Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month (CSAAM) - April 2011

There are monsters who walk amongst us. They prey upon the innocence of our children. They destroy their very childhood.

How can we make sure that they are not allowed to damage our children?

We can speak up about it. We can share stories and traumas. We can educate ourselves and in turn empower our children.

We can try.

Many of my blogger friends and I, have designated April as Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month.

If you would like to add your voice, or if you know somebody who would like to, please do any of the following:

a. mailed to csa.awareness.april@gmail.com OR

b. posted as FB notes and linked to the FB page OR

c. posted on your own blog with the badge and "CSAAM April 2011" in the heading and linked to the main blog OR

d. linked or posted on Twitter tagged twitter.com/CSAAwareness OR

e. sent via some/all of the above methods

Some topics are suggested here. Anonymous contributions are accepted and requests for anonymity will of course be honoured.

You can also show your support by displaying our logo on your website.

Please do support this initiative. Because unfortunately, monsters do not exist in fairy tales alone.

Just One of Those Days

It was already turning out to be one of those days.

Again.

At 8.30 in the morning!

Damn!

Meltdowns should really come scheduled and never so early in the morning...or in a public space...or when one was headed out...or before bedtime...or ever, really!

The little boy stood his ground, engaging his mother in a staring match. He was a little bull. But she was his mother after all. He could have been a big, raging bull on a rampage, but that wouldn't change the fact that she was big mamma. Her bovinity trumped his bullishness any day!

The four-year-old mite had an opinion on everything and strong ones at that; be it clothes, food, toys and even TV shows, he had a strong set of likes and dislikes. Today, he wanted to take his other bag to school; the yellow one. It wasn't even his, literally speaking; it was a hand-me-down from his elder brother, that's why when he'd started school, Mamma wanted him to have a new one. But this morning, the little boy had decided that he'd been carrying Mon. Lightening McQueen for long enough, and it was now Master Mickey Mouse's turn. Plus, it was a bright, sunshiney, yellow -- his most favourite colour of all! Didn't his Mamma get that?

His Mamma lovingly pointed out that the chain was broken and needed to be fixed. If he took that, his water bottle, tiffin box and napkin would all fall out. Didn't her little boy get that?

When he continued to stand his ground, she tried a different track -- all his friends would laugh at him. Nope, that didn't seem to dint his innate sense of self-confidence either. "So what?" his eyes challenged her. "You're not taking it!", she glared back.

Sigh! Terrible Twos and Threes is what anybody ever talked or wrote about. They were absolutely no bloody match for the Furious Fours!!

By this time, the night ayah and the day ayah decided to join in Operation Logical Might. The morning didi showed him over and over again that the chain just wasn't working. He got that, but he didn't care. The night didi said she would take it home with her now, get it fixed and bring it back with her that very evening. But he wanted to take it to school NOW! He looked at these three women, perplexed and a little angry, didn't they understand anything??

Finally, Mamma's patience, having been stretched to it's very possible end, snapped and she gave him his marching orders. He was to put on his Lightening McQueen schoolbag, march down the steps, go give his Baba a kissie and leave for school; with a smile if possible, if not, well then just leave anyway.

He marched down the steps. Sobbing his little heart out. If there was one person in the whole world who would melt at his sobs and shivers, it was his darling dad; a man he had so tightly wound around his little finger that all he had to do was raise his wail to a C sharp and it would transform his father into a snarling, growling beast ready to mow down anyone who had dared do his precious cub wrong.

Papa Lion immediately roared for Mamma Lion and she came down, pinned Papa Lion with a glare and explained the situation, then she wearily sat down at the breakfast table and picked up a newspaper, hoping that the headlines would be less frustrating than the battle royale being played out on her domestic front.

The little boy waited for daddy darling to order someone to go and get the bag from upstairs, but this time, even daddy darling spoke the language of the three thick-headed women. That same old spiel about the chain not working. He wailed harder, but daddy didn't budge; instead, he grew more firm and fixed him with a I-know-better-than-you-so-stop-crying look.

