01. My lifestyle

02. Digression

03. Back to women

My lifestyle

Before commencing on this, I need to speak about one thing about my own lifestyle. I had purposefully decided not to join the Indian government service. Even though I had written for the top Civil Service, it was clear that I was not of the calibre that could pass that exam. I cannot digress into the finer issues about that here. The only word that I can mention here is that it is an exam meant to sieve out a particular kind of individuals, to which group I do not belong.

I lived a kind of life which if seen from the outside would be quite unnerving. It would seem as if I was not quite bothered about the future. Doing one business after another, with a very inflexible type of mental quality, with no possible idea as to where my activities were reaching me. Life would drift me from one place to another periodically. Another feature that was a common place experience to me was that I would be doing business activities quite far from my seeming place of residence. So that to the immediate physical neighbours of mine, I would not seem to be doing anything. It was not that I purposefully aimed for this lifestyle, but that my fate did seem to make me do so many things with an automated sort of trigger fitted into the scheme of things to assure that I couldn’t go forward after more or less understanding the intricacies of the business.

In the initial years of my life, I was quite perturbed by this cycle of ups and downs that more or less moved as if I was fitted to a rotating wheel, taking me up and down with meticulous periodicity. Later, much later, when my horoscope was studied by a professional astrologer, he quite frankly told me that this had been my experience in life. The astrological code was Shataka Yoga. It was quite a curious bit of information for me. For, I was also interested in the theme of what was astrology. This part has been discussed in my book: CODES of REALITY! WHAT is LANGUAGE? What I pondered upon was what kind of a software code or program was the Horoscope. And how it reflected upon or interacted with the software of life and reality.

Now there are these observations that I have made due to my seeming strange life experiences. It must be admitted that there are many other persons also who have more or less lived similar living experiences. As to the vagaries that were brought into my life, I can mention that when looking back, the experiences are quite rich in their kaleidoscopic variety. Actually when reading the novel Moon and Sixpence by Somerset Maugham I happened to read these lines, which from a writer’s perspective seem to be of quite alluring charm:

QUOTE: They must have spent something like four months at Marseilles in one another’s society. Their career was devoid of adventure, if by adventure you mean unexpected or thrilling incident, for their days were occupied in the pursuit of enough money to get a night’s lodging and such food as would stay the pangs of hunger. But I wish I could give here the pictures, coloured and racy, which Captain Nichols’ vivid narrative offered to the imagination. His account of their discoveries in the low life of a seaport town would have made a charming book, and in the various characters that came their way the student might easily have found matter for a very complete dictionary of rogues. But I must content myself with a few paragraphs. I received the impression of a life intense and brutal, savage, multicoloured, and vivacious. It made the Marseilles that I knew, gesticulating and sunny, with its comfortable hotels and its restaurants crowded with the well-to-do, tame and commonplace. I envied men who had seen with their own eyes the sights that Captain Nichols described. END OF QUOTE

What I wanted to mention here is these two things. One was the issue of me living in many social areas without mentioning any allusions to any prominent social standing. Actually I had many to mention. However, in Indian social system it is imperative that a person be measured and a mark assigned. So, there was always the issue of people evaluating me as a blind person would evaluate an elephant. That is, if he touches the trunk, he would feel that the elephant is like a thick vine. If he were to feel the legs, he might get another understanding. If he happens to touch the tail, another definition. Almost all my life, I was measured and defined by persons who get to see a very causal sight of me. However, this might be the experience of quite a lot of people.

QUOTE from Khalil Gibran’s THE PROPHET

QUOTE: To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of its foam. END OF QUOTE

The second thing that I got from living a life in the outer world away from the confining security of home life for a long time, was a very good feel of the outdoor. The outdoor social living is a piece of sheer terror for the persons who live inside the four walls of a house. The person on the outdoor, lives a life with no such security. However, if he used to it, the prospects do not terrorise him.

Now this is one thing that I used when my children were born. By that time, I had more or less lessened my outdoor living style. But then, I used to take my children everywhere in a feel of gay abandon which could have been quite unnerving to an average householder. We used to move a lot in the night time, on two-wheeler as well as four wheeler vehicles. Actually I was not taking a more risk than what I was taking on an average daytime. We used to go into seeming forest-like-areas, and to thickly populated towns and cities. Here I need to mention that for around six years I used to travel the length and breadth of Kerala on a two-wheeler as well as a four-wheeler, every month on business. Even though at the end of the period, the business had failed, it was not a period of sheer distress for me. It was indeed a life of sheer adventure for me, which I enjoyed to the hilt. The only spoilsports were the Indian government officials, who wanted bribes, servitude and flattery, none of which I had the wish to deliver.

Digression

When travelling on a two-wheeler as well as a four-wheeler from one end of the state to the other, I used to give lifts to an immensity of persons. Especially at night. Apart from the oft-mentioned issue of dangers involved in taking unknown persons with me, there was another insight that I experienced. The discomfort of having to communicate with persons of very different social standard. It is not an easy to take an ‘Indian’ person inside one’s vehicle, let alone speak to him without perfectly knowing his social level. Many persons did caution me against this terrifying habit of mine. However, what I understood was the problem of persons existing in different relative indicant levels. It is quite an issue of extending the same kind of communication to all levels of persons. They react differently. It is not connected to human psychology that I am discussing, but a totally different matter.

