News that the Supreme Court of India has instructed that cases concerning Section 124 of the Indian Penal Code (“the sedition law”) are to be in abeyance, while the Centre has stated that it will review the same law, has generated ripples of cautious optimism in all quarters of Indian society that care about human rights and fundamental freedoms. The archaic law, which was devised by the British government in the 1800s to throttle resistance from Indians and other colonised subjects, and any like it should not have a place in a democratic nation.

            Sedition is a concept that stifles dissent and resistance, framing them as negative when they are usually markers of an evolving and engaged populace. Petitions that challenge the constitutionality of Section 124 will be heard soon. Changing laws is a slow process, one that doesn’t match the urgency displayed on the ground.

This is because fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of the press and freedom of speech, are not secure in India at this time, as expert studies show. Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders), an international non-profit concerned with freedom of information, published the 2022 edition of its Press Freedom Index on May 3 (World Press Freedom Day). India ranks 150 out of 180 countries – its lowest ever position, eight positions below 2021, and a dismal rank even without those two qualifiers. The Index is based on five parameters: legal framework, economic context, political context, sociocultural context and the safety of journalists.

India’s rank in the last category is 163 out of 180 countries. The threat or indeed the experience of violence, ranging from online harassment to loss of life, to those in the media is especially acute. Which is to say: those who speak truth to power are in danger, in so many ways. The elimination of a law that was only ever intended to muzzle those who at one point demanded liberty and since then demand accountability will go some way in neutralising this environment. The sedition law can be applied on anyone; it is not only the press who are at risk.

            In April, the Constitutional Conduct Group – comprised of former retired civil servants including high-ranking bureaucrats and judges – wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to express concern on the escalation of hatred towards minorities in the country.  

            Another group of former civil servants countered this open letter with one of their own. A line in their rebuttal claims there is a “striking similarity between the phraseology of the CCG missives and utterances in the Western media or by Western agencies”.

            Here’s the thing, though: the world tends to watch as other parts of it burn, rarely getting involved. The foreign press is only picking up on what people within India are saying – bravely, and at increasing risk.

Lowest on the Press Freedom Index is North Korea, a nation that did not report coronavirus cases for over two years since the virus began spreading. It finally has – admitting that over a million people are currently affected. Officially, that is. The true extent is unofficial – and is just one example of why protest and reportage matter so much.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in May 2022. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

The Students’ Council of Madurai Medical College has accepted responsibility for having taken the Charak Shapath, an ancient Ayurvedic text, rather than the customary Hippocratic Oath, at a white coat ceremony this week. Earlier, the institution’s Dean had been removed from his position following this controversial action. The Council has clarified its role in the proceedings, pointing to a National Medical Commission recommendation about replacing the Oath.

            When the NMC made its recommendation in February, it was opposed by many medical practitioners, as well as by the Indian Medical Association. Reasons for this ranged from bigoted phrases in the text, to the dangers of bringing elements from unregulated practices into the clinically proven modern medical system.

            The Madurai Medical College students say they found the Charak Shapath online and took it in English, not the original Sanskrit. English is probably, if not definitely, the language of instruction at their institution. The students were cognisant of what they were reciting.

            The text does not seem to be on the NMC website. An abridged version on one media website was arguably more secular and progressive than the translation of the ancient Greek Hippocratic oath shared alongside, which begins with a pledge to the deities Apollo, Asclepius, Hygieia and Panacea and more alarmingly has a line about refusing abortions. That hit a nerve, now that the USA may revoke this fundamental right, as a leak from within its Supreme Court has just revealed. There are challenges to human rights within the medical context everywhere.

But the 1947 translation of the Charak Shapath by the Shree Galabkuverba Ayurvedic Society of Jamnagar, available on Wikipedia, made its problematic nature clear. Absolute allegiance to the guru’s demands, reverence to Brahmins, the notion of women as property who must be accompanied and denial of treatment to those who oppose rulers are among its tenets.

Which version of the Charak Shapath did the students take, and how do they feel about what they’ve promised?

All ethical commitments reflect either the mores of those in power, or of those who seek to heal honourably. The Hebrew Oath of Asaph is more like the Charak Sampath in its regressiveness, whereas the Pali Vejjavatapada is more practical in nature.

It also turns out that modern usage of the Hippocratic Oath excises much of what was outdated. A 1964 version by Louis Lasagna of the School of Medicine at Tufts University is popular. As far as complete alternatives go, the University of Minnesota’s Medical School pledge is reasonably worded. The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Geneva was first created in 1948 and has been amended numerous times, evolving to be more inclusive, even as recently as 2017. In allied professions, the Veterinarian’s Oath and the Nightingale Pledge for nurses were created in the 20^th century and have been rephrased to suit new generations.

These texts are crafted and renewed so that their speakers can feel good about saying them. There is no reason why Indian physicians-to-be should not have the same. True ethics can only be observed in action, but inspiration to abide by them – relevant, unprejudiced inspiration – can be imparted, both ceremonially and in constant practice.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in May 2022. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

I hit the mute button on my laptop every single time I start a Youtube video, even before it loads. It’s become such a habit that it’s pretty much body memory now, as instinctive as hitting the space bar between each word I type. I do this because I haven’t bought an advertising-free service on the platform, which means that before any chord, lyric or voice emerges from the video I’ve selected is usually someone’s anguished wail.