By now, his grandmother, who was sitting and having breakfast and watching the entire drama unfold, finally went to pieces and gathered her cherished cherub to her breast and tried to calm him down. With soothing words and dulcet tones, she also tried to make him see reason. From the safe haven of his grandmother's arm, the little brat continued to give his mother the stink eye. Next, the chacha came out of his room, picked up the little boy and tried to distract him with hugs, cuddles and kisses.

The night ayah came downstairs to say 'bye' to the brat and she even showed him the plastic bag in which she was carrying the offending piece that had generated so much heat, tears and tantrums, with the promise that it was going to come back all fixed and in working condition. By now, the chachi had come out to take him to school, where she happened to teach. She gave him a big squeeze, dried his tears and proceeded to walk with him towards the door. They were followed by a chorus of "Bye! I love you's" and "Have a nice day's." Just one voice was missing.

The Mamma's.

She said it softly, under her breath. He turned at the door, looked straight into her eyes and...slowly lifted his little hand, curled up in a fist save the littlest finger of all -- katti, the accepted and acknowledged gesture for the silent treatment; to say as eloquently as possible, "I don't like you anymore" without actually saying it. In other words, the equivalent of giving someone the finger -- in a totally innocent and child-like manner, of course.

Mamma felt sick. Not because of all the high-voltage drama that had been packed into the space of just half-an-hour, but because she hadn't been sleeping well the last few nights. She felt a fever coming on. She drained her tea down to the dregs, excused herself and went to her bedroom. She called her yoga teacher and cancelled; told her husband that she was going to bed, put the phone on silent and tried to drift off to sleep.

Of course sleep did not come easy. She kept drifting between the hazy world of dreams and the harsh sunlight of reality and in both it seemed as if she was being haunted by a pair of big, brown, beautiful eyes, brim full with tears, sadness and accusations, "How come you couldn't understand me, Mamma?"

She remained in bed, flitting unhappily between both worlds, an unwanted visitor in either, when she heard the doorbell ring. She registered it as belonging to the corporeal world and realised that the day ayah, not wanting to disturb her, had gone to pick up the young one from school. She heard the door open. She braced herself to face those eyes again.

"Mamma??! Mamma!!?" she heard him call out. She heard the ayah tell him that his Mamma was in the room. She heard his footsteps approach her bedroom door. Through the haze of her fever, she saw the shape of a little boy standing there, bright, perky, happy.

And then she heard him say with every ounce of feeling that he possessed, "Mamma, I love you now again."

Book Review: Chanakya’s Chant, by Ashwin Sanghi

When I read the first chapter of Ashwin Sanghi’s latest book, “Chanakya’s chant”, my jaw had dropped, my eyes were bigger than rasogollas, I was breathless and I was hooked! The words ‘fast-paced’ and ‘thriller’ seemed woefully inadequate, absolutely akin to calling Madhubala ‘cute’ or Van Gogh’s painting’s ‘nice.’ I thought to myself, how the hell was I going to write a review for a book that just bloody grabs hold of all your senses and plays puppet-master with you, using your guts entrails as puppet strings; sometimes words fall short.

The brilliance of this novel lies in the fact that there are two stories in this book, from vastly different epochs, with a common theme treading through the two narratives...political lust.

The first chapter takes us all the way back to 340 BC with an event that ultimately leads to Chandragupta’s coronation – the assassination of Paurus, emperor of Magadha. The subsequent chapters go further back in time, from the moment Chanakya, born Vishnugupta, India’s very own Machiavelli and father of the Arthashastra, vows revenge against the corrupt and debauched king Dhanananda for the brutal murder of his father, Chanak. The political cunning of Chanakya and his abetment in establishing a unified Bharat under the able leadership of his hand-picked protégé, Chandragupta, forms part of the novel. Running parallel, in interspersed chapters, is the story of Pandit Gangasagar Mishra and his machinations to make Chandni Gupta, a smart, lovely slum child from Uttar Pradesh, into the most powerful person of the country – the Prime Minister of India.

