Solemn Deals, Scripted Lives, & other stories

Considering reported rapes as a ratio of population will actually portray India as quite safe. The feeling fails the reality test, however, because only a tiny minority is actually reported. Rapes in wedlock fail the definition itself and those within families sometimes remain unknown even within the family. Even others will be hushed up to protect the victim’s chances of marriage, and family ‘honor’. More than three quarters of Indians are Hindus like me, and some of our customs indirectly sustain this horror. Dowry is the most prolific of them.

Dowry is not just greed – it is the most glamorous celebration of misogyny. Some kill to earn it, and the rest kill to avoid it. Though the custom was made illegal  more than half a century back, it is proudly practiced by Hindus in most parts of India.

I recall a meeting in the past with some (male) friends where we ended up discussing marriage. When someone claimed that Eastern and North Eastern India has lower instances of dowry, in came a remark: “Saale kanjoos“.  Don’t be amused – these are also the same regions which show some of the highest sex ratio, and lowest rates of rape (… and least religious fanaticism too).

Another instance I’d once overheard women discuss (chuckle) : A woman was explaining how her marriage was special. Her in-laws were nice enough to convert all the dowry into jewellery and present back to her within a week. The bragging of dowry was required during marriage. Or else the clan would have doubted the worthiness of the groom; or if she was already pregnant!

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Matrimonials give an idea of how a vast majority of marriages take place. There is a prevailing rate for every type of groom – from a petty Government servant to Ivy League graduates. Grooms will vaunt their education or work in the caste classifieds, and brides their money. The strength of the new bonding will be solemnized by matching all the magical parameters of gotra, gan, rashi, numerology and most importantly potential for a  unidirectional transfer of wealth. And somehow the magic will start, after the deal takes place. A generation back it was compulsory too, but not as obnoxious as it is now. People throw down even their last retirals hoping to tame this bottomless greed. The extortion often continues even after marriage, sometimes till the hostage is alive.

For a man who has earned this easy money, it is a no brainer to loathe a liability when he can choose the sex of his own child, so cheaply, in the private of a clinic.  Though, I will be surprised if a ‘hormonally active’ female (which do not  include Saasu-maa-s) will ever support killing of a foetus, just for greed.

“With all due respect, sir, if you still like that dreamy deal your parents and relatives struck for you, you should have allowed them to sleep with your bride first!”

Arranged marriages leave more holes for dowry; though not all arranged marriages will involve it. Choosing a partner leaves very little option for the family to perpetrate this greed. Why can’t we convince our parents that it is neither their marriage, nor their lives, nor their times ? Why not just marry the girl I love ? Live in a new home ? Where does mideaval voodoo come into picture at all ?

Candle lights have protested a ghastly rape. But how many of those male flames will choose to burn down the dowry deal struck by their parents ?

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Religion (unfortunatey) is one of the first piece of learning which gets imprinted in the mind. The roots of this custom lie in the deep male chauvinism seething in some of Hinduism’s holiest texts. Puranas and Epics slaughter the character of the Vedas and the Upanishads. Women, even godesses curl up around the feet of their husbands; polygamy, and rapes run abound. Honor is protected and liability disposed.  The religion has become a confused mess – women are objects of desire and worshipped as mythical magicians at the same time. And there are still some who will ‘explain’ all that for you. A half literate society fed with these from childhood, and rehearsing these everyday can hardly be expected to think straight. Dowry is not even perceived as a problem. So is rape seen as a disgrace and not as a crime. And the birth of a girl child casts a gloom.

When it comes to greed, inspiration cuts across communities. Others have been learning fom us.

Government control of ultrasound machines will never improve sex ratio. People will kill a newborn by packing salt into her mouth, or simply dumping the live baby in a garbage bin for dogs to eat. They do these already. Or they will burn brides.

It is high time we, those raised as Hindus, introspect. Conscience must supercede outlandish beliefs. Let us fix ourselves first and not point at what others, say, Muslims do. Look in the mirror dude. And look yourself in the eye!

The connoisseur

Rana Roy was my father’s friend. He was an extremely docile man with clean habits. Neither did he smoke, nor drink. He spoke softly and I had never known him to get angry. He wore a neatly pressed full sleeved shirt and always tucked them. He was brown, not very tall, and wore a neat moustache by his clean shaven bumpy cheeks. On asking about them, he had once told me how a terrible bout of pox almost killed him as a child. His mother had saved him then.

