Sudhir my brother-in-law published an e-book ‘Representing the Invisible’ in September 2015 of the research study I did on Women’s National Identity Across Borders which I can say as my travelogue. In fact the subtitle is ‘A travelogue merging identities and borders’
(https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/574357 ).
I am starting to publish the travel across India as blogs, easier to read. I start with Jabalpur as I was born there and this will give some idea of who I am and where I come from. If readers have queries I will incorporate answers in my future blogs or will answer in response. I feel the Geography and the people of Jabalpur have played a major role in what I am. My grandparents and Baba’s family migrated to Jabalpur as Baba had a job in Jabalpur. My maternal family migrated to West Bengal. My parents married in 1956 and I was born a year after that. I am thankful to the universe for giving me three sisters soon after in a family of grandparents, uncles and aunts and the ‘we’ got so ingrained that I did not have an ‘I’ sense rather it did not get a chance to originate!
It was Jan 2003. I had a reserved ticket to Jabalpur. Jabli, that is what we sisters and cousins (I am compelled to use this term even though we do not have this concept, they too are sisters and brothers) call Jabalpur with love, my birthplace. My mother lived till 2005 alone in a home she had sold to my Maharashtrian rakhi brother living next door because he insisted that his children got at least a semblance of childhood he got. We all know such wishes are futile, his father was a struggling engineer and mother a housewife while he and his wife established doctors. He studied in a government school with hardly any fees and his children study in English medium school with almost ten times monthly fees. Can there be a parity of living for children to have same childhood?! Maybe the physical space and his wishes could give desired affects. Human wishes are supposed to move mountains and change the direction of rivers!
Just because Amma stayed in Jabalpur I made regular trips to see her. Even being a physical liability due to my ill health I loved to see her and did not want her engrossed in the material world trying to get their tentacles on her, against her nature. She read, cooked, listened to music, but did not write about herself. I have this dear maternal Uncle, Monimesho has told me each time I have made my stop over at Calcutta to see him, that I am dumb to go around the country to find women, I should write about my mother and mashis (mother’s sisters). Jabli and my mother distract in ways beyond imagination.
In the morning at Harda a Sindhi family boarded the train. Two young women, one old; all with covered head, three elderly men, three children, one intelligent boy with hearing and speaking disability and two little girls. Got speaking with them, they wanted to share their children’s progress, one woman was mother to the boy and a girl in Lower Kg, the other woman had one girl in Upper Kg. The girls were isolating the boy!
The women were decked in ornaments, dangling earrings, necklaces, rings on fingers and toes, and bangles, all gold, going to a marriage in their sister-in-law’s (husband’s sister’s) family. In Narsinghpur, the next station one son-in-law came to see them with hot and crisp jalebis. They kept offering me all they ate. One of the women wanted to read Adhi Zameen (Half land), a Hindi magazine brought out by All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA). The children, as children are, took all the time and I could barely speak to the women. They got down at the next station.
In 2005 a young activist friend in Bangalore said that Sindhis and Marwaris are same! I got bugged with her because from her I did not expect this response. But she said simply we do not know just like in North all South Indians are referred as Madrasis. It is true but I wanted her to know the difference even if most people did not know it!
Soon Jabalpur came. Jabalpur for the past decade has seen advent of auto rickshaws. Even though Union of cycle rickshaws gave a tough fight, they had to bow down to more powerful lobbies (of capitalism, petrol and market economy). I had problem boarding cycle rickshaws even before I stepped into my adulthood, but as a child it was fun. I have seen the same enjoyment in my son when he was small and my sister’s daughter, they were from two different origins having a generation in between. My five years niece when asked when going back to America, what she would like to take with her she asked only for a rickshaw and the rickshaw man!
I consciously took cycle rickshaw for my personal search of ‘work’ and ‘human centric understanding’. I had to learn to settle the price in advance, a little to respect the trade, a little in fear of my Ma who said we spoil them! I have never been scared of any parent or anyone, but do not like contradicting my Ma, even when she is wrong, but later do clear it with her. I have not only taught myself to love and respect her, but also tried to give back her youth and beauty abandoned since she married. I do find her genuinely younger than me and appreciate her endlessly for tolerating me as her daughter.
I explained to her why I could not take a job to earn money currently. It has been convenient for me that my elder son has been taking care of my expenditure, research travel included, but she needed more reason than that — ‘One has to earn one’s living’! I not only agreed with her but also believe one should make work provision so that others can earn too. It took convincing that even though I did not have robust health quite a few people depended on me for their earnings and living — these are two different things. Since I was doing the research study, a need of the hour, I had to write that. She gave in on my health and rest of the crap she tolerated because I am her daughter. Three months from Feb to April 2004, she cooked morning evening fresh food, as that was the only thing I was able to comfortably eat, and we had all these discussions, some from her past and some from my future over cups of tea!
There was a pre-wedding function we were going to the next day. My mother arranged the parents’ marriage and the woman is another of Ma’s daughters whom she did not give birth to. There was this Uncle who used to stay in the row houses behind ours, when we stayed in MP Electricity Board quarters, even when we made our houses. Jethu, father’s elder brother in Bengali which he was not but such relations are just as valid. Every year for Puja festival Jethu arranged for programmes and we sisters and other children from neighbourhood participated. I was probably in my eighth, when there was some commotion relating to Jethu’s house. He was married to a woman other than his wife, their daughter had come and she was missing. She was somehow found and I think it was said or unsaid that Ma would be taking her responsibility.
She became our loving Didi (elder sister), who was put in the great Home Science college of Jabalpur, and every Saturday I got her home from hostel on cycle. Obviously when Ma saw a decent groom, whose wife had died, she duly suggested for Didi. A guy from good family much elder to her, I do not remember the age difference, we call him Kaku, father’s younger brother, another of those relations. Ma guaranteed the guy’s character, and same boddi — ‘clan’ is closest I can get to, even when it is not. My father no longer alive could have explained what this is, a group practicing medicine had rights to read five Vedas, only men please, and if my father was anything to go by and even my mother to certain extent, which rarely was visible, think no end of themselves!
That was it and the marriage was done with Didi disgusted with the marriage night, I getting endless marriage proposals for wearing a sari, and we generally having fun. I was in eleventh class then. Soon Ma encouraged her to study for job centred exams and told Jethu to let her take a job in MPEB. Didi had two sons, whom she left at Ma’s place when young, paid Ma and cared for her more than all her daughters could do. She made a decent enough marriage. She and her husband learned to drive a car against the husband’s wishes, as he was scared, she made house and took care of her widowed mother, and her in-laws. We were going to her son’s marriage functions, he was marrying a Punjabi girl, and obviously the credit went to Didi for everything happening smoothly.
I remember my mother accepting and approving Jethu’s second marriage, as he took his responsibilities seriously for both families. I had these unsaid questions even then but there were no doubts about Didi being whole-heartedly accepted or in any way challenging our love and respect for Jethu. These issues came to my mind, as in April 2004 I had to convince my mother to visit my ex-husband’s home and socialize with his wife and kids. Kids she accepted as she saw pictures of my grandchildren with them as they all stayed in Bangalore.
