Malnutrition and Indian Women

Blind about malnutrition

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who stands a fair chance –more than fair, really—of becoming the prime minister of India  if he gets lucky,has created a storm by attributing malnutrition in his state to middle class women’s  desire to look slim—call it a Kareena Kapoor kind of Size Zero.

Like many, he has shown total lack of understanding of malnutrition , whether in Gujarat, India or anywhere in Africa. Statistics of malnutrition, by and large, pertain to nutrition levels of children under 3, at most 6.

I don’t even mind the fact that  he could, inadvertently or ignorantly , called female children in that group “women”.  Before the sms and fw era of the internet, a  “joke” that was intended to target feminists went thus:  Sheela was a smart professional who hated to be addressed  “Hey Girl” by her male colleagues. When she had a daughter, the colleagues inquired about the  baby. “Hmmm…how’s the woman doing?”.

Have no idea if anyone then found it funny, but it indicates a male perspective.

I don’t know whether the leader seen as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s best bet for Loksabha elections next time around, thinks that  these “women under 6” are smitten by Size Zero ! A conservative view is that most people would not buy that line from that leader, however popular.

Luckily for Mr Modi, he is not alone when it comes to an indigestible view on malnutrition, perhaps an incorrect view too. At the height of a food crisis, agencies in the western world, possibly not being able to import food, attributed the shortage to Indians and Asians eating a lot more. And they sited nutrition levels of a section of people as evidence!

To starve to shed weight and inches is not easy at all. If the predominantly middle class women of  Gujarat are doing that, hats off to the very strongwilled and positively determined ladies of that state.  They are highly enterprising, be it in the countryside or in the cities.They are smart. And they are sensible.

A few years ago on a visit to Ahmedabad, a friend’s father-in-law proudly showed me his new BPO, where scores and scores of young girls were seated at work. He shared with me what their educational qualifications, work hours and wages were. Pleasantly surprised, I remarked , “So much of money, at such a young age. Won’t it spoil them unless families controlled that salary?”. He immediately said, no, they won’t be  spoilt by the money, and their parents don’t control the salary.”In Gujarat, most youngsters are into investing..shares, mutual funds, starting small businesses with their friends, using it to go abroad to study..Luckily, the children in this state are a little different…” he elaborated, not caring to specify, different from whom. For that hardly matters. Well this description of the Gujarati woman is what sticks in my mind.

And one more thing. They are beautiful, and naturally so. Perhaps without dieting to the point of ending up as cases of malnutrition. I remember Tina Munim, now Tina Ambani, on the cover of Femina, long before she became Dev Anand’s heroine in “Des Pardes”. She was Femina’s Teen Princess, International.

Since then I’ve seen lovely looking Gujju girls on the skating rinks….gorgeous, flowing…fit.

Mr Modi perhaps needs to set aside his “status” and give the young ladies in his state a fresh look. With a totally paternal perspective.Or even look at the most famous Gujarati woman. The world calls her Ba aka Kasturba Gandhi

Contemporary Arts & Crafts, Mumbai

A wooden spectacle stand

A trip to Mumbai earlier this week took me back to Bombay of about 35 years ago. And the journey back in time was possible because I had got to our office here, almost an hour ahead of the schedule. To “spend” those 60 minutes I walked along the  busy D Naoroji road with its beautiful colonial style structures, some well maintained, and some on the verge of collapsing.Beauties they are nevertheless.

Most of the buildings house offices—banks, insurance and the like. The corridor was partly  occupied by hole-in-the-wall shops selling mobile phone accessories primarily. 

But one building pulled me in because of what I could see through the glass doors. It was only when I was almost inside that I turned around to see the name of the place. Contemporary Arts and Crafts. People in Mumbai know it as CAC or simply Contemporary. The place was getting a coat of paint, and  smelling pretty much of maintenance work.

Contemporary, here? Was it not in Napean Sea Road? Is this a branch? I asked the gentleman who seemed to be in charge .He told me that it was not a branch, but the CAC. They’d shifted to this address –Ground Floor, Taj Building on D Naoroji Road –because the owners of that beautiful, time kissed bungalow on 19,Napean Sea Road had wanted the place back. They lived on the first floor, and the ground floor was where CAC had been the last 50 years plus.

Long, long before Fab India or even Cottage Emporium became well known names, and much before lifestyle and home decor, or ethnic or ethnic chic were part of our collective consciousness, Contemporary had stocked and show cased  exquisite handicrafts—not necessary from all over, but from many parts of the country.There were never too many things, but then there was enough to make every visitor pick up something.