            Most often, it is a mother. Sometimes, it is a child. Always, it is a person literally begging for financial support. These videos are exploitative, requiring a humiliating performance of real pain. Those who create them deny the dignity of the person making the request, reducing them to their plea.

These advertisements are created and broadcast by India-based crowdfunding platforms and feature specific cases. Clearly, much is invested in producing and propagating these materials. These are costs that could either go into directly supporting those in need, or at least be utilised for marketing in more sensitive ways. The advertisements alone aren’t the only expenses, as aggressive tactics including cold calling after a donation is made are a part of the larger strategy.

            When I have occasionally contributed through these channels, it has never been because I saw or heard someone lamenting. There has always been a different reason, one I examined before or after making the contribution. This practice of examination is something I do whenever I give financially in significant ways. I am always aware: the choice to give, when it is within my capacity, is based on varied motivations. Videos that exploit the protagonist and manipulate the viewer essentially appeal to a lack of self-awareness in one’s giving choices, tapping into powerful forces like superiority complexes, guilt and fear rather than into subtle forces like empathy.

            Over time, another thought has crept in: surely, these platforms have maintained their strategies because they have seen results through them. In this case, I wonder if these results are indictments of our societal values at large. What does it say about a populace that is moved to make a donation only because people beg desperately? What twisted dynamics and beliefs does this play into?

            A true appeal to conscience would not be an appeal to profoundly condescending and self-serving beliefs, often imparted through religion, about how privileges are earned through past deeds and can be retained and and further rewarded through acts of charity, and the underprivileged are only paying for their own sins. To put it bluntly: the suffering of others is necessary in order to maintain the illusion of the goodness of the self.

But does it matter if the financial goal is fulfilled, the surgery successful, the ailing person saved? It still does. A society that is moved through pity and the notion of redeeming cosmic brownie points, and isn’t angered by the rapaciousness of the medical and pharmaceutical industries, the methods behind medical crowdfunding videos, and the pre-existing hegemonies that create desperate need in the first place, is one that allows all of these to continue. That’s not benevolence. That’s taking comfort in oppression.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in April 2022. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

Earlier this month, the stockbroking company Zerodha announced that it would give employees financial rewards if they could keep their Body Mass Index within certain parameters. Employees with a BMI under 25 would receive a half-month’s salary bonus; additionally, if the entire team could get their BMI ratings under 24 by August, they would all receive an additional half-month’s salary. Aside from the use of the BMI index (denounced, but not widely enough, as being racist and sexist, having been created exclusively on a sample base of adult Caucasian males), this is a straightforwardly discriminatory exercise.

 “Sitting is the new smoking, & the idea has been to nudge everyone to move,” Zerodha’s CEO Nithin Kamath posted online. The blithe way to remark on this would be to say people should just move out of the company, but that’s a privilege few have at any point, let alone in today’s economy. Worse than workplace dissatisfaction itself, this so-called incentive advances a noxious work environment, in which the boundaries between one’s personal life and one’s professional performance are blurred. This is partly about body-shaming, but also extends into the employer’s creepy sense of ownership over employees’ use of personal time, nutritional choices, health records and more.

This BMI challenge is supposedly a World Health Day initiative, but pointedly chooses to ignore the question of mental health. If implemented, there will undoubtedly be detrimental effects on the mental health of employees due to the pressure of meeting the parameters. This may include bullying and even sexual harassment (given the importance placed on the physical form, and the open invitation to comment on others’, in the guise of motivation). It will also impact new hiring choices. It doesn’t matter that work-from-home has become the norm. The fact that there is a group incentive means that one cannot opt not to participate.

            When I looked up Zerodha on Google News, I was intrigued by how outspoken the founder has been over the last few weeks, opining on a whole number of finance-related subjects, with his name or the brand’s often prominently in the headline. Zerodha has certainly invested – in a robust PR strategy, that is. The thought crossed my mind that the BMI challenge was designed to be a publicity stunt, one that got the brand name out beyond the business pages. If that’s the case, it worked, of course. At many people’s expense.

One of the easiest ways to hurt someone is to comment on their weight, shape or size. This is one of those rare instances in which the phrase “Everyone knows this” applies. No matter how body-neutral or body-positive or secure in their skin a person is, we have all – without exception – received conditioning on what ideal body types are, and how we measure up against them. How many people saw the news and felt that familiar twinge of pain? How many were triggered into low self-esteem spirals because of it? Announcing a reward for weight reduction, demonising natural bodies, is abusive on a widespread scale. It is discriminatory in the workplace, obviously – but more insidiously, it propagates and indeed celebrates appearance-based discrimination in the world itself.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in April 2022. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

Something in me disintegrated when I understood that I had been looking at myself in broken mirrors for a very long time. The awareness did not inspire me; instead, I descended into sorrow for all the misunderstanding that had preceded it. I had seen myself through the projections of others. They held broken mirrors up to me and told me who I was, and I believed them. I had shaped my life in response, over a period of years that I cannot get back. Even when I was aware that I was being deluded, deep deep deep down, I had forgotten how to perceive myself authentically.

