A Letter from Ladakh

13^th August 2011

 

Dear Chintan,

 

Some days ago, I was at Pangong Tso. Pangong is a lake, a large saltwater lake. I heard some days ago that the lake is not very deep. The waters were blue, green and clear at different spots, reminding me of my first visit to Robben Islands in Cape Town in 1999 where I was awed at the different colours that the sea assumed in the course of its course. There is no fish in Pangong lake, as I was also told some days later. We only saw a mother duck swimming with her babies and a few insect-like fish. Also, there is no boating permitted on the lake. This is because Pangong Tso is a border area where India border with China and for security reasons, no activity is permitted on the lake.

 

Before we went to Pangong, I had briefly heard stories of how the lake is so beautiful and how it borders with China (which means bordering with Tibet occupied by China). On the evening when we reached Pangong, Kiran was told that he could walk only six kilometers around the lake after which the borders started and he would not be allowed to go any further. Kiran later explained that perhaps the international border actually must be starting 20 kilometers after the six kilometer boundary that the locals were speaking about …

 

The next day morning, we motorcycled around the lake and perhaps went only so far as three odd kilometers. A jeep ahead of us went much further, to the point which is now famously known as the spot where the last scene of the movie Three Idiots was shot. I asked Kiran to wait till the jeep came to a stop. I wanted to see how far the jeep could go and what, if anything, could stop it. Kiran asked me whether I wanted to go further and see. Given the mud track through which he would have to ride, he contended that perhaps what lay ahead was only this vast expanse of the lake and nothing else. I said I did not want to go further, though there was a very strong longing in me to go further and hit the border and see how the border was made and what lay across the border (as far as my eyes and mind could reach). We stood for some more time till the jeep halted. Then Kiran reminded me that a long journey back to Leh lay ahead of us and that we needed to start soon. I sat on the bike with a lump in my throat. I felt like crying, wanting to reach the border and yet wanting to let this longing to remain so that it would haunt me to come back, some day, perhaps soon. There was also an emotion of intrigue and curiosity in that lump in my throat. Longing-desire-curiosity-intrigue – perhaps a combination of these and some other raw emotions is what makes me yearn to travel borders, borders that are etched on landed territory and borders that are mapped on our minds and persons.

 

At that moment, I could not help but think of my first visit to Bangladesh which I was to undertake by crossing the border at Bonga, via Kolkatta. I reached Kolkatta a couple of days in advance, back in 2003. Bhaskar, my host, introduced me to his friends and family as the girl who is going to Bangladesh. And with each introduction came the exclamation from each of his friends – “we live so close to the border and yet we have never been ‘there’ (i.e. Bangladesh) and you come from Bombay to go ‘there’.” They would then applaud my courage to travel this far. I, on the other hand, would be left with perceiving the strong borders that were etched and living in their minds, consciousness, persons and identity – the landed borders which we internalize over time and carve it in our identities which make nearby places seem so farther away …

 

I also remembered, when the lump appeared in my throat, the times when I had come close to Pakistani borders in my travels to Rajasthan and I had felt similar emotions and other primordial ones that I have no labels for. This time around too, I came close to Pakistani borders when rafting in the Zanskar and reaching the lower Indus. The Swiss-Israeli-Russian-Polish gentleman in our rafting team said in jest to everyone: “If your boat crosses lower Indus river, you shall be in Pakistan.” At that moment, I felt like snatching his passport and putting my photograph on it and sailing into Pakistan via the Lower Indus – somehow, the joke did not go down well with me because I perhaps know what a struggle it may be for me to get a visa to Pakistan to travel there unlike what it would be for this Swiss-Israeli-Russian-Polish gentleman with his Swedish passport …

 

Borders – they always intrigue me Chintan. And they intrigue me more and more as I come across people who have inherited and internalized lines of tradition, religion and culture – lines which they are afraid to cross because they fear what lies ahead. Landed borders such as the one we share with Pakistan have been internalized and are being reproduced through a complex equation with these simultaneous borders of tradition, nationality, religion, culture and other worldviews and paradigms. We make sense of our world through these labels and notions and create the boundaries and borders around ourselves. These boundaries and borders then become our comfort zones which we are hesitant to step out of because of the fear that perhaps stepping across the line may bring discomfort, may shake the foundations of our worlds and comforts, and lead us to ask uncomforting and disturbing questions …

 

With borders – geographical, drawn along lines of identity, community and practices – comes the practice of marking. Anything that does not conform to the norm and the normal practices is marked as ‘deviant’. For instance, the border between what different cultures consider clean and unclean and if you do something that is not in conformity with the ideals and notions of cleanliness, you are marked as ‘unclean’. Sometimes communities and groups are marked as ‘unclean’, like squatters and street vendors. Their seemingly ‘unclean’ habits are repeatedly marked as deviant to the extent where law is invoked to either ‘sanitize’ them or to ‘sanitize’ the surroundings which they are ‘polluting’ through their practices. With borders comes marking and with marking and borders enter the notion and practices of ‘law’, ‘legality’ and ‘illegality’. This insight occurred to me as we moved away from Pangong lake and started towards Leh. There is much to be said about this dynamic, but I will leave it at only this, here …

 

