that bubble up in each vignette. Here is an attempt to showcase the many but similar, if not the same, storylines.
Voice 1: A little child running, not in delight but fright, not with her legs but in her thoughts, trying to erase the taste of reality on her skin. Her body frozen, her breath held, her gaze blind. Her ears booming with the parting words, "Bye Ammu, bye chinna, see you soon, study well… only two more months and the holidays begin. It’s for your own good, finish school and tomorrow you will become a very important person."
Tomorrow! That poor child didn’t know how to get through today, in fact tonight. Her parents did leave her for her good, maybe in their minds it equated out, but what about the child’s mind? At the risk of sounding judgmental I have a question: so if for your good somebody subjects you to not-so-good experiences, is that okay?
Voice 2: "Sundays you can take it easy, you can get up by 8. In our house the men eat first. I don’t like to disturb the master of the house on a Sunday morning, because I know how hard he works on the other days, out of the door with the first rays of the Sun."
Interestingly, these words were spoken to the newly wed daughter-in-law, not a house help, though the same sentence could be used for the latter as well. Interestingly, the daughter-in-law was employed too and in fact was up even earlier preparing for her work-day and making breakfast as the rest of the household slept. So, in fact, out before the first rays of the Sun.
Probably what’s most intriguing was her silent acceptance of the instructions; she probably looked at it like another challenge that she needed to conquer to prove her ability, yet again! Poor girl, she did not realise this was not a challenge with a finish line, where a coronation awaited the winner. But a script, deciding her way of life itself!
Voice 3: "Is it okay, can I ask him to wait? Well, you see, the whole wedding is followed by a string of pujas and am not sure I would feel up to it. I spoke with him, but he said we will see, when the moment comes let’s decide."
These were the words of a 28-year-old employee who had learnt that her decisive actions at the bank had earned her a promotion and a stint abroad. Both of which, she was now letting go of, in order to settle with and into her new family.
Leaving a job for family is a personal decision, I understand, but isn’t your body and its experiences in an intimate relationship also a very personal decision? And so your comfort and discomfort are paramount. Does settling mean you settle into the back seat in decisive situations?
Voice 4: "Not tonight, it’s not safe."
Oh, this one is a winner. Women empowerment, feminism, bow out. White lie and diplomacy rule the bed, where the most worldly empowered women in the ‘safe’ space of marriage prefer to hand out this line (even euphemistically) rather than saying –"I just don’t feel like it".
Agreed, I don’t have hard evidence to back up my opinion. So let me ask you: if you fit the demographics of a married woman, how many times have you assertively and without guilt refused perhaps a rightful but ill-timed overture in bed with your intimate wedded partner?
Voice 5: "She is so dark, so fat and so short. Who will marry her?" Thus spoke a short, fat and the ambiguous complexioned (read wheatish) grandmother with genuine concern to her 10-year-old granddaughter amidst a room full of people who heard it like they heard the whirring of the fan.
Nobody seemed to question, let alone correct, the distortion in the statement or in the selection of the target for the statement. Nobody seemed to talk to the granddaughter, who too learned to be silent to the words but not to the loudness of the implication of the words, like the adults around her. And nobody remembered their silence when, ten years hence, the granddaughter spent time and money behind the range of illusive products on the shelf and services in the gyms to correct her flaws. Now nobody kept their silence but made judgmental remarks about how beauty was not skin deep or fat-centric, and marriage was not merely a physical attraction. Alas! This time the grown-up granddaughter actually silenced both the words and its implications.
Voice 6: "We can’t keep the child at home, what if she soils the sofa. We’ll pay more if you want. There is a hostel where you can keep her, it’s better for both of you. You can work peacefully and rest and she will have the right (age) company to play with as well".
Wow! Such an empathetic strategist, how easily the solution for a cleaner sofa became an uplifter of quality of life for the employed. Would the solution stand if the child belonged to the one who owned the sofa and not the one who would clean the sofa? Does economic disparity enlist you to pay an emotional ransom of separating from your child?
Voice 7: "So this is R, a very good student, a teacher’s delight and a divine blessing for his parents, especially us middle-class parents. Even his younger brother K studies here, bright kid but somehow not like R, more into sports, if only he could use the same energy and concentration here, his parents would be less worried. Anyways they have R, God always balances".
Hmm… so you can score more in studies, by applying concentration and energy from sports. So if K can become R, can R become K on the same principle? And being a good student has everything to do with marks alone? So middle class parents educate children as they invest in financial plans that mature into safe retirement option? So financial security is only what education is supposed to lead to? And can teachers’ label an R as the blessing and a K as a bane?
Voice 8: "The food will spoil soon, give it to the maid, at least it won’t go for a waste."
So a maid and her family can substitute for a disposal system? Should our shallow act be accompanied with an attitude of grandiosity or an apologetic undertone?
"So this is your glass and this is your plate, you can keep it there by the sink."
Oh! This I never really got, not that I get much of what I witness, so it falls right into place. But really, think about it. So the pair of hands is good enough to clean, cook, but somehow the cutlery she uses needs to be different because one of you carries an infectious disease? Hmmm, is prejudice infectious?
Voice 9: "Close your mouth, don’t show your teeth and now everybody say cheese and look happy." "Fine, now all of you shut up, and smile for the pic."