A broken mirror may multiply reflections. Metaphorically, this means that it forces us to create simulacra. Here is the self I created to gather the strength to survive. Here is the other self I conjured to camouflage that strength, so that I could conceal the small steps and strides I made towards freedom. Here is the tiny flame of the true self, storm-buffeted, and here is its looming shadow – the fear of true fire. These selves, so useful and so necessary, yet so difficult to discard, even when the time arises.

            It is not easy to dispose of mirror shards. They cut the hands that hold them. They pierce the soles that attempt to create distance from them – showing one how far their influence has been strewn. We must seek, and then learn to trust, whole mirrors. In the shadow-work required to do this, I had to confront myself in one of those broken mirrors. Its holders had shown me, in actions and words, that I was a dumping ground for the ugliness they refused to heal in themselves, and a scapegoat onto which to project the same. Because they stood behind the mirror, they did not have to look at who they really are. But I saw myself as who they treated me as. “The trashcan self”, I called her. I felt like her, so much of the time.

            One afternoon only recently, I stepped out onto the veranda of a house in the mountains, and saw on the polished wooden floor a broomstick. Beside it was a dustpan full of blossoms. Alstroemerias, pink-plumed and still fresh-stemmed. This too was rubbish, of a kind, cleared from carpets and vases. Beautiful debris. They were no less flowers, just the same.

            Shortly before the pandemic began, I became mired in circumstances that diminished the daily quality of my life. Even though I had no idea then how long those circumstances would persist, I crafted myself a mnemonic to lay my eyes on often. “Bloom where you are planted” ran the words beneath the line drawing. I did. But then, uprooting myself to bloom elsewhere became harder than I imagined. When the poster, in a broken frame no less, ceased to speak to or for me, I kept it out of eye level. I noticed it today. I read the words wrong for a split second: “Bloom where you are wanted”. Blossom or broken shard, or both, what will I believe now? Perhaps this will do: that I can begin again.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in April 2022. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

The Tamil Nadu government’s decision to reserve 100 wards in Chennai for women to hold municipal posts was rightfully celebrated as a meaningful way to increase gender parity in civic services. But just weeks after new councillors have taken office for the first time in eleven years, media reports have emerged that show that while namesake authority may belong to the officials, their male relatives (husbands especially) are calling the shots.

            This kind of power redistribution is not unheard of in Indian politics, where seats reserved for women are contested by women candidates, while the actual power remains in the hands of male kin. In 2011, a sarpanch in Chhattisgarh, where 50% of seats were reserved, named Hemant Kumari even formally transferred power-of-attorney to her husband. Those who elected her to power in the first place were, rightfully, peeved, and lodged a complaint. The sarpanch claimed that she had personally made the choice to delegate authority to her husband. While this may be true, it was a dereliction of the duties entrusted to her.

            It may also not be true at all, of course. Internalised misogyny is an interesting thing, and political power has a tendency to be ethically corrosive anyway. Journalist Omjasvin MD, who investigated the unofficial power transfers happening in some wards around Chennai, has reported receiving numerous calls from people justifying and defending the same (and that husbands, not councillors, picked up his own calls). Most of the councillors themselves have yet to speak; but it would be unsurprising if some echo Hemant Kumari’s sentiments, at least publicly.

            The Tamil author Salma, who wrote in secret and pseudonymously, entered the public arena in a similar way. Her husband – who had previously enforced great constrictions on her mobility –  asked her to contest in panchayat elections in 2002 in Tuvarankurinchi, for a seat reserved for women. This could have gone just like the story of many women who have been elected to powerful seats, wherein the power itself remains in someone else’s hands, and normal life for them and other women remains much unchanged. In Salma’s case, however, she was able to utilise the public servant role to actually pursue a political career, as well as to come out of anonymity as a writer.

            What has happened in rural panchayats for decades appears to be happening in the metro of Chennai now, making a mockery of what women’s political reservation was supposed to encourage. In fact, DMK Women’s Wing Secretary and former Member of Parlimanent Kanimozhi Karunanidhi reportedly warned the new councillors and Chennai’s new mayor Priya Rajan (the first Dalit woman to hold this position) at an event earlier this month: “If you fail to use this opportunity, then it won’t benefit in empowering women of the next generation. Use this opportunity to break the impression that the woman councillors won’t work but only family members would run the show.”

            Maybe some of them will still surprise us in good ways, coming out of the shadow roles they’ve been relegated to. Of course, it is up to those they serve, those who elected them, to hold them accountable – and demand that they do.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in March 2022. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

Turning Red is a multivalent title. Red for auspiciousness, in the Chinese culture it depicts. Turning red for blushing, for crushes and hormonal surges. Red for the creature that is a big part of the storyline. Red for the colour of blood. Specifically, menstruation. So it’s right there in the title, the element that has gotten some people upset.

            In Pixar/Disney’s latest animated film, a pre-teen Canadian girl named Mei has enough on her plate between her overbearing mother and adolescent life when she turns, without warning, into a red panda. This is because of a matrilineal curse, which her family keeps secret until she looks in the mirror and panda-monium ensues. For generations, the women experience the transformation, then undergo a ritual that tames the wild spiritedness within them and keeps it safe – but locked up in a trinket. Like some curses, what it really is is a superpower – but one that Mei’s family, as a custom, keep in check and under wraps.

