Category: I Am

A letter to my mom

Published on by Harpreet Chhachhia2 Comments

Mom,

 

I know that you feel we haven’t been on the best of terms in a long while… perhaps even, you might assume, after we shifted in to Raj Mahal and after your sojourn with cancer. I don’t think that is true; I think somewhere down the line we all have grouses with our parents over some issue or the other. It is only as we grow up and become adults do we see those errors more plain facedly. Of course, I cannot judge your actions and reactions of so many years ago, I am not equipped to do so and it wouldn’t be right of anyone who knows all the facts to do so, because they wouldn’t be you. Your decisions and choices are entirely your own, and whether or not they had the best repercussions, you must know, and so do I, that at that point in time, you truly believed you were making the right ones.

 

So now that the past is out of the way, let’s talk of the present. I have grown up to be someone – like most members of the family – a creature of our own circumstances. You see, over childhood, I grew up to be a romantic. Yet romanticism didn’t get me anywhere, especially since I was different from the norm, I couldn’t expect things the way I thought they would happen for me. But thankfully, there is one thing that my upbringing instilled in me and that was to be honest with family.

 

I have always been true to my family and implicitly honest with you. Whatever I did, whoever I am, you were the first to be told. I guess I was rewarded by the acceptance of that honesty. You have been an absolute succor in my time of need, when I was still grasping the untold and horrible imaginings of what life would hold living as a gay man in a country that offered us no real hope. In this stead, you were my hope, but as I grew outward, I realized you were not the world.

 

You being a single parent have sheltered us from so many things, in effect you have sheltered us not only from all the bad, you also sheltered us from learning the untold amounts of what could be terrible. With me, I guess Papa’s man handling and terror instilled in me a self-doubt that is excruciatingly debilitating. I will not continue to blame him – I have realized there really is no point in it, and I gave up on that a long, long time ago. I will say however that some scars may have healed, but there is a cold in them that seeps into the marrow and will never fade. Especially for people like me, who aren’t truly strong enough and could have been made to learn how to be strong. However, because of your strength, I learned to depend much on you and never learned to inculcate and generate my own.

 

I remember very strongly a line from Tennessee Williams’ play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, it is said by Blanche DuBois, this lady from the South who cannot deal with the harshness of reality and life. She says, “I never was hard or self-sufficient enough. When people are soft – soft people have got to shimmer and glow – they’ve got to put on soft colors, the colors of butterfly wings, and put a – paper lantern over the light… It isn’t enough to be soft. You’ve got to be soft and attractive. And I – I’m fading now! I don’t know how much longer I can turn the trick.”

 

This sums up what I felt when I read it for the first time in college and I realised at a very early age that I was pretty soft inside. I like romantic movies, I like comedies. I hate horror movies. Seeing people being cruel to each other and the sheer waste of close-mindedness. I also realised that I had a very large level of tolerance and over time, nothing really could shock me in terms of life and love.

 

But my heart has been broken a fair number of times, and I have begun to see people for who they truly are. Not just people that I have tea with or share a laugh with, but people who I love deeply. I see their flaws and their failings and I see how much better they can be… and perhaps I resent the fact that they can be so much better but choose not to be. There are so many things I can write here to tell you, of how disappointing people can be to me and I to them, conversely. And it really is not completely in our hands after all. We expect things and the expectations lead to disappointments and rude awakenings.

 

I used to believe in destiny, I used to believe in higher powers, how life wasn’t all a fait accompli. But as I grew up, Devdutt once said, I grew jaded. I see things as they are but in a more nihilistic way. I still want to love but I can no longer trust. I have been hurt too many times, by people I really truly care very deeply about… You have seen it happen, and not just once or twice but several times. I believe you would call my reiteration of love a wild sort of hope in some sort of deliverance to a promised land I always believed in. But over time, I feel the finer emotions all leave slowly and surely. These days, for example, I tell Venky very clearly, I love you, but I do not know how to trust you. I cannot trust anyone to do the right thing… and it is very easy for us to say, as long as we do the right thing, it’s all well and good, but you see, I do not even believe in that principle anymore. I have seen cruel men prosper and the kindest of them suffer.

 

All in all, I realised too late that I was good looking. I could have done a lot with a little bit more confidence. Now that I have realised that I have the looks and the talent, it comes at a time when both of these could fade at any given moment. So, then what do I do? I live in a state of constant fear. Constant uncertainty. So, in times of strain, I shed it and unburden it on you. Of course, I realise it is about to happen and so many times I control myself. But sometimes when I lash out at you, it comes at times when I expect more of you, I expect you to be sharper, stronger and finer. Things you always could be counted upon to be … However, I am beginning to realise that you are growing older and weaker and I lose what I use to count upon … the roles have reversed you see, and it is difficult for me to deal with. But I will. I always have risen to the occasion, it just takes me a little longer when the need is not imperative.

 

I do not know if I have made my stance clearer or if I have made things all the more confusing. I will say in no unsure terms that you have been my best friend and my compatriot just as much as you have been my mother, and as one grows older, one realizes that the need for the former two is more essential. However, in doing so, we let the lines of best friend and mother blur. I love you and never have stopped loving you, of that you must be absolutely sure.

