Misunderstandings and Misconceptions
Some of the conversations or debates or
arguments we had, where I did not then answer her finally – but knew there was
a gap in her say – I found answers soon enough. I am afraid it is too late to
tell her, not because she cannot be told by someone if not me, but because if
you don’t want to hear you won’t; in her case as in some other people’s it is a
case of pronouncing someone guilty or crazy so one does not have to face
certain facts. Sgk might or might not want to clear any of her
misunderstandings, but I introspected naturally and found a lot of answers
slowly. If her questions were direct or her conversation not so convoluted it
might have been not so slow.
One was about her father being horrified about
his – our – family matters being discussed with “outsiders”, she informed me, a
bit righteously; she forgot about the years, decades, when he went about
telling not only his “friend” but even his office underlings who came home to
remonstrate with the poor hassled woman about pleasing him, unaware of how far
and deep were the lies fed to them.
Another – really good one – was about the
uncle being happy about his very beloved, much pampered daughter visiting him
after having settled abroad with a profession and a colleague she married;
according to her he complained about his brother crowing about this when it
wasn’t his fault his first-born had left him, since he hadn’t asked for that.
In this, at least she should have known better.
Not only had he explicitly asked for it he had
demanded it over a space of four months, using every physical and verbal weapon
of abuse possible, including starvation of the whole family for the purpose.
And she had not only witnessed the final thrashing with his demands of "get
out, leave my house" accompanied by hitting my head on the wall, she had
come screaming to stop him going any further when he threw me on bed and was
about to climb on, early morning as we were preparing to go to our respective
schools or college, after the hitting my head on wall for half an hour had
failed to satisfy his need of destruction of a convenient target.
She was used – by him – to manipulate
emotionally or to convey hurting messages quite often, and whether she did it
willingly or not, I have no clue. One of them was her informing me he thought I
was doing my academic pursuits in “his subject” out of competition. I did not
answer her, since I knew it was far below what I knew to be true; he had long
ago informed me that he found the subject too daunting and had therefore gone
on to study or specialise in another, new, easier subject (one I am not fond
of, incidentally) whereas I had gone on in the original, fundamental one; and
my doing it had to do with being unwilling to let go of the subject, since it
is tremendously beautiful and one can only pursue it officially and formally
academically, unlike arts or literature I loved that could be leisure time
activities.
Then there was the time she asked if everyone
with the same degree was not equal, and I had not agreed with that – but she
had forgotten I was possibly the only person to give her the respect and
reverence she deserved for all she had done in personal life, and I was perhaps
too young to then understand her question was indicative of her wanting my
approval and of her looking up to me which she would not admit straight forward
in a hundred years. Or perhaps the latter is not so after all, and the negative
regard from her has been always there and all too real, and it would be false self
flattering to speculate in another direction.
In any case the debate went public behind my
awareness and I was hit at by various others on the topic whom I had not talked
of about it, on the issue of the academic standing of one subject versus
another (one young person claimed social science was just as great, forgetting
that it makes literally every person on the planet her equal and her pursuit of
academics in the subject futile) and another informing me she knew how little
effort had gone into her thesis anyway.
I had never claimed to be brighter than
anyone, let alone them, anyway; and if I did I would have fallen flat on my
face a hundred times; I had been at institutions where there were intellectual
giants walking the corridors. But of course it is always a greater achievement
for a small, average or handicapped person to climb mountains that those with
facilities might just fly over and land on.
She further then a little vindictively
remarked that then her father must have been right to claim superiority
–forgetting that her mother’s subject was no less science, and in fact –
perhaps she is unaware of it, but not only I was taught by her in my subjects
too, I had found myself in tune with what she described as her way of thinking
or doing.
To clear it once for all, it is without a
doubt that great minds and intellects can work and indulge in any academic or
intellectual area, or even non academic and non intellectual one for that
matter; but it is equally true that certain things have to be pursued when
young, or one loses the opportunity, like sciences or sports performance or
fine arts performance, while humanities can and better pursued a little later
in life – they require a little more of maturity and not quite so much energy of
youth. Also, everyone has a right to decide what one will pursue but having
decided against a more rigorous discipline one cannot go back so easily to
achieve intellectual heights. And finally one does see a little more of the
landscape when one climbs a peak, even if one is exhausted; and the view can be
exhilarating.
As for which discipline takes one higher there
can be no doubt that literature or music can take one to heights as great as
science, (though the former allows one to stay mediocre and the latter crashes
those that cannot stand the rigour of the terrain) or caring
(motherhood, nursing, social work) where there can be unacknowledged saints
galore; and great minds can do wonders in disciplines such as history or
languages.
Another one was about a comment by a cousin
about another cousin’s wife, about how one “could be proud of one’s beauty, it
is ok, but” and Sgk took it to insinuate something about our mother. Fact is
mother being disgusted with that cousin’s mother, Kgb, had nothing to do with
looks, a lot to do with her – the latter’s – offensive attitude and behaviour,
but far more to do with her always sitting to play cards with a bunch of males
and suddenly exclaiming “goodness, the saree (covering top half of the body)
fell down”.