            In a scene early in the film, Mei’s mother thinks her daughter has gotten her first period and comes to her bathroom, bringing products she may need. They’ve clearly discussed the topic before. For some reason, the mother has talked to the child about the perfectly normal onset of puberty, but not about the highly anomalous onset of red pandahood. Turning Red normalises the first without any awkwardness at all. As those made uncomfortable by this scene have shown, destigmatising like this is still needed. This conservative approach dovetails with a racist one: some have vocalised that they find the Asian protagonist “unrelatable”, clearly not having read the memo that personal disconnection from a work of art is in no way a reflection on that work’s greatness. And Turning Red is, without a doubt, great.

            The filmis also a relief to watch given how unsettlingly another recent animated movie about families dealt with intergenerational trauma. In Encanto, abuse is treated as being merely dysfunction, and its perpetrators get away with it because their victims still love them. Its storyline ultimately enables abuse, because mere acknowledgment is simply not enough. There’s a darkness in that film, one that leaves an aftertaste, whereas Turning Red is full of levity in large part because it is so very reparative. What happens in Encanto is arguably more egregious, but then such comparisons when it comes to the deeply subjective effects of such scenarios are, well, relative.

            Still, along with 2010’s Tangled – a sheer revelation, one that successfully spins the evil stepmother trope of fairytales into the taboo subject of mothers and mother figures with narcissistic personality disorder – both Encanto and Turning Red expand the genre of animated films that deal with the institution of family in a meaningful way that is supportive of those who have suffered within that institution, and suffered because it is considered sacrosanct.

            Considering that Turning Red already deals with a tricky subject, that its creators chose to add another delicate layer of referencing menstruation was a risk, but one that paid off. Can the movie work without it? Sure. Does it make the movie work even better? Definitely, period.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in March 2022. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

“No” can be a sentence, whole and beautiful. Deepti Vempati, one of two Indian origin contestants on the expedited-marriage reality show Love Is Blind, said it at the altar – to Shake Chatterjee, the other Indian origin contestant. She used several more words than just “No”, but the most eloquent of them all was her smile.

            A Reddit forum with insider information from the show’s crew suggested that producers had offered Deepti the chance to speak at the altar first, knowing that Shake had already been talking about rejecting her. Perhaps the sequence was mildly staged, but the emotions could not have been anything but real. The effect of the sequence went much further than entertainment. It offered a pop culture model that shows a possibility that more women in particular should emulate. Sometimes we need to see what others have done before we can imagine it for ourselves. The post-show reunion was probably the best episode of the season. Deepti was nothing but graceful and self-possessed. Shake, meanwhile? Someone who didn’t even date him told him: “You are unbearable.”

            What happened immediately after the rejection was also beautiful. Earlier in the show, we had seen that Deepti’s mother was the head of their household, more vocal than her spouse and speaking for the family in what looked like a benevolent leadership style. Deepti’s mother followed her out of the ceremony and more than comforted her, but also verbally affirmed her bravery and sweetness. That’s two amazing South Asian women onscreen – talk about good representation. Shake’s own mother, who openly sided with Deepti early on, also challenges preset expectations of Indian mother-in-laws.

Much is said about representation, especially in film and television produced in the West, which is subsequently broadcast globally. This reach impacts both people who live where the show is set, and people elsewhere, including the places where the characters or cast originate from. What resonates and what causes discomfort will vary greatly between these locations and is naturally subjective (for instance, many people in the West loved seeing the brown family in the series Never Have I Ever; to me here in India, I was dismayed by how it seemed to be about any other rightwing-inclined NRI family in the USA, and I never bothered to watch past the first season).

But Deepti’s No – that matters anywhere, whether in the region or in the diasporas, and is one of those not exactly common instances when “South Asian” as a marker does actually apply across several cultures. For a South Asian woman who has agreed to marry, especially in a pressurised situation (reality show or family drama – same thing, sort of!), to then listen to her heart and make the choice to say No, no matter how late into the process, is a big deal. It’s rare. It’s role model behaviour.

A friend of mine once told me: “Every time you say No to something, say Yes to something else.” That’s worth remembering. Deepti, and anyone who does what she did, has said Yes to herself, her right to be loved and not just settle, and to holding the door open to happiness ahead.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in March 2022. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

The Ukrainian-American poet Ilya Kaminsky’s collection Deaf Republic opens on a piece called “We Lived Happily During The War”, an acknowledgment of how the speaker’s immigrant family were safe – and indeed, content – during a time of turmoil in their country of origin. It is a poem that can be read as an indictment of selective amnesia, or as a confession of survivor’s guilt. Those who survive have a right to thrive; disengagement can be rightfully understood as a traumatised or healed response, and not only as indifference.

            This poem has been shared widely on social media in the last few days, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It has also been widely misunderstood, with numerous bad faith interpretations. Kaminsky’s history of having been granted political asylum as a small child, and his disability and framing of deafness in this book as an act of resistance (“Our country woke up next morning and refused to hear soldiers… “Our hearing doesn’t weaken, but something silent in us strengthens.”), are ignored in favour of a facile misconstruing of what it means to be “happy” while others cannot be.

Kaminsky himself Tweeted something interesting: upon asking a friend in Odessa what he could do to help, he received this response: “Putins come and go. If you want to help, send us some poems and essays. We are putting together a literary magazine.” Kaminsky added this comment: “And, that is in the middle of war. Imagine.” I could imagine it both ways: the necessity of art, and that life doesn’t change much for some people no matter what happens (which is usually a function of privilege). But why imagine the second, at this time? Why not focus on the first?