I had simply chanced to visit the one on Napean Sea Road  way back. My uncle—tayaji in Hindi and peripa in Tamil—lived in a very well designed building called Sonmarg,on Napean Sea Road  may be a kilometer or more walk from CAC .Walking around  and looking around, I got there then. Much as I did this time.

When we were building our block of apartments in Chandigarh a few years ago, I drew a freehand sketch of that apartment in Sonmarg, to show the architect roughly what I wanted. 

A few years after that building came up--- I am afraid nowhere like Sonmarg, though good in its own way—a friend’s daughter, a bright young architect , was carrying a book on celebrated architect Charles Correa. As I flipped through the pages, what did I see? A picture of Sonmarg. In delight and excitement, I closed the book, and told her I’d lived in that building. I did an encore of the freehand sketch. And she saw the architectural drawings in the book and told me I’d made a good likeness.

My peripa lived in that house when he was Director, International Relations for Air India. He would patiently and proudly tell us the story behind every beautiful piece of art or craft or furniture from every part of the world where he had served.  How come he had never told us that Sonmarg was made by Charles Correa, I asked  my by now really aged Peripa a few years ago.  His reply was that when we lived there the architect was not that well known. For it was one of the early buildings of Correa.

But yes, we knew that film star Shashi Kapoor lived in Petit Hill across, and some other stars –the late Nutan and Waheeda Rehman if I recall correctly—lived in a nearby building called Anita. And like crazy fans we kept our eyes out of the balcony—since glazed—to catch a glimps of them!

Time has not weakened many of Mumbai’s  beautiful and some iconic buildings. If anything , muted now, they look like women who have aged gracefully… with all their charm in tact.

I could not click pictures of these buildings with the only camera I had—my Nokia E5. And inside CAC where they treasure their exclusivity in the face of stiff competition, they would not let me click pictures. 

But nevertheless I have uploaded  visuals of two things that I liked—one modern, and one antique and traditional. 

One is a wooden spectacle stand that I bought for my husband, hoping we will not have to hunt for his specs henceforth.

Carved coconut scraper from Chettinad

 The  picture of the exquisitely carved coconut scraper, I borrowed (Thanks!) from someone who is passionate about antique cookware--- for more on that please visit www.antiquepatra.blogspot.in      The antique coconut scraper in Contemporary appears to have been restored, in a way conserved.

A suitable boy for Anandi

Dadisa

Anandi and the Collector

The Child Bride

Balika Vadhu

So what if he is a collector, Anandi is a sarpanch. Choti umar ki sarpanch bitiya.

The Dadisa, fondly  says to herself, after her son has admonished her for dreaming of every man she likes as a possible grand son in law.

That is the 1001^st episode of Balika Vadhu, where the child bride Anandi, whose divorce from husband Jagiya, has come through. The  story is as much about the grand mother, who has transformed from a rigid and superstitious woman to a forward looking matriarch,  just as it is of  Anandi’s growth into an educated woman in the rural backdrop of Jaitsar villar, presumably imaginary, in Rajasthan. 

That is just the way many mothers –and grand mothers—looking high and low for a suitable match for their daughters behave in India. No boy is good enough. And their daughter, too good for most  of the  bachelors they see.

Anyone who has tried to match-make in the Indian context will doubtless empathise with Dadisa, and marvel at the lengths to goes to, to woo the Collector for her Anandi!

I  caught up with this  Colours channel’s  path breaking serial  when it was into it’s second year. I’ve missed many episodes in between, found some boring, and some less boring. But in all fairness, it has remained one of the good serials in our entertainment channels.  The bad are not worse than life throws up, and the good are not so sugary that they will give us diabetes!

Anandi's story could inspire girls in rural India .

The serial comes with a statement by way of a lesson at the end of each episode, and will serve to sensitise/educate many in the country—only if it is aired in one or two of the the free channels bouquet of DD plus, the dish and set top box  that does not involve a monthly payment, and comes with limited Door Darshan channels only.

Hillary Cinton's takeaways from New Delhi

Humayun's Tomb in Delhi

When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinto flew into New Delhi last week, she had two things or experiences that will hopefully linger on long after she demits office—any office that she may hold.

A glimpse of the Neel Gumbad



One is a visit to the breathtakingly beautiful Humayun’s Tomb. 

Hillary so wanted to see it that to squeeze time for it, she got up real early, they opened it specially for her, and she took a morning walk . Music came in the form of the lovely sounds that birds in the greens around the tomb make, all the time.