With borders, there is marking, recording and archiving – funny beasts that I can sometimes laugh at and sometimes rue! To travel to Pangong Tso, as well as to Nubra Valley and a couple of other destinations in Ladakh, you have to obtain and produce what is known as the ‘Internal Line of Permit’. I want you ponder over these words (and this legal boundary) – ‘internal’ ‘line’ ‘of’ ‘permit’ – and tell me what you think of it, at some point later. The ‘Internal Line of Permit’ is a government document which can be obtained within a day or two by producing a ‘valid photo identity’ such as a PAN card or a Driving License, or some other such identity card issued, authorized and recognized by the Government of India. Once issued, the travel agent makes several photocopies of the “Internal Line of Permit” because you have to produce and submit these at different check points during your journey. We submitted the original document at Karu which is where one of the internal boundary lines within Ladakh begins. The Kashmiri police officer at Karu, sitting with his legs stretched on the window (from where he watches and whistles out to vehicles and their drivers to stop) asked us to note down our vehicle number on the permit document.

Earlier, we had hired the motorcycle from a shop in Leh where the surety that we left behind was the original copy of Kiran’s PAN Card (in addition to the hire charges which we paid in advance). The shop owner asked us to fill out a form which he dutifully kept along with several older, previously filled out, forms. Many people, not just the government, appear to be maintaining records in today’s times – records of identity, identification and activities!

At Thangsay, the last checkpoint before you proceed to Pangong Tso, you have to submit another photocopy of your ‘permit’. Here, the officer makes an entry into a register and issues a serial number against your name. You have to remember this serial number because you have to say it out to the officer on your return and then sign in the column against the number indicating that you have ‘returned’ back from Pangong Tso. When we did this on our return, I wondered how many such mundane registers the officials and the respective administrative/security institution must be hoarding/holding and from how many years. Will there ever be a museum of these registers, in some nearby or distant future/s? Will these registers ever turn into some kind of archives if and when the ‘future’ and ‘fate’ of J&K were ever to be decided? And if so, what kind of archive would this be? Even if there were no ‘formal’ ‘institutional’ archive of these registers, what kinds of trails would these registers have or would produce for different groups of people and identities? I cannot help but obsessively think about these registers, these paper documents like “Internal Line of Permit”, and such other official documents and practices and wonder what becomes of identities, of borders, and subsequently of the institution of the ‘state’ ‘the law’ and ‘legality’ as time passes, as regimes change, and as generations die down and emerge …

 

As we started leaving Pangong Tso, Kiran explained to me that the Chinese are building roads in the border areas to claim more and more territory. He said that the Chinese are at an advantage because they are doing the road building activity in the winters. The Indian government, it developmental agencies and the armed forces are unable to match up with this Chinese winter advantage. Kiran also explained that the Chinese are nearing completion of the railway line to Tibet which is why the Indian government is rushing with its railway project in J&K region. All of these ‘developmental’ ‘activities’, on each side of the border, raises the perception of threat of the other mainly because each side perceives the other as an ‘aggressor’ who is committing insurgency in the other’s national borders and taking away land and territory. At the beginning of this journey, Chintan, I had started reading about Jordan’s history and had found that Israeli government was constantly encouraging agricultural activity, building of settlements and cultivation in the territories that it had occupied from Jordan in the war in ’67. Such ‘settlement’ activities establish the Israeli de facto claim over ‘property’ and ‘land’, thereby weakening Jordan’s plea for return to the ‘original’ boundary lines of ’67.

As I think over what I have read of Jordan and now this conflicting and contentious relation between India and China, I also think that borders are chameleon-like and that if we were to widen the horizons of our thoughts, borders also force us to think of the notions of ‘the original’, ‘fakes’ and ‘history’. Chintan, are borders, in this respect, ‘generative’? I can’t help but admit that borders are highly double-edged. They separate your history from mine, they change the courses of past, present and futures within the same generation and across successive generations. There is no doubt that even if we were hopeful that borders teach us that identities are imposters and malleable, borders also simultaneously freeze certain notions of identities and give rise to violent responses and reactions. I think of Palestine and Kashmir here and wonder what the border conflicts which have now turned into identity conflicts have done to the myriads and generations of youth … What hope can we then nurse, Chintan, given this double-edged nature of borders?

 

It has been a really long letter thus far Chintan, but I hope you will pursue in reading it for some more because there is much to tell of borders. We are living in the household of a Ladakhi family. In the first couple of days of our stay, one of the ladies in the house had some trouble figuring out the relationship between Kiran and me. So one day, when I stepped out into their garden to uproot/pluck some vegetables for making dinner, she finally asked Kiran: “Is Zainab your girlfriend?” Kiran said, “No, she is my wife.” She then asked, “How? Are you Muslim?” Kiran said “no!” She then asked, “how come you are married?” She took a while to understand our interreligious marriage. Over the days, she queried about each of our religious beliefs and perhaps tried to settle the equation which was not conforming to the cultural and geographical borders in her mind and her everyday living. Such are borders Chintan, very funny creatures. I have no doubt in my head that even as I condemn the violence that borders can wreath upon us, they are also generative. And I hope that we remain ever mindful of their generative capacity, even as we decry them and ask for un-policing and de-regulating borders …

 