            Does everyone know that art is necessary? No, they do not. They do ask what art costs, before they even consider it. Does everyone know that war is unnecessary? No, they do not. They do not care to ask what war costs, except perhaps later.

Another poem, by the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, has also been shared widely in the last few days. It is brief: “The war will end, / The leaders will shake hands. / The old woman will keep waiting for her martyred son. / The girl will wait for her beloved husband / And those children will wait for their hero father. / I don’t know who sold our homeland, / But I saw who paid the price.” As some pointed out, many who circulate this poem now – displaying their empathy for the “civilized European” people of Ukraine (as political commentators who let their racism slip said) – do not extend the same to the Palestinian people, out of whose circumstances this poem and its poet emerged. True – even though the reality of those words can be applied anywhere, no matter how specific their inspiration.

We need words, and art, to shape experience and to remember it. We also need it for that which is indelible to those who experience it, but which is so wilfully forgotten at large, as Darwish wrote elsewhere: “Forgotten, as if you never were / news, or a trace… forgotten”.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in March 2022. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

A conversation with Dr. Deenaz Damania

Sharanya Manivannan: I am someone who seeks maps for how to live meaningfully, and I believe that these maps must be shared. Thank you for giving us a glimpse into yours. Can you begin by telling us what brought you to Coonoor, and what made you decide to make this town your home?

Deenaz Damania: I think Coonoor – discovering Coonoor – has been a very important part of my life journey, at this stage. I was, at one level, not completely at peace with what was happening in my life, because of different pressures and challenges. I wanted more. I was not using who I was. I was not deeply happy, and I tend to be a kind of person who is deeply happy and who loves life. I knew that unless I made a couple of important changes, I would step away from who I am as a human being, basically. So this was at the back of my mind, at a very subconscious level. I had recently quit a very active career, and I was in this space where I had time to think.

It just so happened that a very dear friend of my first husband, whom I lost to cancer, lived in Coonoor. I hadn’t seen him for many years, and I decided to visit him. I arrived in the evening. When I woke up in the morning, Sharanya – I don’t know how to describe it. I felt I had come home. A certain sense of peace descended on me. That was it. I knew not a soul here except this one fine gentleman, when I decided with my second husband to build a home here. For him, it was a holiday home. For me, it was a life transformation. It changed my life and filled in the gaps in ways that I didn’t know life would. I didn’t know what I would do with my life here, but everything fell into place.

SM: Would you then say that a sense of place is very important to a person’s well-being, or is everything within?

DD: Actually, a place as a place has no meaning. A place if it connects to one’s soul has meaning. At one time, Bangalore had that connection for me. At some level, it still does. Bombay had it for me when I was growing up. So it’s not Coonoor the place as much as what Coonoor represents for me today, which is: another way of life, another value system, a slowing down of the hurry. Ruthlessly travelling and taking flights and being important and sitting on boards of companies – that phase is done. Coonoor represents the simplicity of the mountains, of nature, of plants.

SM: This connection between place and person: how does one recognize it, and forge it?

DD: One has to be internally prepared. I know people who say a mountain is fine for two days and then it’s boring. Or they ask me, “How can you be alone with your husband just visiting every month or you going to Bangalore every month? How can you be alone for ten days or two weeks at a time and not be lonely?”

The cultivation is all at the non-verbal level. It’s your needs, and the lack you experience. I don’t think I could have done it when I was a vibrant 40-year old, for example. Perhaps – I don’t know. But now, a lot of my worldly needs have been met. A lot of my active chasing of success has been met. I was, to that extent, feeling complete. What was not complete was that there were still parts of me that were not finding expression in life. By moving here and taking time to get to know myself better, I discovered I liked myself more and more. I discovered that I can be friends with the birds and the flowers, and I can achieve a sense of completion within myself, to the extent that I can be alone and not be lonely.

SM: When we were first introduced you spoke of how you just want to keep learning. Can you talk about learning and self-growth as active pursuits?

DD: I think my life is all about learning. Formal learning and informal learning. I started as a post-graduate student of social work. I practiced social work. I went into the corporate world. I taught myself management consulting and research, then I did a PhD in that – much later, when I had two children. Struggled, struggled, struggled, but did it. Then I went into teaching at the post-graduate level, to management students. Then I became a psychotherapist. Every ten years, my career has changed. UNICEF, Government of India, child welfare, destitute children, corporate world, consulting, adoptive parents…

Everything is connected yet everything is disparate. I’ve had about five careers. A very defining part of who I am is curiosity. I love asking “Why?” at every stage of life.

SM: Another thing that strikes me from our earlier meeting as you talk about transformation and choosing to change is that you said that day, “Nothing is forever.” There are many ways to interpret this, and in many moods. I’d love to know what it is about this phrase that you feel strongly about.

DD: When we grow older, we become more and more like our parents ,whether we like it or not. I feel sad that we are too much like our parents and too little like our children. I believe the lessons that our children teach us are our most precious lessons. If we can build on the foundation of what our parents give us, but become more like what younger people teach us, we can be better. That is the openness to change. Thank God nothing is forever.

Change can be internal. Change can be life circumstances.