It has been a usual affair in English nations to give lifts to causal hitchhikers. But then they speak to each other in English. However, when I take a man who has missed a bus in the night into my vehicle, I might need to speak to him. Immediately the issue comes for him to measure me. Even though he is quite obliged to be courteous, one cannot keep an extended period of communication or relationship with him, even to the extent of sharing a tea in a tea stall. For, these actions all connect heavily to indicant word codes. They create a burden. At the same time, the other man is also measuring me in each and every action he sees, and information he gathers about me. If he gains an information that is negative, there can be drastic lowering of indicant words attached to me. It would reflect in his ways and behaviour, as well as in his attitude to me. The problem in my way of giving lift is that I extend this to anyone, regardless of his obvious social standing.

However, usually all such persons would be with me only for around 10 to 30 minutes. So there is not much time for a massive social evaluation, and all of them have been quite grateful. Only once do I remember a real irritation. I was coming back from a marketing trip that had made me travel around 400 kms on a motorbike, since morning. The year I think must be around 1998. I was near to my wife’s house, which was in an interior village. The time was around 10 pm. A young man of around 30 waved his hands, and I slowed down. He got on the bike. Usually, when I travel on the main highways, such persons are quite reverential in their speech. However, this time, I was in an interior road that aimed towards more interior areas.

This man naturally evaluated me on the basis of the direction of the interior road. He started asking me my name, and to which house I belonged to. Usually, I refrain from such personal levels of talk. I simply told him that I had been travelling for around 400 kms and I was tired and couldn’t engage in a conversation. This he immediately took as an input for more buffoonery. There was very obvious derision in his words as he went on to make more comments. I had to simply bear the taunts and when his place was reached, I simply stopped the bike, allowed him to get down, and moved off. END OF DIGRESSION

However, as per an average Kerala man’s evaluation, I had not gained anything. Gain or achievement for an average Indian would mean getting a government or some other similar job. Sit at a table, with a crude, dominating and scrutinising mood in the eyes. After some years, get a higher job name like that of superintendent, then after some more years become a senior Superintendent and like that. They would say that he has reached so much. Actually in real physical terms, he would merely have moved from one table to another. Or from one enclosure to another.

I had no intention of being an Indian government employee or for that matter, an employee of any Indian. Since I have been able to retain this position of mine, I do think that my life has not been a failure. A success? Well, it is an evaluation that should succeed the time of my death.

Back to women

Now coming back to women’s issue, I used to take my children in the night time also on long journeys, at times on two wheelers. Now, was I not taking too much risk? Well, there is always a matter of risk in everything one does in India. Even a travel by car in the daytime has a limited amount of risk, especially if one were to travel outside the home state. This is because of the change of language in the next state and the lack of English knowledge by majority of government officials. Naturally there is a possibility of callous attitude by the Indian officials everywhere to the local people. This is the greatest reason for the risk in travelling far from one’s home base.

As for me, I was so used to the night time life in the outside for so many years in various locations of the state and outside, that the issue of sheer terror was replaced by a logical understanding of the possibilities.

There have been times when my children and I used to visit even areas that were having police-people clashes in the night time. The police would be beating up any person they fancied when they spied them on the roads, even those who came by two-wheelers. However, the presence of my children with me more or less lessened the chance of me getting beaten up. It never happened.

However, there were the others in my family and my neighbours who witnessed my, apparently, totally irresponsible actions and attitude. On one side was the coherent apprehension that I was not being responsible. Beyond that there was the sheer jealousy that I was getting my children to become aware of social mood that they could only imagine about. There were many occasions when we had some bites from some wayside hotels. No females would be anywhere in sight. I must admit that I do arrange for some extra security. I cannot divulge the details here.

Now, my contention was that females are equal to males. But that should not be mere claims. A female who always see only the daytime mood of the place has a deficiency when she gets compared to a male who can go around where and when he wants. However, there is the total lack of security in the Indian roads, even for males. No citizen can go to a police station and demand a service. All he or she can do is to go to a police station and literally beg for some service, with all poses of obsequiousness.

When Varuna and Ashwina went for swimming, again the feeling of distress was mainly felt in other females and not generally in males. When they cut their hair short, did not pierce their ears, did not wear jewellery, did not speak Malayalam, dressed up in more comfortable dresses that gave them agility, went for hiking, climbing the trees etc. when they were small, I saw that it was the females, who looked distressed. Now, these female, if they want to improve, have to improve. They cannot remain low quality and claim reservation to positions of command and leadership, on the basis of the outrageous claims of innate inferiority. If they are inferior, they should remain in inferior positions. Allowing inferior persons to take command more or less makes everyone under them inferior. This goes for inferior castes also. If they want superior positions, they have to reach mental and intellectual eminence and excellence.

Even though I belong to a lower caste, I am totally against reservation for lower castes.

If women are equal to men, then they should be equal to the men. There should be no need to prop them up at every place. The very concept of reservation is a nonsense and contradictory to the concept of equality.