You may now be wondering what kind of a city Leh is and what kind of a region Ladakh is. It is desert and mountains, largely mountainous. This terrain brings in the ‘insularity’ that tends to be associated with the peoples of the mountains. Insularity because it is not easy to travel across the mountains to the plains (given the treacherous climatic and road conditions) and so, peoples of the plains and the mountains can only imagine what it may be on each side … In the midst of these mountains and deserts are the rivers Indus and Zanskar. It is mainly the Indus which is the life giving body in this region. Wherever it flows and wherever people are able to arrest the flows of water, there you find greenery, cultivation and settlement of a certain kind (there are also settlements in the desert, though very stray from what I have seen so far). Each time I think of the Indus river, of settlement and of rivers in general, my mind goes back again to the notion and practices of borders because as much as borders are etched in land, they are also created by turning/blocking the courses of water bodies. Alice Albinia, in her brilliant book “The Empires of The Indus” has spoken so eloquently, beautifully and politically of how the life of the River Indus is linked so closely to the history and the present of the conflicts between India and Pakistan, and to the overall history of the region which comprises Pakistan, Tibet, perhaps Afghanistan and China. When you think of the watercourses and flows and then you start to explore how courses and flows have been deliberately tweaked and turned to enforce the boundaries of nationhood, you start to think how violent borders are. But yet so, in the course of turning courses and flows, histories are being created and multiplied. And as much as histories are being created and multiplied, so also our interpretation of them and the transmissions of these interpretations open up new avenues of identity forging, foregoing, creating and making … I continue to remain hopeful here, Chintan, despite whatever criticisms may come my way …

 

I have, in this journey so far, been subjected to my own self-created and self-imposed borders and have been compelled to cross them. The Ladakhi family we stay with have two dry toilets which have to be used by ‘tourists’ and family members alike. This is because there is a water problem in Ladakh and flushing toilets involves enormous wastage of water. Further, the dry toilets are very generative, when built according to local conditions, because the shit is converted into manure through processes and treatments with soil, cow dung, hay and other forms of waste and manure. It is not easy, or so I believe, to get used to a dry toilet in the first instance because our cultures (however diverse they may be) predominantly perpetuate very strong notions and opinions about shit, hygiene, genitalia and cleanliness. In some cultures, it is too personal to even publicly discuss about the use of toilet paper versus washing your own anus after having shat/shit. It was similarly so disdainful and painful for me to visit the dry toilet the first morning to relieve myself. There is a particular kind of smell in the dry toilet, not the toxic kind that you may find in public toilets in cities, but a certain kind that takes some getting used to. Then again, just shitting down a square hole seems somewhat out-of-place, in the beginning. But what perhaps got me to cross this border of disdain and flush toilet paradigm was the act of using the shovel to pour dust and the mix of cow dung and hay over your poop. Somehow, this act seemed to evoke the sublime in me, the sublime that I tend to feel during each run that I mile, every time. The very act of putting dust over your own poop seemed generative enough for me to get over the borders that I had internalized in my mind and person. I am not sure how I feel about them when I return back to the city and to the flush toilets, but I remain here, so …

 

There are two more vignettes which you must know of. The Bihari barber who chopped off my hair in Leh crossed a border when he worked his scissors and blade on a woman’s head. Later, Kiran reminded him of how, two years ago, he had run only the blade over a woman’s head (party in Kiran’s travel team to Ladakh in 2009) and shaved off her head. The barber remembered clearly and perhaps then, the border crossing may have seemed so much easier.

Then, yesterday, Anu, one of the daughters in our Ladakhi host family, asked me when Kiran and I were leaving. I explained in a few days’ time. She then said, “that is why we do not attach ourselves too much with the guests who come and stay with us. It is very difficult when they leave.” I was quite touched when she said this, because she was preserving a border in her personhood and in her everyday living so as to make life easier and simpler for her. I only smiled when she said this, not knowing what response I could have given to her …

 

I must end here Chintan. Today there is mild rain in Leh. I am told that rains started in Leh and Ladakh only 15 years ago and people here are not accustomed to the idea of rains because it does not seem ‘natural’. Each time it rains or thunders now, the people remember the flash floods of last year and start dreading. Rains have created such memories and borders in their minds, in their histories and in their geography and culture.

The days are most interesting here, even if they sound mundane. Abaale – meaning father and the head of our host family – plays Radio Kashmir and Doordarshan news every morning and night. I am transported into a different time zone as I hear the newsreader read the news with such sense of mundane duty. Abaale also plays the old 1970’s and 1980’s songs on the radio and here again, I am transported back into the childhood days I spent with my grandparents, uncles and aunts in Dongri in Bombay. Places and spaces have such power, Chintan! They have the ability to transport you back and forth in time, in memory, in feelings of belonging and other raw emotions, without you needing any passport for such travel. The pain and the mirth that emerge out of such travel are purely the doing of your own self-created and self-imposed borders and your histories …

 

With truckloads of love and longing to cross these geographical and landed borders,

 

Zainab

A season in faith’s perfection …

Before I am accused of plagiarizing, let me right away attribute the title of this blog post to William Forrester. I had watched this brilliant film in early 2000s called “Finding Forrester”. The gifted writer in this film named Jamaal had copied the same title from Forrester’s unfinished work and carved an essay out of it. Since then, I have been fascinated by this title – “A Season in Faith’s Perfection” – and I have hoped that some day, I can use this title to write something from my own experiences.