Sgk has made friends with her father’s friend
after caring for her mother until her death. She – Sgk – went on campaign to
establish her – the ‘friend” with me, by oblique references and recounting time
spent with her. I have no quarrel let alone control over her choices but I will
not be manipulated to play along. And I thought about my objections to this
friend before I came up with why I kept a distance and refused to either fight
or make friends. It has little if anything to do with what anyone else might or
might not have thought or said about her, and more about direct perception of
the person at various stages of life.
There was the time she as a casual visitor
accosted me in her friend's home and asked publicly - there were several
relatives around, and this was in his kitchen after he had left his completely
handicapped (due to his beatings) wife to be cared for by her children and came
away to the wife's hometown - how I liked being in my father's house. I was
startled, and looked at her, and she comprehended the extreme inappropriate
nature of the question from an outsider to a stranger - she might have been his
friend and had rights due to their intimacy of whatever sort, but had none with
me, and socially she could not possible claim to have such rights to interfere
between a non relative and his daughter. So she recovered herself and stumbled
into yet another highly inappropriate remark, assuring me that she had no
problem, my father's house was my home after all. I had nothing to say, but did
remark to Sgk later that it was not that I minded someone caring for him and
keeping on visiting him almost every day (never mind her husband disapproved,
she did not care), it was that this person was so rotten.
Once later this “friend” went after me for a
good part of an hour about “what should one do about people who lied”; I asked
her who and what she was talking about, and she wouldn’t explain. Finally she
came out with “people telling lies in their own homes” and I simply said, let
them, what does it have to do with us? She then went away. Much later I realised she might have been
referring obliquely to her being not a mistress of the man she was visiting and
her certainty that this was a lie my mother - they all thought - had told me. I
thought and thought for years, and no, there was no such incident, she
certainly never said that to me, and unlikely she did to any other children, so
the knots were not that simple. And at an adult, mature age I could even
truthfully say it did not matter if they were involved ever in any form of
physical adultery or not.
Factually it is not the question of whether
this woman was a good character or not, whether she had “dirty relations” with
anyone or not, even our father. It is that she encouraged him to stay in her
home weekend after weekend while his young wife and small children were alone
and unprotected in a strange city far away from the hometown, went on trips out
of town with him, leaving not only our family but her own behind – and of
course the two of them returned to their own families again and again – so they
always had their cake while claiming there was no cake, so to speak. But the
families were deprived all the same, and her own younger son beat her up,
perhaps only once, perhaps more often, perhaps due to his rage over this or
such other behaviour. It was all done in name of pilgrimage, but if one steps
out of one’s social limits one should have the courage to step out clean and
take the consequences rather than inflicting uncertainty at least, disrepute
for certain and extreme violence at worst – which he did when her returned from
her – on one’s own helpless family.
As for the question of lies, not even children
are stupid. A father that is drinking milk at home if accused by his wife of
being drunk on alcohol will be quite clear to children. If he had been a loving
and caring father no amount of his preference for another - or even every other
- woman would have mattered quite so much, or even at all. If he were present,
no one could have lied and said he was elsewhere. If he had not been violent and
vindictive to us and used others as excuses, he would have had some loyalty if
not as much love as she did, since she did everything for us and sacrificed her
life and self completely.
I don’t remember her telling me anything about
them except clearing that the friend was not his mistress – and this she did
when I was well into high teens, though it is not clear why she had to inform
me of this, I certainly would not ever have thought of asking such questions of
anyone much less her about him. This much is clear – my alienation had not come
from her, it had to do with them and their behaviour in general.
I thought about it – on the back burner – and
realised quite a few facts and came up with long ago memories in back storage.
And then I remembered a particular incident,
forgotten and somewhere in the back of memories. I was four and they – he and
the “friend” - were going out, and I wanted to go with him. They – not he, not
she, but they – said I couldn’t go in the soiled dress so I should change, and
I objected saying they would go away while I changed. They promised they
wouldn’t. but of course they had disappeared when I came down in three minutes
or so – and I saw them giggling and practically running away, perhaps holding
hands, through a window in the stairs.
I think that is where he lost a child's, his
own firstborn's, trust.
This ditching and running away repeated once
when in fact he had made all out concentrated effort to get me to visit him and
to meet someone through him; relative after relative disturbed my then serene
academic life that needed complete focus with no distractions and made it
impossible for me to continue, until I gave in, just once. Too late I
understood he had merely used all those who might have been my well wishers to
bring me down in every way, in the most horrible way he could, possibly. But
meanwhile the memory of the first time he ran away with the “friend” the first
time I could remember was triggered; for, this time too when I did finally
arrive at his invitation delivered through all those persistent relatives of
his, he had gone on a trip with her for a week or two, to a place normally
associated with holidays of romantic or family sort.
………………………………………………
………………………………………………
I remember the baby in our family
when he was a baby, an extremely lovable and adorable little child, always
smiling and laughing. At the ripe age of one or so he wanted to go out with his
father and his father preferred to take the “friend’s” half grown up son –about
twelve years older than his own son, give or take a few years – out instead,
and the little one cried; and the little one’s father instructed the wife to
“strangle the little brat and kill him once for all”.
It is irrelevant if either of them had even
the slightest thought or feeling of desire, much less if there was any action
of the sort taken. Their behaviour has been far more sordid than any adulterous
couple living together.
………………………………………………
………………………………………………
No comments:
Post a Comment