 



For me it was love at first sight with the warm and inviting historical monument. In fact, I had to spend quite a few minutes before the  beauty of the Taj  Mahal – not the chai, Saif—thawed into my  system.



A second reason why I’ve begun to like Humayun’s tomb with  the neatly laid out gardens (which are incidentally maintained very clean, devoid of litter) etc, is the fact that my young colleague Mandira Nayyar’s husband Ratish Nanda  has been involved with it, he is the architect driving all the  restoration work of the Aga Khan Foundation.



The morning walk kindled Hillary’s appetite sufficiently for her to request a real quick breakfast, saying “I’m really hungry”. Yes, she said that. 
That gave her the  second “thing” that will forever remain etched in her memory .

About what she ate, and the recipes, you will find out when you visit  my food blog.

  Just click on this link..           http://cookandshare.blogspot.in

And be patient..I've yet to include Hillary's Breakfast there! But there are other things you may want to read about...food!

Orphans and orphans and orphans

Years ago when Punjab had orphans of policemen and orphans of terrorists, different sections owned them as extended families often disowned them--to keep away from the bloody mess.

The police started admitting their orphans in the Police Public School in Amritsar.The school was excellent-- and heavily guarded.Footfalls of police officers, then the big heroes, was frequent. The children would say that when they grow up, they will become police officers and kill terrorists. "Police banoonga, khadkuon nu maroonga".

Some religious organizations took charge of the orphans of terrorists.They raised them in a radical way, from clothes to outlook, every thing given to them was designed to harden them. "Khadku banoonga, police nu maroonga", they would say. They will become terrorists and kill policemen.

There was one school in Panchkula-- Jainendra Gurukul. They admitted all kinds of orphans as boarders.To ensure the children did not develop a complex, they were given the fees, and made to stand in queues with the paying students, and pay up. Nobody, save the school management and some trust members, knew whose children these were, and that they were getting education free. The word "reservation" to the best of my memory, did not come into play. There was no quota, just those who came along, or were found needy. The children were immersed into the school world, fully.

There were three children I had met, not at school though. Sikhs, the eldest was a daughter who had fallen in love and married the man who taught her to use the computer. Her brother, younger by a couple of years, had fallen into bad company she would say. The youngest was lost, skinny, and she would come from her married home to where her brothers stayed, and mother him. She was very angry with her "cha cha"--father's brother-- for abandoning them. He did nothing for us, she would say.

But he had done a lot for them.He had not told the landlord that these were children of Beant Singh, who had killed then prime minister Indira Gandhi, and Bimal Kaur Khalsa, who turned a hardliner MP and was electrocuted, leaving the three of them orphaned. Nobody would have given them a place to live in, and they did not want to live with me, he said. Apparently there was a showdown between him and Bimal when she aligned with Simranjit Singh Mann's extremist Akali Dal faction, and they had fallen apart.

But meet the three orphans. There was no love or hatred for terrorists or policemen. They were ordinary citizens of the country battling out for very ordinary things-- rations in the kitchen, money to pay rent, or school fees, health issues with one brother turning to alcohol and drugs, and of course emotive issues of the larger family abandoning them . The rough and tumble of living had leveled them into simply citizens with no streak of violence or ill will !
Will see if I can post their picture, sometime later.

Shaken into reacting, and writing!

I'd almost forgotten this blog created long ago... till the other day, when there was a "mini world war" among the friendliest of colleagues I have, including me. 


What triggered off this wordy war, rather vocal war, was a concern expressed on the 25% reservation in schools that the Right to Education  (RTE) Act provides, for "them" in schools that we send "our children" to. 


We the  army kids spoke of the leveling effect that the Kendriya Vidyalayas had given us, a colleague whose husband has lots of projects in the Nizamuddin Basti area announced their decision to see their child--whenever she or he comes into the world-- to  a school there for at least three years. The pros and cons were thrashed out, but now there is only a cease fire--the issue has not been resolved.


 I would like to share my personal experience, that happened very naturally, totally unchartered as it were.  Now as the RTE issue is flaring up, I realized the importance of what had happened, how it could be the model for some of us to follow.


This is the story of the family that generously owned me as  "Aunty" and Didi !
**

“I don’t let them skip school even once. I often tell them that Aunty would threaten to lock me up in the bathroom all day if I didn’t go to school, and scared of that, I’d go. Thank you so much …Bless me and my children”

That was Ritu, mother of three on the phone from Saharanpur, Her firstborn was in class VIII, son Ankur of class six was going to Kota to participate in an all-India quiz contest, and her youngest, a daughter, was in class four. What she said, I’ve quoted verbatim, without translating.
Ritu is the eldest of three children of Om Prakash Menhdiratta and Lakshim. 