 

I am still not fully sure what these words mean, but I am using them for writing an extended mid-season reflection on the training that I have been involved in with Runners’ High for the KTM trail and the Bangalore Ultra races to be held in September and November respectively.

 

A Season of Imperfections and Uncertain Faith: I gave up running from December 2010 until February 2011 owing to the ovarian cyst that I had developed. My doctors advised that since I also had an infection in my pelvis region, I must avoid any physical activity that gives jerks to the pelvic region.

When I started training for the TCS World 10k race from February onwards, my doctor advised that I go easy, and gradually get back to full form running. Accordingly, I would do beginner workouts and runs for the training. But having given up running for three months, I figured that I was finding it very, very tough to get back to full form, committed training, on the TCS World 10k programme. I ended up skipping many training sessions, and I also missed out on most of the training because of hectic travel schedules and with cousins on different sides of my families deciding to get married in April and May. This was also the time when I was struggling to get back to full fledged writing. So, this period turned out to be a phase when both my running and writing were very uncertain. Overall, I remained depressed during this season. I was also getting over the nervousness of the ovarian cyst and so, I was being cautious in whatever runs I managed to mile, not raising the standards of my stamina and physical strength.

A Season for Seeking Perfection: I began the KTM and Ultra training programme with the goal that I should be able to run 50k by the end of this year, most probably at the Ultra. I felt that having this kind of a challenging goal would keep me motivated and would also help me in improving my goals for writing my PhD thesis. With this thought, I approached my coach Santhosh and told him that I wanted to mile 50k. Santhosh being the man who minces no words when he has to, clearly told me that I cannot train for 50k given how irregular I had been with the previous training and that I had shown no commitment towards strength training and core workouts too. I somehow argued my way back and tried to explain to him why I needed to have a challenging running goal in order for me to get back fully with the training. Just also somehow, Santhosh and I reached a mid-way agreement that if I was good with the KTM training, Santhosh would help me with training for the 37.5k run at the Ultra race. Thus began a training season which was to be a measure of my commitment to consistency, regularity and improvement.

This time around, I signed up for the advanced workouts. RH usually has beginner and advanced workouts. Thus far, I had always signed up for beginner workouts thinking that on each training season I am beginning anew. Moreover, advanced trainers often focussed on time goals (maybe not exclusively) and improving on their past performances. When I started running, I had figured that time was not the issue for me. What mattered was how far I could go on running the distances, irrespective of how long it took me to finish. But, this time, having signed for advanced workouts, I realized that being in the advanced category involves pushing one’s limits on each workout, on each run. Even though advanced runners focus on improving their timings on the runs, they have to keep up their commitment to strength training, to maintaining consistency in pace, and giving their best on every run in order to do better. I think that even though I was reluctant to be in the advanced category, it has done me a great deal of good in terms of improving my strength, fitness and appetite for running.

 

Beginnings of faith: My husband, Kiran, used to run with me on every weekend run in the first month of the training. Kiran had just started using Vibrams in order to help with his knee injury. So he needed to be running slow and easy in order to get used to this kind of barefoot running. Kiran figured that running with me would be more than easy for him since I was miling each run at the pace of 9 mins per kilometer in the beginning of this season (as compared with his 6 and 7 minute pace per kilometer). Add to that, I had severe lower back pains and glute issues in the beginning of this season. So I used to be slower than slow sometimes, until I got into a serious regime of strength training and improving the fitness of my glutes.

In the beginning, it was great to run with Kiran. I was managing to get enough sleep before each workout and weekend run. So I would feel fresh at the beginning of each run. Then, on every Sunday run, my pace was improving a great deal by running with Kiran. Everything seemed perfect, and in place, as I was growing leaps and bounds in the training. 

I was also facing issues in terms of regular and consistent stiffening of the upper back, in the region between the shoulder blades, because my writing was getting better and quicker in this period, leading me to spend more hours typing away on my keyboard. Each run would therefore be a boon because it would help me to release the tension and stiffness in my upper back region. I also recognized, much more, the importance of good breathing. When you are stressed, your breathing goes for a toss. That is the onset of the first set of troubles with your aerobic systems which then goes on to affect your stomach and other body parts. So good breathing is the key to good health. In this respect, each run is a good reminder of how important and fundamental good breathing is.

As the training progressed, I found that apart from the difficulty of being unable to mile most of the Tuesday runs, I was doing better with the tempo workouts on Wednesdays and the distances on the weekend runs were beginning to seem not so daunting after all. But in a month since the training, Kiran’s knee issues began to aggravate and he reached a stage where running short distances started to cause him pain. Gradually, the pain in the knees and increasing work pressures led Kiran to keep off from the training programme. At any other time, this would have been quite a setback for me because I was quite dependent on Kiran to help me stay regular with waking up in the mornings and reaching the runs on time. Now, I had to rely on my own personal resources to wake up early in the morning and make it to the runs on time. Thankfully, the car pooling initiative and the presence of the friendly neighbourhood coach Ram came to my rescue. I managed to make it to most runs by car pooling with runners in the neighbourhood like Arvind, Meghana and sometimes asking Latha for help and support.

