HERstory

Latha Antharjanam

This was going to be my "return" post to SM, after my unplanned hiatus.

It took an unexpected direction from where I thought it would go, so I no longer felt like posting it there.

.......

This entry, which is a response to an anonymous tip one of you was kind enough to mail in, was supposed to be about Nick Nolte; apparently, he no longer feels the desire to drink because his baby mama Clytie Lane reintroduced him to Hare Krishna chanting and drum circling. Nick's current tee totaling is quite a contrast to his relationship with alcohol less than a year ago, when he was so drunk, he took a two-hour nap on an airport floor (and really, who among us hasn't done that? No? Just me? Fine.)

After over two months away from blogdom, my feeble attempts to do a bit of research on the story have demonstrated to me that my already lilliputian attention span is even tinier now, since all I can fixate on is the comments/response to Celebitchy, the blog whose link was submitted as the anonymous tip. Most of the commenters objected to the title and tone of the post on that site, which referred to Hare Krishnas as a cult and referenced some of the controversy associated with the movement (sexual abuse, brainwashing, murder). Celebitchy responded:

Update: A lot of people from different sources are vouching for the Krishnas and are saying it’s not fair to judge them based on the rampant child abuse at their boarding schools in the 70s and 80s. A similar child abuse scandal happened within the Catholic Church and it is fair criticism to say that I am biased in this article. The ISCON organization has arguably changed considerably since then and is willing to discuss their past issues with cult experts as well as change their practices

Here is a discussion thread I found which I think helps explain my original position on this issue. I would still be reluctant to get involved with a group with this type of history.

I can understand the reluctance, mostly because I've always felt uncomfortable around the saffron-robed disciples, too. My unease was triggered regularly, so it only hardened over time; when I was at GW in 1999, I ate at Amma's daily, and each time I walked from Foggy Bottom to the Mysore Masala Dosa/Semiya Payasam which would be ready without my needing to order it, I religiously saw Hare Krishnas in front of the beautiful, golden-domed Rigg's at the corner of M and Wisconsin, i.e. the busiest spot in all of Hoya-ville.

Even a few years ago, I'd spot them there, just in front of the gates to the bank. I don't know if they've chosen to grace a different part of town with their presence or if they're no longer allowed to make that intersection even more crowded for pedestrians who are trying to cross to Benetton or Lacoste in search of logos we rocked in the 80s, but I haven't seen Hare Krishnas in quite a while. 

I don't blame the Georgetown HKs for my skittishness though, I blame their cousins who were at SFO in 1983. 

I don't have much "close" family in the United States.  I grew up without the benefit of grandparents (deceased) or first cousins (all in India or Gelf) and until 1989, without any of my parents' siblings.  It was lonely and one of the things about my childhood which I desperately wish had been different. On the rare occasion when someone visited from Cochin or Abu Dhabi, it was a huge deal, a cause for much excitement and happiness.  The day I met my first Hare Krishna was one of those occasions.

My father's favorite nephew was arriving in Amreeka for the first time ever; he was excited about a promised trip to Disneyland, the opportunity to buy Levi's 501s-- and the chance to see his two youngest cousin sisters, who had been all of five and 18-months old when he had swung them around last.  We had gone to the airport to pick him up and Daddy was so exultant, when I asked if I could carry the Minolta I was rarely allowed to breathe in the vicinity of, I was rewarded with a camera strap around my neck and one amazing toy in my eager little hands. 

"Hell, maybe you should take a picture of your Georgie-chayan when he comes out, would you like that?"

WOULD I?

I immediately stripped off the molded leather camera cover and whirled around to my four-year old sister.

"This is really important.  You are responsible for Daddy's camera case!"

She nodded at me somberly.

Free of such accoutrements, I carefully removed the lens cap and stuck it in the pocket on the front of my pinafore.  We had stopped walking and were now standing and waiting. After a few minutes spent fidgeting impatiently, I wandered a few feet away, so I could pretend I was a photographer. My sister, who liked to shadow my every move, toddled along faithfully. Gingerly lifting the camera and peering through it, I turned slightly, and then saw people with cymbals who were chanting and dancing happily. One of them started walking towards us; he was holding a book.