When I was 22, I was confident, ready to go abroad to live and work at a fabulous place on a fabulous scholarship. Three months before I was due to go, I met a man two and a half inches shorter and 12 years older than I was, and I gave it all up and married him two months later. Nothing held meaning except this wonderful human being I had met. So that changed the entire course of my life. I would have become a high-flying, full time therapist back then. I put it on hold till much later in life. But if I did not embrace that change, I would have been a much lesser mortal.

 Change is very hard. You give up who you are and become who you should be. It is associated with pain, never with joy. Change is the only way to become a full human being. Otherwise, we die as half human beings.

SM: I’d like to circle back to something you said, on a personal note. I come from an abusive family. The last thing I want to be is like my parents. I’m unlikely to have children, although that may change – after all, life is full of transformation. What then does one do when conditioning, circumstances, other people’s deliberate attempts, have prevented one from shaping one’s life as one wants? Is there anything you can say broadly to people who need to wrest power back to shape their lives?

DD: Freud said life is deterministic. His whole approach was that things are shaped till you’re 6, then God help you. Unless you do a lot of psychoanalysis. I believe that sometimes years of psychoanalysis may not be beneficial to us, unless there is a conscious effort to change one’s perspective and enable a shift within us. I do believe that one can overcome one’s challenges. One can become a better human being based on the suffering one goes through. For that, we need two kinds of intelligence: the mind, and emotional intelligence.

Some of the finest human beings I have met are through my therapy practice. My clients have had the courage to question, to challenge, to rebel and to grow. The most difficult times we have in life are with our families, for everybody. The most satisfying times, if one is lucky, are also with one’s loved ones. So when I use the terms “parents” and “children” I don’t mean literally. I would be the last person to believe that blood is thicker than water because I’ve worked in adoption. When I say “parents” and “children” I just mean older people and younger people.

SM: Thank you for clarifying that. Just now, you talked about learning from clients. You once mentioned a person anonymously who said “I have lived a rich life but not a happy one.” The distinctions between these struck me as interesting…

DD: I am very clear. I find that a life of purpose and meaning is far superior to a life which can generally be described as a “happy life”. You can choose to believe that you are  “happy” without engaging your mind or heart in any significant manner. I would not define that as a happy life. Ultimately, we are not born into this world to have a small, narrow focus. We are born to have purpose and meaning. I learnt that when I started suffering. Through my suffering I realised that there was another purpose to my life. Who was I to question what had happened to me? Why should I feel angry about it? Why should I feel like a victim? So what if people looked at me with pity?

When I lost my first husband, I didn’t want to live. I knew I had had a good life but the desolation, despair, depression and sadness were hard to deal with. At such times, one struggles to overcome the desire to go too. At that time I was deeply lonely, and I can relate to everybody who loses a friend or a spouse. Deeply. I became a more compassionate human being on the saddest day of my life.

Within the same year, I lost my husband and both our girls left home for work and study. I took a decision to find purpose and meaning through that suffering. Let me tell you – the finest human beings come to you when you are searching for answers. It need not only be family. I found my answers. The minute I did, my suffering became less. I don’t know how to describe that, but I found my purpose in life to go ahead. I strongly feel that meaning and purpose are something all of us should seek, actively.

SM: You have also benefited from therapy; there was a particular experience of receiving grief counselling under the stars in Lonavala that you recounted…

DD: I graduated from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. In early January 2001, they asked me to come and speak at a conference that they had organised for the first time of international therapists and counsellors. At that time, I had said that I couldn’t come, as I had a husband who was very ill and dying and that I could not leave him. It so happened that he passed away that March. I remembered that the conference was later in April. On an impulse, I wrote and said: “I am alone now. My responsibility is over. I’ll come.” I went just to distract my mind. It was the most fantastic experience, even though I hadn’t expected it to happen.

At the introductory round of the conference, I said, “I am grieving now. I am grieving the loss of a soulmate. I’m not my usual self, but I came here quite honestly to just be away from home.” That night, two of the world’s best therapists sought me out. We sat outdoors, under the stars, and they helped me release much of my pain. It was magical. I came away a new person.

I had never studied grief therapy as a specialisation, and I then realised the power of it. It helped me stand up much faster, from what would have taken me months and months otherwise, and get in touch with myself.

SM: Do you attribute any of this to being in the hills, under the stars?

DD: Just the stars could never have done it, but they certainly added something magical to the experience.

I used to be a much more reticent person when it came to speaking about my inner world. But these two women, these therapists, drew me out beautifully. Ah! Now that you’ve connected the mountain and the stars – maybe it couldn’t have happened in an urban environment…

SM: Your garden in Coonoor is full of flourishing things: fragrant magnolia, nourishing kale, fresh strawberries. Among them are sculptural objects, made not just of stone, but also of driftwood. You have brought some of these back from hiking expeditions along the Bhavani river and other places. Can you talk a little about how to stay spry, both in the heart and in the body?

DD: My hiking or walking did not start until I was in my 40s. My first hike up any mountain was up Kinabalu, on the island of Borneo in Malaysia –

SM: Kinabalu is a tricky trek! That was your very first one? (DD nods) That’s adventurous!

DD: It happened because just about four months earlier, my husband – who had been a robust guy – had been diagnosed with a pretty deadly cancer. We came through the first round of surgery. We were living in Malaysia. One day he said, “Come on, get ready, you have to walk with me every day. We are going up Kinabalu.” I had no idea what Kinabalu was, but we began training to trek.