I must admit that June and July were highly stressful months for me because I was dealing with several financial, personal, career and work related matters, all at the same time, most of the times. There would be many Saturdays and Sundays when I would get no rest after the long runs and I would be busy rushing into meetings and attending to unforeseen emergencies throughout the day. I believe that apart from my helpful doctor’s medicines, running regularly helped me to keep up and cope with all the difficulties. I discovered also, at some times, that I had to stay off a workout in order to rest my body. There were a couple of Wednesday and weekend workouts where I had to stay off just because my body gave me cues of when it was not up to a hectic day comprising of heavy duty running followed by several chores to be finished. On some days, I would fret and fume for having missed a run. But I think I would also manage to recover somehow because I knew that as much as running a run is important, missing a run is also important to learn the lessons of ‘letting go’. So this running season, one of the things I learnt as a matter of some fundamentals of life and living was learning to let go when letting go is very much needed.

I also had to learn to work on injuries and niggles as and when they arose. I learnt, somewhat rather painfully, the critical lessons of stretching immediately after each run and doing foot drills. On days when I slacked on doing the stretches after the long runs, I came down with shin pains and I had to remind myself that as much as a run is enjoyable, the run is more meaningful when the boring, drab and dull routines of stretches are followed up with and the body and the legs get their due share of relaxation after the runner’s high.

I kept maintaining a log of my workouts and runs regularly. I used to end up writing long logs after each run because I would find that each time I had gathered some important insights about the mind and body. I used to analyze my own running form and movement at times before approaching the coaches and physio because I learnt that as much as co-dependence is good, it is also important to become independent in some respects where I become capable of knowing my body on some counts rather than running to the physio and the coaches each time I have a niggle. I think this strategy really worked for me when I had lower back and glute pains. I noticed that because of the lower back and glute pains, I was not lifting my legs enough when running. This actually aggravated my lower back and glute pains and thus began a cycle of caution and caution leading to pain and pain leading to further caution. When I watched myself closely and assessed the situation for myself through my run logs, I found that my lower back and glute issues were resolving with strength training and with lifting my legs higher on the runs. Achieving this level of independence gave me more confidence in my ability to know my body and my ability to become a more conscientious runner.

 

Of Faith, Perfections and Imperfections: Thus far, I think I have had more than a fabulous season of running. Last Saturday, when I miled 16 kilometers in what was the most uncomfortable runs so far, I figured that despite all the stress and anxiety I was dealing with, I had become a much stronger person – physically and mentally. I also discovered through my regularity in training that I was feigning weakness by using stress as an excuse on running and work fronts. It is easy to cry hoarse ‘stress, stress, stress’ and skip runs and not confront the issues that really need to be dealt with like fear, uncertainty and anxiety. Now, having become a much stronger person, my mind would no longer allow me to fall back on stress as an excuse to perform poorly on runs. This discovery was perhaps the most important one for me during this training season, and I hope this insight stays with me for the rest of this season and for the running in future.

I still remain an imperfect runner. I struggle now with issues such as running long distances alone and miling some runs all on my own. I seek company for doing weekend runs and that sometimes worries me whether I am becoming too dependent on the group for my running. But I guess running is really a matter of moving on these courses of uncertainty, un-knowningness and unknown. It is only these imperfections and unknowns that make each run so much worth miling … To this, I remain, in a season of faith’s perfection …

 

Dedicated to Santhosh, Preeti, Srini V., Sindhu, Murthy, Ram, Gautham, Pooja, Latha, Kalpana Krishnaswamy and many more running buddies and friends.

Also dedicated specially to Ravi Rao and Sandeep Chandur, my FB running mates and cheer leaders

Dust in the Verandah

The dust in the verandah has been cleared.

She came upstairs and saw the mess,

And then instructed the maid to broom, sweep and swab.

 

The dust in the verandah has been cleared.

The dust of fermented emotions has been wiped off

From the relationships that had become dusty,

And now the crosses to bear have become lighter.

 

The dust in the verandah has been cleared.

My shoes are still red with the mud from all the paths and courses that they have been run down upon.

But my legs have become stronger as has my gumption for running,

And now I have no excuses to feign weakness.

 

The dust from the verandah has been cleared.

The accumulated dust – signifying age, contempt, disdain, dislike, unhappiness, running away - has been wiped off,

Paving the way for something unknown, something new, something afresh,

And the beginnings seem uncertain, unsure, and yet, not so frightening …

 

The dust from the verandah has been cleared.

New dust has started to settle,

And those objects and relationships which were stubborn in shedding the dust on them (and of them),

Continue to exist, perhaps ceasing (seizing) in existence in this way …

 

[Dedicated to my mother-in-law and to my friends Mythri Prasad and Ekta Mittal]

Of Families, Systems and Toxics and Venom

[This post is essentially a letter which I wanted to write to my friend Chintan Girish Modi this morning. Not having the stamina to write the letter, stamp it and post it immediately, I decided that I would put this up as a blog post.]

Dear Chintan,

This morning I went for a long run. I ran about 12 kms. During the run, a question struck me and it stayed with me through the run. I am cogitating on it, still. The question is: what is the difference between toxic and venom?