Sanghi demonstrates that the core of political thought and strategy hasn’t changed much over the years. So while Chanakya had a bevy of Vishkanyas at the ready, Gangasagar enlists the help of dancer-whores and B-grade film starlets. While Chanakya sends a tantric with a penchant for theatrics into the court of Mallayaraja, Gangasagar deploys a pavement astrologer to ‘prophesise’ future political events in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Blackmail, misrepresented facts and figures, gossip, torture and the bumping off of inconvenient human obstacles are all old hat in the art of statecraft and still remain popular means by which to run/rule a country. After all, human flaws and failings haven’t changed over the centuries...if anything, they have just gotten worse with time. And this is what Sanghi brings out brilliantly in “Chanakya’s Chant.”

But having said all that, I have to say, that after a while, the story, or rather the stories, become predictable. I guess the predictability stems greatly due to the fact that we are a nation bred on the greatest epic of all time, the Mahabharata, and the greatest entertainment industry in the world, Bollywood. The Mahabharata is undoubtedly a masterpiece and as anyone who has read it knows; it is full of political intrigue, treachery, trickery, lust, betrayal, revenge, blood and gore. So thanks to this and Bollywood’s obsession with political pot-boilers in the recent years, such as “Hu Tu Tu”, “Gangajal”, “Godmother”, the “Sarkar” and “Rakhtcharitra” series, and the blockbuster, “Rajneeti”, to name a few, after a point in time in the book, the twists turn out to be less ‘twisty’ and shocking, and you actually begin to not only expect them, but to predict them. And yet, despite this predilection for predictability, at no point does the book get boring. You still find yourself turning the pages in a reading frenzy, just like you would while on your 51^st Agatha Christie.

There were some gaps for me which caused much crinkling of the forehead. While Chanakya’s bloodthirstiness is properly delineated, Gangasagar’s lust for power remains a head-scratcher, as does Chandini’s. A glaring incongruity in the book is the many 21^st Century-isms mouthed by Chanakya’s contemporaries, inducing many an eye-roll and sigh of “Oh come on! Really!?!” Case in point? Well, phrases like, “The problem is that most things in life that are pleasurable are usually illegal, immoral or fattening”, mouthed by the repulsive, two-faced Rakshas, minister to Dhanananda. Or another ‘gem’ said by Chanakya himself, “No one’s a virgin, Nipunaka. Life screws them all.”

Two things I sorely missed in the book, were a list of the characters and a map of ancient Bharat. These two appendices would have greatly assisted the reader.

But there is a treat in store for the reader – a track of Chanakya’s chant, the Shakti mantra that appears throughout the story. Recited in Vedic tradition by Kushal Gopalka, the track has been composed in two parts; the first part with traditional Indian classical instruments and the second part, a more electronic take with fusion elements to give it a modern touch – very much in keeping with the structure of the novel, where modern mirrors the ancient. The track can be downloaded from www.chanakyaschant.com.

It is one of the many joys of this wonderful, double-tale of political savagery and intrigue in India. The final moral of the story? Some things just don’t change.

Kricket Krazy Kid!

It feels kind of appropriate that this happened today. After all, today is India's first match of the tournament in the 2011 World Cup. They're playing Bangladesh.

The the EO, The Nephew and three of their friends from the neighbourhood have been going to cricket classes for over a year now. They stopped in the summer months and started again after the Puja break.

Now ever since they started again, the YO has been pleading with me to let him join his brothers. It's no secret that out of all the boys in the family as well as the EO's friends, my little runt of a YO is the one with the sporting talent. The EO is not a sports fan at all; he's all about music and acting and the stage. The Nephew is a brain, but he LOVES playing cricket and tries very hard. He can play for hours! The EO? Nope, he'd rather read books.

But it's the little guy with the the naughty smile who will stand at the pitch in a perfect stance with his bat at the ready like a junior Tendulkar. It's the skinny kid with big ears and sparkling eyes who will tackle the big boys and manoeuvre the ball away from them with the speed and finesse of a young Messi.

So finally, finally, after months of putting it off, I let the YO go to cricket class to watch his elder brothers in action. The coach invited him to join the game and he was stumped! "Where have you been?" he exclaimed.

Don't worry, Sir. He's here now.

One Year

One year. Today.

One year, today, since you've been gone.

So much has happened in this past one year, Baba, do you know?