He owned a camera – the only one in his circle of friends. Except for entities I could draw, I barely understood the pictures which adorned the walls of his small but neatly arranged apartment. In one big get-together, his friends commended his creations. Instead of blushing – Rana Roy explained how to capture them correctly, the challenges he faced, the techniques he used and after all what it meant. Even pictures had meanings! The most interesting part about all this came twice a year, when this esteemed man made portrait shots of me. Not that I looked like a model then, but he used to do portraits for all his friend’s children – just for his and their fun.

Audio recording and playback instruments were the tech marvels of those days, and he possessed two of them. One of them had two casette decks with which he would create customized music collections for his friends, including my dad. His showcase had one shelf of audio casettes and three shelves of books – including the volumes of Tagore’s Complete Works. Tagore’s works are a status symbol that every Bengali loves to keep on display. Almost no one ever reads a single page. However, I liked to believe he had read it all.

He was the only cool artie cum techie I knew in our small town, who did these things for pleasure. Rana Roy was not very good looking, yet he was so polished and intellectually attractive. Please feel free to not trust his perfection, I must say – I adored him too much.

Rana kaku soon got married to a woman, called Chhanda. She was little fairer than Rana kaku, a little plump, had beautiful eyes and always wore a smile on her face, quite in contrast with the usual serious countenance of Rana kaku. She talked a lot and liked his friends’ families. Our get-togethers continued.

They soon had a son. A lot of friends and their families were treated in the baby shower. I did not like this little boy in the beginning. But soon started to like him – after all he was Rana kaku’s son.

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Few years later we moved out to a different locality. I’d grown up too. The get-togethers thinned out and the photoshoots were gone. I was having strange thoughts about my adolescence, girls and acne. I definitely blamed it on my acne.

Till one evening, we visited his place. Chhanda kakima had invited us to see her newly born second child. It was years I had been to his place. The whitewash had greyed out a bit, and the all but one wall photograph was hanging, though a little tilted and on a different wall. The rooms otherwise looked familiar in arrangement, however a little more packed. The show case looked similar. I could not find the double decker casette player below the new color television, though the smaller one was there.  I did not see his camera around.  Unlike other times, only one other friend has turned up to celebrate the occasion, and he leaned on the safa. I had seen this tall, fair and a good looking relatively new friend in previous get-togethers, and he always turned up alone. He talked less too, but with Rana kaku there he did not stand a chance in my likes. And he smoked too.

I was barely allowed to touch the chubby pink baby. His elder brother looked a little more serious than I had known him to be. Rana kaku himself was sitting on a chair and spoke lesser and with a lower voice than usual. His shirt was not tucked and he was tapping his right leg. His first bad habit, I thought. I overheard Chhanda kakima discuss with mom about Rana kaku not keeping well of late. They were consulting a doctor in Calcutta.

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A few more years later,  my parents out to the market, I opened the door on a knock. A rickshaw wallah was supporting – a worn out Rana Roy on his shoulders. The rickshaw man was too confused to ask for money – he ran away dropping him like a garbage bag. Rana kaku chose to sit on the ground. He had grown very thin – he looked haggled, unshaven and dirty. He wore an untucked half sleeved, crumpled, dirty shirt. His limbs jerked involuntarily, his face showed strange twitching movements and I barely pulled the sweating Rana kaku inside the room. What was in store for me was an experience I would never forget. He could not lie down straight and kicked me. He then turned over to be in a crawling position, but something threw him back. He tried to sit straight on the floor against the wall, and it looked like the wall kicked his back. Then he swerved like a snake on the floor. He looked so worn out, and yet kept jumping around – helplessly and haphazardly for 30 more minutes. People would have laughed at the sight – I swear. But I wept.

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A few months later, when Rana Roy died of Parkinson’s disease, he was living in a shabby tent outside their quarters. His wife could not throw him away. She made sure her elder son also lived with her, supported by his retirals and her politically connected live-in partner. No one dared to object to this arrangement. I do not know how it felt being the elder son.

I know why Hindus believe in Karma. They think life is fair!