I thought about this question in the context of dysfunctional relationships in families and the attitudes and behaviours of certain people in the family system. I wondered, thereafter, when the ill-will in one person should be classified as toxic or venomous and how difficult it is to transform the toxicity or venom of a person’s behaviour into something productive, positive and life-giving (not that toxins and venom are not life giving ….) …

Dear Chintan, I have always thought of relationships, more so now when I am studying and simultaneously dealing with several relationships around space, territory and property. I have also, often times, thought of families and how individuals function within families, giving rise to compensations, over-compensations, adjustment, rebellion, conformity, all of this leading to the organism called the family system.

My interest in families as systems took root when my friend Leslie Nazareth introduced me to the works of John Bradshaw. Bradshaw is a psychologist and also a vet who wrote about his life story of how his father prevented him from becoming a vet because the father felt that it was too sissy a profession for his son. John Bradshaw complied with his father’s wishes and later, in his life, developed several illnesses resulting from the unfulfilled desire to become a vet. When John Bradshaw eventually went on to study veterinary science and train to become a vet, a lot of his personality problems improved. Bradshaw then went on to write these two books, which Leslie introduced me to, about the family and how the family functions as a system. By system, Bradshaw meant that when someone or something is amiss or is not right in the family, other members learn to behave in ways that compensate for what is missing / not right, thereby producing the system. This compensation takes place by learning behaviours and performing them, to such an extent that the behaviours become part of the individual’s personality. These behaviours can be like reactions and they can come to define the individual within the family system and his/her relations with others inside and outside the family. Individuation – the act of becoming a person with one’s own values, beliefs and choices – also involves, fundamentally, unlearning these reactions and / or becoming aware of these reactions and freeing oneself of them by refusing to react and compensate in particular ways. For example, we often see that between two siblings, one tends to be conforming and the other tends to be rebellious. This happens owing to a variety of reasons. Between my sister and me, I was the conforming one because I wanted to protect my mother and ‘keep’ the ‘peace’ in the house in the face of a (then) highly short-tempered father. I automatically became labeled as the ‘obedient’ one. My sister, on the other hand, was a rebelling person, right from the start. I admired her rebellion, but later realized that her rebellion sprung from my being the ‘obedient’ child who respected and accepted all of her parents’ decisions and did just as they wanted me to do and be. So here I was, gaining all the approval and social standing from my parents for being obedient, and my sister who saw my obedience as unacceptable, began to rebell. He rebellion was also a response to my parents’ desires for her to be someone they wanted her to be while she wanting to be her own person, and also their placing me above her during their social interactions with their friends and extended family members. And, I was meek in the face of her rebellion which led to a domination-victim relationship between my sister and me, much like it was between my father and mother (then). In Bradshaw’s analysis, both obedience and rebellion are reactions that we come to acquire during our growing up years.

Freedom or becoming a person of one’s own, is a matter of freeing oneself of these reactions. As I write the words “freeing oneself of the reactions”, I am cringing because these words are much too easy to write, but extremely difficult to actualize and internalize in life. To free oneself of reactions requires a great amount of courage as well as faith – courage to stand up to choices and circumstances that follow the decision to free oneself of reactions (and this is a long-term process). Faith is required in order to feed the courage and to know that actions taken and choices made with the right intentions and spirit will bear their own fruit, at some point, if not immediately.

Dear Chintan, some days ago, some crazy things happened in my household which is why the question about toxicity and venom and the other questions I mentioned above, came to my mind this morning. It has been both a struggle and a worthwhile process where my parents and I have individuated in our own ways. This does not mean that we are free and liberated completely. But at least, some of our reactions have changed. Some persist, but most importantly, there is a great degree of trust and understanding that my parents and I share with each other. This has been one of the most significant achievements of my life and I believe it must be the same for my parents who have walked a considerable path to change themselves. However, I still have a very, very long way to go in my relationship with my husband and his parents. Not all parents are the same and not each time do both parties – parent and child – walk a mile each to come to a meeting point where there is agreement and disagreement without there necessarily being venom or toxicity on either of the sides. I look at my husband and I still wonder, how it has been possible for him to be his own person despite the fact that his parents are completely reverse of what he is? I wonder how he is such an uninhibited person despite the fact that this childhood was filled with inhibitions and restrictions? He says that the experience of living away from his parents, when he was in his teenage years and early 20′s helped him a lot to make his own decisions and establish his own set of values. I think, by far, what is true for both him and me, in our respective journeys, is that we met and related to a wide variety of peoples and processes during our growing up years which, in a very interesting way, enabled us also to rejuvenate and regenerate our personalities and our relationships with family members.

What happens when parents and children do not change and when the dysfunctional family system persists? How do you know there is dysfunctionality in the family, in the first place and what the dysfunctionality/s exactly is/are? The second question may be easy to answer as an outsider, but difficult to even become aware of when one is part of the dysfunctional system and is not even able to see what is going on. The first question is what is interesting to me, given my own position within my husband’s family. And it is this first question that has led to the thought this morning about what is the difference between venom and toxicity?