Both your grandsons made their pada stage debut during Durga Puja. The children put up Kobiguru's 'Birpusrush'. We incorporated the poem into a script, added some Rabindrosangeet and voila -- a 40 minute skit was staged with your eldest grandson in the titular role and he rocked! The younger brat was in a dance, if you please, "Megher Kole Rod Heshechhey" and he was adorable, especially the bit where he pretended to play the flute as 'raakhaal chheley' -- "jusht rike Krishnaa!" No, he still can't say 'l' so it's herro (hello), raabdu (ladoo a la Chhota Bheem) and I raaabh you! (I loooove you!)

The EO has started guitar lessons and I know how thrilled you would have been, music being your biggest passion.

You know I got a by-line for M&B magazine; unfortunately you couldn't read my first article. Haven't written for them in a while now; my heart's just not in it.

And of course, I got the amazing contract to compile and edit two CS books for the Indian Soul series. I've finished the first one. I just can't believe that there's finally going to be a book with my name on the cover and you won't be here to see it.

Oh, and I got selected for a bit part in a Hindi movie, but they wanted to shoot in Jamshedpur on the 1st of January, so unfortunately had to turn them down.

And I finally, FINALLY got round to those dance lessons. Three months and counting and I'm loving it.

Of course you know all this Baba, because I kinda have a feeling that you engineered a lot of this stuff from where you are right now, you know, close proximity to The Pantheon and so on.

I've learnt some stuff about me too, this past one year.

Have suddenly realised that most of my memories with people are either food-related or music-related. And so, I've been cooking a lot more, experimenting in the kitchen a lot and hating the fact that you aren't around to try everything. Maa's no fun ever since she gave up meat. Thank goodness for fish!

I've begun to feel and experience song lyrics much more keenly now. I can't tell you the number of musical concerts I've bawled my eyes out at. I guess I've become more acute to pain, 'dard' and 'bekhudipan'...help! I've also come to the conclusion that Kobiguru was and continues to be THE BEST!! Nobody, absolutely nobody can touch him.

I've learnt that where you're concerned, my source of tears is bottomless.

And the single, most heartbreaking thing of all, is that I've learnt that I can live without you after all.

Here's the thing.

Here's the thing. Here's the thing.

And the thing is,

is that I am a volcano of rage right now.

I am a mass of rage,

of anger,

of pain

right now.

These were the last few days of my dad's life last year.

I am reliving those moments,

those words,

the looks,

the fears,

the utter

and complete

devastation

all over again.

The last cup of tea

I fed you with my hands.

Your desire to get out of there

and write about your hospital experience.

Do you remember daddy?

You had even thought of the title --

"From Doom to Room."

It turned out to be just the opposite.

How ironic.

How fucking,

FUCKING

ironic.

Except.

I can't laugh about it.

I have no sense of humour about this.

He wanted to get out of there

and write about it.

He thought he was getting out of there.

He believed he was getting out of there.

He wanted to write about it all.

About being stuck in a hospital,

in ICU,

about being shifted around many ICUs,

about having all those painful MRIs

and surviving it all --

except,

he didn't.

He never saw it coming.

And neither did we.

And I ended up doing his last rites.

How hard I tried to shake off

all the shittiness

of last year

with a nervous stray thought of hope

only to start off the first day of this year

with another death,

another farewell,

another funeral.

I walked around my grandmother's home

searching for the ghost of my little girl self

in the peeling paint of the walls,

in the faded black-and-white snaps,

the old hibiscus tree from where you got your flowers to adorn your Gods.

They're undressed now,

the Gods

without Their floral tributes.

The flowers hang loosely

and forlornly on the shrubs,

while in the kitchen,

there are memories

of your hustle and bustle

as a lonely cloud of forgotten aromas and fragrances

hovers about in the corner,

trying to keep alive

the love that you dished out to us,

didu.

That house

was where I felt safe,

loved,

pampered,

adored

and so happy.

The emptiness in that house

is so enormous

and never-ending

that there's no way to escape it

and even then

it can't swallow me whole

for I am bigger than that emptiness;

I am full of red-hot rage

and inky-blue pain.

I am a volcano of rage

right now.

I black hole of grief.

Of sorrow.

Of anguish.

Jan 2011...once again, a final farewell

It is said that what happens on the first day of the new year pretty much lays out what's in store for the rest of the days ahead. If this be the case, then 2011 looks like another 2010.