 

In no memory of the past, or experience of the present, or course of the future have I or will I ever regret that you have been my mother.

 

You will always be loved,

 

Your son,

Harpreet.

 

3rd October 2017.

Belief

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I was chatting with Venkatesh about a good many things tonight. In fact, I have been having these discussions on looks and cleverness. I have so many issues about my body image and I have always felt that I look like shite. I know – intelligence be the cause – that I am good looking over all. But somehow I don’t believe in it.

He said that that was true and that he believes in the fact that I am good looking – but hell, I do not. It comes to the point that the power of belief should lie within us. It is only that which makes us self sufficient and strong enough to tackle the world. The power resides in me. either I make myself powerful or I give someone else the power.

Making myself powerful just is a win win situation. If I believe I am good looking enough I wont need the assurance of someone outside of me. And if I give someone else the power to judge me I wont ever be happy with the way that I look and I shall always be dependent on the likes and judgements of the Other. Which is like, really sad!

I just realised that eventually it just means that you need to be self-sufficient at any cost. And if you cannot be self-sufficient then you have to depend upon love. For what is love? It just is the giving up of your power into the hands of another. It asks for justification from the other and if you can love yourself that is the ultimate thing, isn’t it? You wouldn’t need anyone else.

Either way, we are fucked. That is like, pathetic!

What ‘poor’ signifies, IMO

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

When someone else calls us poor, we don’t like it. Irrespective of the fact that in 2015, around 170 million people, or 12.4%, lived in poverty a reduction from 29.8% in 2009. Poverty in India is a historical reality. The world has 872.3 million people below the new poverty line, of which 179.6 million people lived in India. In other words, India with 17.5% of total world’s population, had 20.6% share of world’s poorest in 2011.

Now consider the fact that Homosexuality is mostly a taboo subject in Indian civil society and for the government. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code makes sex with persons of the same gender punishable by law. On 2 July 2009, in Naz Foundation v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi, the Delhi High Court held that provision to be unconstitutional with respect to sex between consenting adults, but the Supreme Court of India overturned that ruling on 11 December 2013, stating that the court was instead deferring to Indian legislators to provide the sought-after clarity. Mental, physical, emotional and economic violence against LGBT community in India prevails. Lacking support from family, society or police, many gay rape victims don’t report the crimes.

Historical literary evidence indicates that homosexuality has been prevalent across the Indian subcontinent throughout history, and that homosexuals were not necessarily considered inferior in any way until about 18th century.

So in effect the colonial law still prevails here. I don’t get how we get upset about what one business man says about our country which is statistically accurate but we don’t when Indians still abuse human rights for our own people in our own country. Where is this outrage then??

The health ministry says, Our culture doesn’t back smoking by women. A politician says, “Boys and girls should be married by the time they turn 16, so that they do not stray… this will decrease the incidents of rape.” One says on the matter of rape that “this kind of rape should not occur.” Another says, “we should avoid the use of computers and English in India.” There is the quote regarding malnutrition in a state talking about figure conscious girls being on a diet. Another says, “90% rape cases are consensual.” And if we talk about being poor, one politician states, “Rs 600 per month is enough to feed a family of five.”

But these comments do not gain notoriety.

Ten years after their first such survey, the Delhi-based Centre for the Study in Developing Societies (CSDS) and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), a German foundation associated with a political party, conducted a sample survey on 6122 respondents in the age group of 15-34 years in 19 Indian states. The findings were released on Monday.

As regards the point about phones and social media and the usage of the same: Half of all young people had never used social media. Among those who had, Whatsapp and Facebook were the most popular. Over 80% of young people reported owning a mobile phone, of which over half were smartphones. Over a quarter owned a laptop.

The survey shows that support among young people is low for what are believed to be progressive issues. More young people support banning movies which hurt religious sentiments than oppose it, more support the death penalty than oppose it, and more disagree that the consumption of beef is a personal choice. These opinions vary sharply by religion; Muslim youth are more likely to oppose the death penalty and 69% disagree with any objection to the consumption of beef.

While there is relative support for equal access to education for men and women and for women leaders, many also subscribe to deeply patriarchal views with over half saying that wives must always listen to their husbands.

Close on the heels of the debate over racism in India, just 63% of young people say they wouldn’t mind an African neighbour.
A majority also believed that religion (47%) should take precedence over science (33%).
Despite an increase in the share of young people who approve of inter-caste marriage over time, the share of people practising what they preach is miniscule; just 4% had an inter-caste marriage, and just 3% an inter-religious one. The vast majority – 84% – had an arranged marriage and just 6% had a love marriage. Love marriages were more common among dalits (10%) and Muslims (7%). Among those who had love marriages, three out of ten were inter-caste.

The comment by one person regarding our country puts us in a flutter. All we do is bluster and get angry, we want a ban. Why don’t we look and see what can be bettered then: our mind sets, our work ethic, our outlook toward the different and broaden our collective consciousness to be an encouraging part of the world?