Dysfunctionality happens when our reactions and behaviour patterns develop and continue in order to protect one member in the family from another. Dysfunctionality also happens when you try to shield yourself from your family members in ways that are not direct and involve hiding, lying and veiling. It is not easy to come direct and/or clean, but the process of unlearning the behaviours causing dysfunctionality is very rewarding and generative. However, a person remains stuck in a behaviour pattern when other family members continue to veil this person’s behaviour with well-meaning intentions to protect this person from others because the protectors believe the dysfunctional person is weak and therefore needs protection. The behaviour pattern of not only this person, but the associated family members continue to perpetuate, creating the dysfunctional system and leading to toxicity that manifests in a variety of ways including in relations outside the family.

This morning, I thought of one such dysfunctional person in my husband’s family whose behaviour I find overbearing and intolerable. I find that this person has turned extremely toxic and that his presence is adding to toxins in my body and causing reactions such as stress-related illnesses. At that time, I also sincerely wondered whether there is any way in which toxicity can be transformed into something positive and generative and if so, how could this happen? Last year, running helped me transform some of the dysfunctional trajectories, shaping up in my life then, into something very productive and generative – running helped me to develop emotional and spiritual strength to not fall into a morass and become a toxic or venomous person. In this same experience and spirit, I wonder whether the toxicity of the person and personality of this member in my husband’s family can ever be transformed in his lifetime? On an emotional and sincerity plane, I truly hope that this happens. But for this to happen, the other members supporting his weaknesses and perpetuating his toxicity have to become aware of their reactions and at the same time, this toxic person has to have to some life transforming experience which will change his perspective altogether ….

As I write this letter to you, someone I met during the garage sale for Ekta and Yashu’s film “Behind the Tin Sheets” has just mentioned my blog post following the sale on the FB wall of her event which involves recycling things. I wonder whether toxicity can be recycled … I know that I cleared things in my house, in the beginning of this year, to alleviate myself of the toxicity that had spread into the environment as a result of a dysfunctional family system and dysfunctional family members in the household I am living. And the clearing of things to make mental and emotional space for myself aided me in relieving myself of toxicity. I really hope toxicity and toxic persons can be recycled and turned into something that is life giving … And I hope the toxins in me make me a more sublime and wiser person …

Dear Chintan, on this note of hope, I should end this long letter here. I hope you stay well, that you remain aware, and that there are thousands of flowers blooming and generative in the relationships you treasure in your life ….

With love,

Zainab

Of fragility, frailty, and some ego load shedding

Running,

Running,

Running,

This is a form of running which the mind does, restlessly, impatiently and partially. The mind can run, and it can run for miles to no end, draining the body and the person of energy, leaving the person consumed, if not more or less harmed. My mind has been running on such a track for the last few days, and as I reflect upon this running, it is very, very interesting and insightful. I care to share some of my musings here, at the cost of baring my utmost fears and vulnerabilities, and shedding myself of myself to move towards some lightness in being …

Of late, I have been interacting with contractors, plumbers, carpenters, fabricators, my watchman, painters, a great deal, to get some maintenance and repair works done. I have thoroughly enjoyed interacting with each one of them because there is a very mundane and intimate connection that I feel with each one of them. Before each of them, I have had to wear no pretense or garb or robe – I have been more than my natural self with them, talking about painting, where they live, their room rents, and discussing their craft and the work that has to be done. Come to think of it, there is something very soothing and light that I feel when I talk to them. Our discussions do not border on problematics or intellect – the mundaneness of these discussions is itself such a liberating and fascinating experience that literal-ness and words can barely, if at all, capture the wonderfulness of these feelings and the overall experience!

In the process of these interactions and getting works done, my writing has been suffering. I have just about managed to attend to academic and research writing and whenever I have managed to write, the flow is broken because the next few days after the writing are consumed in running around to get works done! While I have been going through this situation, each time I check twitter or email or facebook, I start to think that the world is passing by so rapidly and I am the only one who is stuck with managing everyday situations. This feeling of “being stuck” is what has been sapping me and perhaps crafting the viscous cycle where “being stuck” appears to perpetuate itself, like a snake eating its own tail!

As I have waded through these apprehensions and anxieties, some interesting insights have dawned on me. I study and analyze the relationships that exist and get created between people and between people, administrators and institutions. My own thesis research attempts to examine the relationships that develop around occupation, use and other kinds of transactions around land and property and how these relationships change, from time to time, through disputes, speculation, urban change, etc. I have understood and internalized politics also as the dynamics in relationships. And politics continues to be the art of working through relationships – melting down some, getting frozen or hit by some others, negotiating with some, accepting some, regulating some relationships, managing relationships that are regulated by others, etc. Such an understanding of politics may appear to be very mundane, but it is most basic and it is as radical as radical can be. In the last few days, I have been indulging in this mundaneness and radicalness and perhaps, if perhaps, these interactions have generated goodwill and security for me whose value is invaluable, if one understands relationships at all. I can recognize this value now, as I write, but in the state that I was in in the last few days, I belittled and ignored these very interactions for wanting to achieve more prestige and status by writing my research and analytical stuff. I strove for prestige and recognition at the cost of realizing that the value of the experiences of the last few days has perhaps made me abler in sustaining myself and my life in the longer run!

I have often met and interacted with bureaucrats and IAS officers who strive to get PhD degrees. Intellectually, I can understand their striving for prestige. But when I found myself in the state that I was in the last few days – where I was struggling to achieve prestige, status and legitimacy by writing in journals, magazines, etc at the cost of not recognizing the value that was getting created through the interactions and relationships I was going through – I realized why IAS officers strive to attain PhD degrees. They also do not recognize the value of their everyday interactions and negotiations, and instead strive for something they feel will give them greater legitimacy and value!