Yesterday, January 1st 2011, at 8 a.m., I lost my sweet, gentle, darling dida (nani). Yes, I am broken once more, lost yet again. Beloved wife of an upright police officer, adored mother of three girls and six boys, the much pampered baby sister of six elder brothers and of course wonderful, special, loving grandmother to eight granddaughters and two grandsons. Why yes, great-grandmother to two great-grandsons.

She was purity personified and I don't say this just because she was my grandmother. I say this because she had a heart big enough to fit in the whole world with space for another. She had an innocence that remained intact till the very end. She saw no evil, heard no evil, spoke no evil, knew no evil; believing in the innate goodness of all God's creatures and creations. Her smile was guileless and her home an open house.

We knew she was dying. It was long over-due; her pain and suffering were unbearable. Bed-ridden for six long years, the last two years were terrible with the last two months being torture. This death is a happy release for she is now eternally free from the pain that she suffered wordlessly, with only a prayer on her lips.

Her powers of memory and recognition had begun to fade a few years ago and in the end, it was just the one son whom she recognised, my mama who lived in The House that will always be to me my Maamaa'r Badi. It was heart-breaking to be addressed as 'Didi' by her and many a-time I brokenly asked asked her, "Dida, can't you recognise me? It's me, your Laali (her special name for me), your first grandchild." She would screw up her face in concentration, trying to drag back memories of that once much-loved name and face, and drawing a blank, she would look up at me with an intense pain in her eyes, almost a guilt at not being able to recognise me...and that would kill me even more.

This is not the grandmother that I would like to remember. The grandmother that I remember delighted in a cup of tea, sitting out in the winter sun. The grandmother that I remember was a jolly, plump woman always wrapped in a red-bordered, white sari with oiled hair pulled back in first a plait and then a bun; hair which was still richly jet black even while her three daughters and long since started colouring their hair to hide the greys. The grandmother I remember was an endless supply of nimki, naarkoler naadu, tiler naadu and chirer mowaa. The grandmother I remember personified Kali Puja for us and she lived for it...it meant a huge, yearly family reunion; it meant working tirelessly yet joyfully, to appease the Great Goddess; it meant song, dance, laughter and adda. The grandmother that I remember meant a bosom full of warmth, a smile full of love and a treasure-box full of stories. The grandmother that I remember was full of blessings and good wishes for all who came her way.

However, I can't help but remark, that while her own world slowly faded away from the pages of her memory like delicate watercolours left out in the endless monsoon, she never once let go of the three names she held most precious to her heart and existence, her 'Takrur, Maa aar Swamiji'...known to the world as Sri Ramkrishna Paramahansa, Maa Saroda Devi and Swami Vivekanand. Every free moment would be dedicated to Them in prayer and song; she would go about her daily household duties with Their names on her lips; and finally, as she lay in bed, bereft of the power of memory, it was Their names that she chanted over and over and over again.

And that is why, I will pray that the loss of Jan 1st 2011 does not foreshadow the events and emotions of the year to be. Jan 1st for all the disciples, believers and followers of Sri Ramkrishna's Vedanta Mission is an extremely holy day known as Kalpataaru. So it is only fitting that my dida's soul took flight on a day when Takur granted His disciples bliss and benediction. My grandmother's soul received the same.

And not just that, but her shraddho, the ceremony conducted by the sons of the deceased, falls on the 11th of January...the day before the birth anniversary of one of India's most beloved sons and Sri Ramkrishna's most favourite disciple, Swami Vivekananda.

Yet again, I am so intensely awed by the soul's journey. My father passed away on Saraswati Puja, his soul received water from my hands on the birth anniversary of his idol, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and water from my brother's hands on Maghi Purnimaa. My dida passed away on Kalpataru and her soul will receive water from all my mamu's close on the heels of Swamiji's birth anniversary.

Two blessed, gentle and pure souls. Can it be any more clearer?

And I know that I am indeed fortunate to be able to call these two spotless souls my family, for have I not been touched by them? Blessed by them?

Goodbye my darling dida. Did you give baba my message? Are you part of the heavenly choir that breathes sweet, cool winds onto Earth's brow? Did you know that you were loved till the very end and beyond?