I went up the mountain with this man. For us, it meant more than just a trek. It was a “We shall overcome” thing.

It was beautiful – beautiful. Absolutely fabulous, and from then on I was hooked to the outdoors. To a large extent, my interest in trekking, walking and nature were gifts from Malaysia.

SM: How have you cultivated that interest over the decades since?

DD: I feel alive when I walk. It’s difficult to explain, but I connect with myself when I walk and I feel good. I have inherited my mom’s arthritis but I never wanted that to stop me from anything I wanted to do. When I had a couple of meniscus tears, a year ago, my orthopedician said, “Deenaz, you cannot walk up steps or slopes anymore”, I wept in front of him. How could he tell me that I can’t walk in the hills I love? But it healed. My meniscus tears are in control. I didn’t have surgery. I still walk.

SM: You found love again later in life, and remarried, which is inspiring and challenges so many societal notions about love. Is there anything you can share with us about how this happened?

DD: It happened just before I turned 60. I just know that the closeness and comfort of the bond experienced during the first close relationship of 25 years had clearly “allowed’ me to be vulnerable, and that I had found the reawakening of romance and caring neither unnatural nor something to run from.

The two experiences have been so different, each enriching in its own way, and each with its own challenges at different stages of my life. Interestingly, each set of experiences has contributed to my personal growth and resilience, and helped me emerge as a psychotherapist with a deeper understanding of the human condition, compassion and ability to make a difference in people’s lives.

SM: I began this by saying that I like maps. Toko-Pa Turner wrote: “Drop your maps and listen to your lostness like a sacred calling into presence”. Can you describe a moment in your life when this happened – when you chose to drop a map you had created or been given, and let your lostness lead you into something extraordinary?

DD: I love the word “lostness”. During the past 25 years I have experienced it twice.

The first time was when I lost the love of my life, and felt my life was over. Before that, I had given my all to researching the deadly illness and been so brave in the face of so many odds. Then, my doctor friend sat me down and explained to me that my husband was suffering very deeply and literally staying alive because of his love for me, and that I should cease all medication and let him go in peace. Out of that terrible sense of lostness and grief, I had that most difficult and last conversation with my beloved, and gave him “permission” to leave and journey on… Although he had lost the ability to speak, his eyes conveyed that he had understood and let a tear fall, and he left my world a day later.

The second time was another very deeply troubling time when I had felt alone and almost “abandoned” by life. I was losing my self-confidence and my natural ability to laugh and be in love with life. That was when that sense of “lostness” gave me the courage to take charge of my life, and start the new journey of my life that brought me to these mountains, and I have never looked back.

The road rose to meet me and embrace me and comfort and energize me, and today I am living the kind of life at the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual levels that I had never dreamt was possible!

First published in Coonoor & Co in 2022.

The longing first comes at last light, not in the high heat of noon.

            This is the hour when windows are closed to keep deadly mosquitoes at bay, the hour when breeze must be compromised in service of safety. So it is to live in the plains, where summer’s scorch and winged assassins, together, wake one again and again through the night. But it is not night – not yet. Now, it is the liminal time described as “crepuscular”, a word that evokes the nature of moths, and other creatures and beings of the in-between. The day’s torpor still clinging to one’s skin, the heat’s strain on the mind, and a parchedness that has less to do with water and more to do with unspoken feeling, and that is how one feels too: in-between.

There is a reason why this longing comes at this hour, and not sooner. Something about dusk, its changing colours, feels reminiscent of cloud cover. This longing, the longing for summer rain, is stark when it feels like the longed for may be near, may be almost – almost – here.

Summer rain that arrives preceded by a moody sky, stirring anticipation before it. Summer rain that arrives with an orchestra – the sounds of strings of rain drops falling on many surfaces. Rain on tin roofs, on umbrella vinyl, on window glass, on dense foliage, on hot tar, on hardened soil, on other water. Some of these sounds are almost silent. Each is surely distinct, depending on proximity or buffering, yet there is only one sound in my memory. I can hear it now, in my head.

There is a particular way the body responds when rain is percolating in the atmosphere, a pleasurable tension. Sultriness of air, sultriness of body.

And then there is the scent. Scent of water on dry earth. An awakening scent, roused from earth made wet after a long time without such touch. The English word for it is “petrichor”, coined only in 1964 by the mineralogist Dick Thomas, a word borrowed from the Greek – “ichor” for the mythical fluid that flows in divine veins, which animates “petr” for stone. Before this, it was known as “argillaceous odour”; those who studied it knew the chemicals that release it are within the baked and waiting clay, not the giving rain. But this other, newer word, accorded ancient gravitas and the allure of poetry, is beautiful; and because of its beauty so many more of us understand: what rises to us with first rain is the fragrance of coming together, of mingling.

A spell of summer rain is not always a summer storm, yet when it finally arrives the ferocity of the heart’s response elevates its impact. It is a celebration – and the hope is to be caught in it, in a sense. To not have it take place when one is occupied, or out of sight of a window through which the swirl of trees in the draft can be observed, or within an edifice built to keep the elements out in more than necessary ways.

In Tamil Nadu, the start of the period of deepest summer, known as agni-nakshatram (translating literally to “fire-star”), was traditionally marked by a downpour, after which the heat would intensify. That summer rain could be experienced as Nature offering a respite and a caveat at once. Climate change has altered these patterns, this gracious concord made between heat and succor.