It is very often that we strive for greatness at the cost of ignoring or belittling the everyday experiences, insights, pragmatism and wisdom. Running – like training for marathons and ultras – is one way of recognizing the value and wisdom of the everyday. But, at the same time, it is important to be aware of the tracks and the running that we do consciously and unconsciously and how these tracks and the nature and form of running that our mind does shapes who we are and who we become. Perhaps change lies here, in very basic, rooted ways. And such change, which takes place where the roots are involved and addressed, is what is called radical change.

This blog post, I fondly dedicate to Chintan Girish Modi – happy birthday to you! I could not have said it better than what I have done by writing this post!

Dedicated also to Kiran Jonnalagadda who is the epitome of rootedness for me!

Dedicated also to Anand V. and jackass-ness!

And, dedicated to Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee and deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-toxing!

Amidst Nothingness and Unkwowness

For a moment I thought I’d make it sound more dramatic like ‘I am staring into a blank screen, not knowing what I want to write or say.’ It is not that dramatic after all. My mind is blank and unsure about where these fingers, keys and words are going to take me and I am writing in the middle of thoughts which are as good as naught (and distractions are several)!

I have no thoughts in my mind. I just have feelings – various feelings – where I feel rushed, slow, unable to think and write, incomplete, heavy, strained and constrained. I feel distracted, unable to focus on the three pieces of writing that I have to immediately complete and get out of my way. The very thought of deadlines and writing is pulling me away from the tasks at hand and is making me cringe, whine, try too hard to write and none of this is proving to be productive for anyone, most of all for myself.

So some days ago, when I was unable to write anything in the day, Chintan had suggested to me that I write a blog post in order to relieve my mind. I am not sure what I can write in this post because while I have been running more often, lately, and there are many emotions and feelings that I would like to talk about regarding my recent runs, the words and more importantly the feelings and the integrity are not coming through. Instead, I am going to try randomness and see if what emerges from this randomness is serenity or naught. Randomness in words is difficult in the sense that there is not intended intention of meaning. Yet, if the world is attuned, the meanings will become apparent when one stops the search for meaning.

This randomness, here …

Between us …

I wish there were no words,

Between you and I.

I wish there was no I, between us. 

I wish there were no clothes, 

To conceal our barest bones.

I wish there were no garbs, 

That adorned our nakedness.

I wish there was untold joy,

Childlike, 

Between us, 

That joy which needs no telling, 

That joy that needs no words.

Words, these treacherous words, 

I wish they wouldn’t run through my bloodstream.

If they didn’t, I’d be mute,

Inhaling your presence, as it were, as you are …

Words, these treacherous words,

I wish they didn’t run through your bloodstream.

If they didn’t, you’d be mute

And I’d be ringing your ears with my randomness.

Randomness, you call this it

But I am drunk on my spontaneity,

And these words have no meaning.

You see through me,

If you could,

How much mirth you bring to me?

You see through me,

If you could,

What youth you evoke in me?

You see through me, 

If you could, 

What joyous agonies these are,

And my words, oh, so truthful.

And yet futile they are, these words 

For feelings mean much more.

I wish you were here, right here, right now,

I’d shun these words to embrace you.

You’d read meanings if you were to,

If meanings meant what they were meant to.

You’d shun meaning

If you were to,

To embrace our nudity,

Our mirth, 

Our spirits.

There lies nothing between us,

And yet everything surrounds us,

You may see if you wish to see.

When you do not see,

The apparent begins to appear.

The apparent is no permanence.

It resides in the domain of the temporary.

What is so apparent today,

May not be so tomorrow.

I wish you do not see,

I wish you do not hear,

I wish you do not perceive,

For pictures are only partial.

The truth resides somewhere else,

A domain that you and I know not,

The truth is in our barest bones,

The garbs are therefore but burdens.

So naked we remain

In the truth of truthfulness,

And naked I lie before you.

You may embarrass yourself in my nakedness

Or you may come undressed in truth …

[Dedicated to Chintan]

Interacting with the State via Information and Communication Technologies – the case of Nemmadi Kendras in Karnataka

This article explains how the introduction of information and communication technologies (ICTs) influences citizens’ engagement with the state by analysing Nemmadi Kendras (NKs), which are computerised kiosks established in rural areas of Karnataka to provide revenue services and land records to citizens under a public-private partnership. The government argued that the introduction of digital technology as an interface between the State and citizens would contribute towards good governance by enhancing efficiency, transparency and accountability.

Drawing on the social shaping of technology perspectives, the findings suggest that a thorough analysis of the impact of information technologies in governance necessitates paying attention to the larger political and social processes within which the technology is introduced and embedded. The article further argues that the introduction of information technologies in a fraught and contested context adds more layers (in terms of bureaucracy and middlemen), which rural citizens have to navigate before they can actually attain services. Concerns related to costs, scale and political dynamics in the design of databases are also discussed here. The article concludes by advocating the ‘embedded’ approach for studying the role of ICTs in governance.

Click here to download copy of the article - Media Asia – B Raman and Z Bawa