Well, I don’t remember much of semantic history, but maybe the need to capture a picture was probably inspired by the idea of capturing a moment, a moment that existed that you may not be able to re-live but at least revisit. Than a moment that was orchestrated that highlights what lacked the reality. But increasingly the moments that are captured are scripted more than lived. As though people are actively creating a parallel life to the one they are living, where all they want and desire is built unadulterated by the reality of their lives. So the idea of - capture for eternity what was - serves also the purpose of capturing what was desired but remained unfulfilled. So if I don’t like the tale, I just orchestrate the way it is showcased." A kind of VFX effect for everyday life. But somewhere in this tide of touching up reality are we propagating the idea of - if you don’t have FAKE it!?
Voice 10: "Should I confront? I know all he is doing is looking. But why am I feeling so dirty, why am I feeling guilty? Why do I feel ashamed? Why do I have to cover-up? What should I cover-up this time? If I confront him, what do I say? What will he say or do? If I create a scene, will other people interfere, whose side will they be on? On which side will my own mom and aunt who are standing next to me be on? Especially when they keep telling me it is common and that I need to learn to ignore it. It will always happen, they say, how many people will you fight they ask? And what if it gets uglier, such people can go to any extent, they warned me….So I am supposed to be a coward, I certainly feel like one. Yes I can’t fight with every eye that gazes on, but shouldn’t I at least keep fighting as an option and not just silence, maybe I will feel less of a coward? Yes, he can fall to any extent because he has nothing to lose. And so along the same lines shouldn’t I too go to any extent because I am the one who is losing?"
Poor girl! All someone had to do was look and she put herself through so much thinking. She should probably take her mum and aunt’s advice, experienced women. To, choose one’s battles. After all, self-respect is a battle where you draw boundaries, so sometimes re-draw them to accommodate others’ trespassing? Who is affected but you, who cares but you, so make it your choice to look away. It is after all much easier to cover up, or ignore until the looker does more than looking, saves time and effort. Doesn’t it?
Sometimes I wonder how the looker must be thinking at the same time. Does he ask himself such morally inclined questions? Does he realise the turmoil he causes in the ‘object’ of his gaze? Or does it even matter how he justifies it in his head, his private space? Or do we need to ask a larger contextual question, of why a civilized system holds victims responsible for perpetrator’s actions?
Voice 11: "How can you support her, how long have you known her, how could you believe her word over mine …. just because you have studied a few books, does not mean you know life better." "But of course you will believe them, blood is thicker than water. So if you guys needed a maid and a cook, why did they get you married to someone who aspired beyond domestic ambitions?"
Poor guy, so he hears the words, he understands the loyalties, but fails to take a stand because interestingly, choosing one means rejecting the other instantaneously. A difference in perspectives morphs into a war of loyalties. Avoidance of a decision is misattributed to lack of love and even ingratitude. If marriage is supposed to propagate the sacredness of a family, how come it plays out as a nemesis of the same? When marriage is about a family tree branching out, how come the branch is viewed and pruned as a threat to the very root of the family? If the new branch was indeed a threat, then why add?
Voice 12: Now this is me speaking for you. There must be several questions in your mind and heart. I will arrogantly attempt to mind-read you and answer the questions.
Perhaps the first question would be about the plot and also the title of the story - ‘incognisable’ transgressions – that unites many storylines. Apparently every civilisation has a discernible legal system, with prescribed recourses for cognizable offences. But many instances of transgression bubble away before the threshold of an offence is reached. These ‘incognisable’ transgressions go unacknowledged and unhindered. Because most, if not all, the myriad ‘incognisable’ instances of transgressions play out in small contexts of personal spaces, affecting probably one or at most a handful.
Will ‘incognisable’ transgressions be rendered insignificant and inconsequential just because they have smaller contextual relevance? Yes, a personal context is but a drop in the ocean. But doesn’t every drop make an ocean? The significance given to an individual life determines the quality of a civilisation at large. Reminds me of the metaphor of the butterfly effect. Could the ‘incognisable’ transgressions not bubble away into oblivion but be a precursor to an oncoming tempest? Or simply like the bard said, all cognisable offences and ‘incognisable’ transgressions are merely like life itself: "…. all sound and fury signifying nothing".
The second question could probably be the over-representation of a gender as the choice of protagonist. Does that mean the other gender goes through it less? Well, the answer is that I don’t know. As I introduced myself before, I only represented a slice of what has come to be me. For me the gender is nothing but a contextual (social) identity.
But I will understand your interest in asking whether the under-representation of one gender makes them the oppressors. I would say an assertive no, of what I have come to witness and comprehend about humanity. No one person is so strong as to be an oppressor, or no one person so weak as to be the victim especially, repeatedly.
I find most protagonists like the rest of humanity trying to shoulder the larger intangible system they keep trying to figure out and work in. It takes a defiant few to understand that they are being played on a larger stage, step out and write their own roles. The protagonist who chooses the road less travelled is often riddled with questions. Questioning the ‘why’ of the system and many a times re-scripting an alternative (system) by asking why not.
How this story will end and whether it would end at all, I don’t know. But it most certainly will evolve. It usually does.
sowmya_puttaraju@rediffmail.com
