The Brides of Death

A 12-year-old Yemeni girl, who was forced into marriage, has died during a difficult delivery in which her baby also died, a children's rights organisation said on Sunday, demanding action to stop Yemeni men taking child brides.

Raised in an impoverished family with a father suffering from kidney failure, Fawziya was forced to drop out of school and was married off at the age of 11. Such marriages are widespread on Yemen's Red Sea coast. Since young girls fetch a good bride-price, almost half of all little girls and teenage females are married(sold) off before the age of 15 in rural parts of Yemen, one of the world's poorest countries despite its proximity to oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

Last year, a Yemeni court granted a divorce to ten year old girl whose unemployed father forced her into an arranged marriage with a man 20 years her senior, because of the bride price she fetched, but later saying he feared she might otherwise be kidnapped by the would-be spouse.

Zana Muhsen was a 15-year-old English schoolgirl of Arab-British descent when her Yemeni father sold her in England in 1983 for $3000 to a countryman as a wife for his 14-year-old son. Her sister, Nadia, also 14, was sold for the same purpose and bride price to another Yemeni, whose son was 13.

The two sisters were detained against their will in Yemen for eight years with husbands they did not want, having babies they did not want, before diplomatic pressure and assistance from the international media finally freed Zana. Nadia stayed behind because of her children, who, due to the bride price, always remain with the father in case of a divorce.

In her best-selling book, Sold: A Story of Modern-Day Slavery, Zana outlined the two British sisters’ years of suffering, physical abuse and primitive living and working conditions in Yemen.

This is the 2007 UNICEF photo of the year representing the plight of the millions of girls sold as child brides every year.

What's Love Got To Do With It?

It's a second hand emotion, as Tina Turner so rightly crooned.

But really, what's love got to do with it? It is an unduly overrated emotion. We are talking about a lifetime here. A lifetime of commitment, of compassion, of caring for each other and of going through testing times and emerging stronger with the support of your partner by your side. We are talking about raising a family and gracefully growing old together.

The English language is constrained because it has just one word 'love' to go through the entire gamut of relationships and emotions. Context is needed to differentiate among various types of love.

People your age would take love to mean as the 'butterflies in the stomach' or 'love at first sight' feelings. But most of the time it is just a hormone-induced chemical reaction which is mistaken for love. Remember this is nature's way of ensuring that at the right age, evolutionary pressures propel you towards propagating the species.

Stop waiting for love to happen. As a sentient being, it is time for you to take off your romantic glasses and take a practical view regarding marriage. This is a lifelong commitment. Try to define the type of person you would want to spend the rest of your life with and raise your children with. Think of this as a 'Swaymvara' where you get to pick and choose. You have a vast pool of potential suitors to pick from, thanks to this age of the internet. All you need to do is discover your priorities, narrow down your choices and find someone you feel comfortable with. Don't worry about the butterflies, you may or may not get them. After you commit yourself, make an ongoing investment in nurturing that relationship. Because you gotta put in more than what you expect in return.

A few decades down the line, when you look at your partner with fondness and remember all the trials and tribulations that you went through together, you will finally understand what love is all about.

Being a lone wolf or a team player

What would you rather be, a team player or a do-everything-on-your-own individualist, that is the question. If you had a multi-faceted job at hand, what would you rather prefer to do? Some people would want to do everything by themselves and would give up control only under duress or extreme fatigue or when they finally realize that they need more resources than they themselves can muster.

Delegating responsibility is a management technique for not just businesses but also mundane day to day affairs as well as in organizing elaborate social functions. Including people in the decision making process and providing them with information as it becomes available, gives them a stake in the affair and makes them a part of your team. Some people adopt the policy of disseminating information on a need to know basis. Unless there is a good reason to do so, withholding information and being secretive just leads to rumor-mongering and creates unnecessary animosity.

At times, this is just a result of the clash of strong egos. Perhaps you may be angry or hurt at somebody and you want to show them that you can manage without their help. But think about what this will mean in the long term. Side stepping anyone will make them feel left out and dejected. What you end up with is creating unnecessary grudges and further complicating your already mangled relationships.

Those days

I remember the good old days of my childhood.