Om Prakash, “Bhaiiya” as I call him,was a cycle mechanic, who worked out a box under a tree outside the Tagore Theatre in Sector 18, Chandigarh. Every now and then the Estate Office clearing encroachments would take away his box complete with the tools, and also the odd cycles and cycle rickshaws that were lined up for repair. He would pay the penalty and retrieve his things and restart. 


The family was living in the outhouse attached to the government accommodation I was allotted in 
Sector 19—a fringe benefit of being an accredited correspondent. Lakshmi, the mother of the children, had the keys to my house as long as were all in that house. 


When my sister, Choti and I, went to work, she would ensure the house was opened for the maid to sweep and mop. She would often bring over a katori of karela or aloo-tariwala or whatever she had made, very affectionately. If was the best of food !


Kids being kids, would prance around , throw their things all over the garden, pluck flowers. And whenever I was home, I’d pull them up for anything that is “not done”. And tell them what to do. And that included dealing with  their occasional tantrums,wanting to skip school,or whenever I could hear Lakshmi chasing them to do their homework.

When Choti , a teacher, had tuitions for a few kids, we made Ritu, Kavita and Rahul sit with them . They would then do their homework, with Choti’s one eye on them as well.


About the time Ritu was in class three, Lakshmi shared her concerns over the rising fees of Navjyoti Model School, being run from a house in our Sector 19. She said she was sending them there because it was “private” and “English medium”, words that I saw, were meant only to lure the likes of Lakshmi. Why don’t you move them to a government school? They have English medium sections after class six, and the children will be able to get into those , I told her.

Reluctant first, she agreed. The relief from the burden of high fees made her shift the other two too to the government school in Sector 18, within a couple of years.


When my daughter Mahima  began speaking—it was in English, possibly because I did not make the effort to teach her my mother tongue Tamil(it would have been of little use in Chandigarh), and my Punjabi-speaking husband was in Delhi. There were no grandparents in residence.

Ritu, Kavita and Rahul spoke to her, played with her. Their English became as correct as that of convent going kids.
Lakshmi would always ensure they were well turned out. They learnt it was better to have one good dress or quality pair of shoes than two or three not so good ones. They saw the way my daughter would be dressed for parties.And when our maid left, Ritu Didi and Kavita Didi  began ensuring that Mahima wore a different party frock , and took her for birthday parties. Time , the happy years, flew!


When I was in Delhi for three days on work, I called up Bhaiiya, and told him to rush with my passport. He arrived, but with news in addition to the passport.They had got Ritu, then in plus one married, right in my living room, before she was 18 ! I threatened to take them to police first, and then heard about the how and why of the wedding.


Ritu and her siblings had gone to Roorkie for a wedding in the family. She called up her parents, naturally on my land number—in the pre-mobile days. My daughter answered, the two spoke for a few minutes till Lashmi took the receiver.

 At the other end, somebody was impressed with Ritu’s looks, and the ease with which she spoke English. They got in touch with Bhaiiya, said they did not want a thing, not even a traditional wedding, but only to drape Ritu in a red saree and take her home as their daughter in law.

Bhaiiya, who was recovering from a painful dog-bite  case, had agreed because he did not know if he would live to see his children “settled”.


Kavita has since done her Masters in Commerce, and was working in a telebanking set up when she got married. Now because she wants something more stable, and with a pension, “I’m giving my B.Ed exams”, she told me.


Rahul’s ITI diploma led him to start his own business that includes repairing electrical goods and mobile phones.
For their work in recharging prepaid cell phones and telemarketing insurance products, Kavita and Rahul have received many incentives—split ac, flat screen television, washing machine and food processor. 


When I left the government house in 2001, Bhaiiya sold an old house in a colony, and bought a tiny place in Sector 19. They demolished it and built a  modern house that was in keeping with the times. 
Some of my friends, who go with me to Lakshmi’s house in Sector 19, are surprised that I should choose to go there. But when they meet the children, hear them, they are unabashedly amazed.Lakshmi tells them it is because of “Didi” – me. I am humbled and happy. I am also convinced that is the best way of bringing up anyone from the underprivileged section. We all have somebody like Ritu ,Kavita and Rahul in our neighbourhood.

A modified version of each one teach one, doing in by keeping them with you. The forced RTE may not achieve this.