In recent years, there is not always this announcement, or at least not one shared consistently throughout the region. Sometimes now, the weather turns torrid without a word, and the windows and the heart are not first washed ceremonially by the first rain of a fresh year, as per the old calendars.

They are not the same, the heavy monsoonal showers that will come in a few months. They lack the decadence and desirousness of that epigrammatic burst of summer rain, those torrents that say – I know you’ve waited, and will wait again, but here for now – be gratified, be quenched.

First published in Coonoor & Co in 2022.

No one’s life is a circus for other people’s entertainment – not even if they are a reality TV star, not even if their entire career has been about public visibility. Sometimes, when distressing events in a celebrity’s personal life play out in public ways, it is not only their right to privacy that is important, but also our refusal to normalise certain actions.

            Kim Kardashian is being stalked and harassed by Kanye West, her former spouse, whom she is still legally married to despite her efforts to dissolve the partnership. The couple have four children together, whom Kardashian raises. None of this is news to most people – we are already privy to these details, and much more.

            West’s grandiose Valentine’s Day aggression of sending a truckload of roses to Kardashian was quickly followed by him sharing screenshots of her private messages to him, including ones expressing her worries that his actions could endanger her current partner and children.

            West is not behaving in a romantic fashion. These are acts of emotional violence that intimidate Kardashian and her loved ones. They are unacceptable behaviour, full stop.

            When West’s diagnosis of mental illness became public, Kardashian stood by him graciously. In the official statement she released, she also took the opportunity to address “the stigma and misconceptions” around his condition, thus depersonalising the situation in a way that was also useful for other caregivers and the ill.

            About half a year later, in January 2021, Kardashian formally filed for divorce. Till date, the divorce has yet to come through, and West’s refusal to resolve the legal terms are believed to be the reason. Furthermore, West has chosen to make some of their conflicts public – posting about being unhappy that their eldest child has been allowed by Kardashian to use TikTok, for instance.

Kardashian has clearly felt pressured to present her side of the story publicly too. Now, her statements on social media acknowledge West’s “constant attacks” and how his hostility has impacted their kids. “Divorce is difficult enough on our children and Kanye’s obsession with trying to control and manipulate our situation so negatively and publicly is only causing further pain for all… I wish to handle all matters regarding our children privately, and hopefully he can finally respond to the third attorney he has had in the last year to resolve any issues amicably,” she posted earlier this month.

Kardashian’s situation may be in the public eye, but it is far from unique. Similar to Britney Spears, who was abused and controlled by her family for thirteen years in full view of the world, Kardashian is experiencing forms of abuse that many others do. We may not necessarily be able to help her, but we can admit what’s wrong in her situation and recognise it in and around our own lives – where it may indeed be our place to intervene or to act. Far too often, a controlling partner is deemed romantic and a controlling parent is deemed caring. But abuse is not love. The misuse of the word “love” should never be used to justify abuse – yet it is, all the time, just look around…

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in February 2022. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

I took to heart a lesson in feminist activism that I learned a few years ago. I was invited to speak to students who were part of an outreach programme in Batticaloa. The day after the event, I met the organiser for a meal. She told me then that something I had said, about the possibilities if not the necessity of rejecting the institution of marriage, was not relevant to the youth I had spoken to. She was right. On the one hand, offering a perspective led by example may have impacted or interested a few. On the other, if I had paused to think about it, I would have recognised that that perspective could not be applied to most of the people present. The truth is that real change is slow, and that even as we create art, manifestos and more that present desired outcomes – we must work with ground realities not ideals.

            This is why it is not just irrelevant, but also obfuscating, to say that many people are forced into wearing the hijab or that it is an unfeminist garment. What is important is that to force them out of schools or colleges because they wear it – as is happening in Karnataka now – is an injustice. This enforcement will not come from their communities, but from authorities and bigots.

It helps to recall that historically, the right to dress as per one’s own choices, as per cultural norms, or like those with structural power do, has always been politically loaded. The Kingdom of Travancore imposed a “breast tax” on women from marginalised castes who wanted to cover their upper bodies until 1859. Dalit men who sport moustaches are murdered even today in parts of India. Hijab-wearing Muslims in Karnataka and beyond are the latest minority to be punished using the rhetoric and semiotics of appearance.

In a brutal case that no one should forget, a 17-year old student at a college in Nokha, Rajasthan, was raped and murdered in 2017.  She had been the first Dalit girl from her village to go to university, and the ripple effect in the community was reportedly that families had begun to doubt again whether they should give their daughters tertiary educations. Those humiliating videos now all over social media of teachers being forced to remove their hijabs and other religious attire before entering their institutions are of people who are able, but not necessarily willing, to make a compromise. That compromise is not only forced, but is also something not everyone can make. The desired consequence of this move is ultimately to confine more people to their homes, depriving them of independence as well as education.

It helps to recall also that the liberation of women was one of the justifications that both conservative and liberal people used when the USA began bombing Afghanistan and other Muslim countries after 9/11. The war crimes that followed cannot be justified. Those truly concerned with the liberation of women will be concerned only with how an education will empower them throughout their lives, and is indeed a fundamental right – not what they wear as they gain that education.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in February 2022. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.