We lived in a house on the edge of the town on a road which was shaded by regularly spaced, huge banyan trees. There was no other house on the road, beyond ours. Just the high school placed about 50 meters inside from the road and then open empty spaces, till the fields and the orchards began. We used to play in the open grounds and come back home to the smells of a great meal and listened to the radio for half an hour or so before going to bed. Those were the days of Apollos to the moon. And watching 'Purab Aur Paschim' at the only cinema hall in town. When families ate together and lived together. The days of peace, love and happiness. Those were my good old days.

But for our offspring, the present is the good old days. These are the days they will remember when they grow up. The days when they were young and free. The days when they were happy and didn’t know about any problems in their little world. The days when they come home and play with their toys or watch their favorite program on the TV. Or spend hours chatting with their friends on the phone or the internet. The days when small sorrows can bring about a flood of tears, but a moment later, a small joy can bring a wide smile to their faces. The days when they can fall asleep in their warm cosy beds and dream of another beautiful tomorrow. These are their good old days.

I visited my childhood home earlier this year after a gap of about 20 years. All the banyan trees had been cut down and the road was lined with shanty dwellings. Even our childhood home was in a dilapidated state. There were no open spaces left. A slum had sprung up and taken over every available piece of land. But to me it made no difference, because my memories are more associated with the people I grew up with, than the places where I grew up.

One day my children will grow up and revisit the good old days of their childhood. I hope and pray they remember the people and not just the place they grew up around.

Education is the key, or is it?

James Michener has been one of my favorite authors thru the years. I have read most of his novels. I love the way he builds a story around that which has permanence, the place, not the people. Although the characters he develops are vivid and grip all your attention in their journey thru their lives. The only gripe I have against him is that he perhaps developed a dislike for Indians during his days in the South Pacific, specifically Fiji. And this prevented him from learning or writing about India in particular.

It was while reading his novel 'The Covenant' that I actually realized that education was the key for uplifting the disadvantaged classes of a society. The University of South Africa is a distance learning institution. And because of its nature, remained open to all throughout the dark days of apartheid. Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and Robert Mugabe are just some of its notable alumni who made their mark on history.

Reading 1conoclast's post here made me realize something else. That the powers that be would stoop to anything to perpetuate the status quo benefiting them. It doesn't matter to them if they are trampling on the human rights of children. It doesn't matter to them if what they are doing is against basic human decency. In fact, they have become so used to this caste based profiling that a principal of a municipal school says: “We have been writing sub-castes on progress cards for over 30 years now. We have chamars, bhangis, vankars and wagri children, among others. What difference does it make whether we write their castes or not? We anyway know each other’s castes.”

If you start sowing the seeds of discrimination at such an early age, can you expect your next generation to remain free of caste based prejudices? In fact, I have to question your very motives for doing this.

1conoclast is correct in saying that this is not what our founding fathers envisaged for India.

I too feel nauseated.

Memories....

I remember the first time I held you in my hands. You were looking at me with your tiny unfocused eyes trying to make sense of the new world around you.

And then we had to live apart for a few years. When I came to receive you guys at the airport, I remember that three year old kid asking your mum who I was, and in my mind, I made a promise to myself that we would never again stay apart, because I wanted to be around while you guys were growing up.

I remember the defiant child about to step into teenage, always testing the limits of what was allowed and consequently my patience. And I still vividly remember the dream I had of you falling off a roof and me waking up soaked in sweat.

I also remember the teenager telling me in a fit of rage, that she did not have a single happy memory about me. It really hurt. I guess it is the traumatic moments that are burnt more deeply in memory.

But I also remember you asking me for help when you needed it. And the moments when you made me feel proud. Those I will cherish till the day I die.

You have grown up and are now ready to take on the world on your own and I wish you all the best in life.

I just wish it could have been a bit different. You did not have to remove the pedestal from beneath my feet. "The job is over, thank you for your services and you may retain the title." We could have parted as friends. Instead of this pain that all of us have to go through now.

A true story

Once upon a time there lived a man who had two grown up sons. The elder son had an argument with his father on some minor issue which might have seemed really huge at that time and the son stopped communicating with his father and the rest of his family.

Years passed by and the man grew old. And with old age came ailments. The old man had a series of strokes and lost first his motor functions, then his speech and ultimately became bed-ridden. The younger son stood by his side during this traumatic period, helping as much as he could, while the elder son did not care enough to even inquire about his father's health. Perhaps because he had become stuck in that moment in time, when he had that raging argument with his father. That was the picture of his father that he carried in his mind and his anger had perhaps still not subsided.

One day, the old man died. As everyone does, sooner or later. At the funeral, what was surprising was that the elder son was weeping uncontrollably, while the younger son had not even a tear in his eyes. Later, when someone inquired why this was so, he said 'I have watched my father die a little everyday for the past few years and have already grieved for him, while for my elder brother, his death came as a shock.'

Relationships are an evolving phenomenon because you need people for a relationship and people keep evolving. If you had a falling out with someone today, are you doing the right thing by putting the relationship on hold and by going katti with him or her? Especially when it is family? Because you can't choose your family. You are stuck with them for the rest of your life. Because there will be a lot of pain and heartache that you will have caused in the meantime, by your being incommunicado. And because no amount of remorse can turn back the clocks. Does it really matter who was right and who was wrong, in the long run?

Come September

This movie has been my all time favorite. I have watched it countless times and yet it always entertains me. Especially the one-up-manship between Bobby Darin and Rock Hudson.

Every new generation thinks it is smarter than its predecessors. And is in a hurry to pass judgment on issues that require deep understanding. The tragedy is that most of the time their judgment is filtered by their own limited exposure to those same issues. It is easy for them to deride people who do not hold similar views to their own. What upsets me is their insensitivity to the people around them. How can you share a table with vegetarians and recount an anecdote where a vegetarian colleague mistakenly ate meat and was so revolted, he rushed out to buy a tongue cleaner? I did not find it humorous in the least. My own younger brother M, in his teens, mistakenly ate meat and was so repulsed that he vomited it out and was emotionally overwhelmed and then fasted for three days.

The thing is that this is not just about eating meat. It is about a belief system. And people hold their beliefs in high regard. You should be sensitive to how other people would feel to what you are saying. Do not ever joke about anyone's beliefs. And remember that empathy is a virtue which enhances the human experience.
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Actions, Reactions and Disengagement

Every action has a reaction. I know that already. I learnt that principle in school and believed that the reaction should be equal in magnitude or intensity or impact to the initial action. But when it comes to human relationships, the reaction is at times much greater than the original action.

As a father of four children, I resolved long ago that I would try to treat all my children equally. But in reality, I am always accused of favoritism. The one that feels he or she has been slighted, immediately throws accusations that I favor one over the other. 

Siblings the world over have issues. Nothing new there. Individual circumstances and the degree of antipathy felt may differ, but still it is basically the same story everywhere. When the actions of one of your children are causing distress to another, what do you do? When you have already warned your child that following a particular course may not be morally correct because it may cause discord elsewhere. And still your child goes ahead with it and then the point arrives where what you were afraid of turns to reality. 

But then who made me the arbiter of their morality? I am not God. There is a huge gap between how I see an issue and how they see it. Perhaps it is time for disengagement. We are talking about adults here. Most pain is caused because of the attachment you feel for your own. I should rather start disengaging, because I do not really need the pain anymore. They are adults and have their own set of views and approaches to their issues. Let them sort it out among themselves. Let them learn their lessons through their own heartaches, because I have had enough of those already.

The future is here now….

I read somewhere that as your age progresses, the way you perceive the passage of time changes. Time moves faster for older people, and I guess it is true in the sense that I am able to accomplish much less in the same amount of time than I used to in my youth.

That brings me to another question, if you were given a bonus couple of years, where would you want those added? At the end of your lifespan, in your childhood or in your youth? Most people would answer youth and I agree with that. The point is that for you kids, this is not the time to sit back and relax. It is the time for you to accomplish whatever you need to, so that you are prepared for the future because it is here now!!!

Gone are the days when the world changed at a leisurely pace. The impact of technology in everyday life is not subtle anymore. We are communicating much more than our parents and to a much larger audience. The technologies in the workplace are changing at such a fast pace that people in their forties have a hard time keeping up.

You kids are going to face a much hostile work environment than your parents, in the sense that your skills will constantly have to remain current to cope with the demands that a fast-changing workplace may make. And because millions of people in China and India are hungry for your jobs!!!

N.B. This was posted on my wordpress blog on Saturday, Jan 5 2008. But I had posted it on a new page and this was the only post I was not able to automatically migrate, so had to do it manually. :( This post completes the migration process and I will be posting here in the future, not on the Wordpress blog anymore.

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