I looked back at my Dad, but he was anomalously distracted and not paying attention to his progeny; he was too busy half-shouting excitedly with an uncle-who-wasn't-an Uncle, who worked at the airport.  Daddy was animated, his rapid-fire Malayalam punctuated by laughter as he and Uncle loudly argued about how deprived my omnivorous Achachan would be, by staying with such a strict vegetarian family.  Daddy was so intent on insisting that vegetarian food wouldn't kill anyone, and that meenkari was overrated anyway, that he hadn't noticed who was coming my way.

I lowered the camera, anxiously.

"Hello!" the man trilled.

My sister made like a crab and moved sideways until she was directly behind me.  She was spooked.  "Orange ghost!" she mumbled.

"Not a ghost, a friend."

The HK spotted the huge 22 karat crosses around our necks and did a double-take.

"You are Christians?!"

I nodded, mutely. My sister, always half a beat late in order to facilitate emulation of whatever I was doing, started nodding vigorously, too.  We were like small, dark bobble-heads.  I was certain that at any moment, my Father was going to turn around and punch this person for approaching his little girls.

"That's a shame, did your parents convert when they came here?"

I froze.  When people asked my father that question, they were immediately rewarded with a 15-minute lecture on St. Thomas the Apostle converting Indians when Europeans were still running around, worshipping trees and beating each other with sticks.

He continued, still smiling beatifically, "I want to give you something. This book is part of who you are-"

I brilliantly blurted out, "I'm not allowed to talk to strangers!", which then confused me, because I realized I just had.  I hadn't taken the book.

The man continued to hold it out.

My sister helpfully repeated, "orange ghost!!", a bit more insistent this time. 

I apprehensively reached out for "Bhagavad Gita, As it is" while the man beamed at me.  He said something final before turning away, to rejoin his flock.  My sister's nose was now pressed in to the small of my back.  I was overcome with this dire realization that my kundi was about to receive an adi par excellence from my Father, for breaking one of the rules he cared most about-- not. talking. to. strangers.

"Edi, Annay-kutty, nee evade poyee edi?"  Daddy was laughing as he called out his question in Malayalam. 

"I'm, I mean, entho.  I mean, I'm here.  I mean...yeah."

Daddy turned his head to frown at me critically.

"Edi mandi, have you forgotten how to speak English?"

His eyes narrowed as he noticed what I was holding.

"Where the HELL did you get that?" he roared.

My sister whimpered, "orange ghost!!!" one final, useless time before attempting to melt in to my spine and ass.

"Who told you to take that?  Haven't I taught you ANYTHING?"

Daddy was livid.  He snatched the book from my hands and looked as if he was about to throw it out, in the orange garbage can which was conveniently located just feet from us-- but then he stopped, and ranted about how it was still a book, after all.  Indecision about how to dispose of the offending tome only enraged him more.  He charged the Hare Krishnas, and the ghost stepped forward, his celestial smile intact.

"Who the hell are you to talk to my children and give them propaganda?  If I want my children to be Hindu, I will teach them myself, without the assistance of some hippie in an airport. You think you know more about Hinduism than me?  Go to hell.  This is like buying cloth from England which was made from Indian cotton!  Unnecessary!  Insulting!"

"Perhaps you should keep the book, it may allow you to reconnect with the faith you were born--"

"Reconnect what?  My family has been Christian for 1931 years!  Remove yourself from your cult and get an education!  Not every Indian is Hindu, you crazy son of a bitch."

And with that, my father grabbed my upper arm and hustled me away.  I frantically grabbed for Veena and got one of her overall straps. 

"What did I tell you about talking to strangers, edi?  Ay?  You disobedient girl.  Don't you ever accept something from someone else, not a book, not a candy, NOTHING."

My non-Uncle intervened, with a voice which was both soothing and conciliatory. "Thampychayan she's just a child, she didn't know."

"OH, she KNOWS.  And she'll remember too, after her punishment."

I cringed.  I had the strictest Father around.  I was fairly certain that my bottom would be sore by the end of the evening, but sometimes, when my Father was in an extra-creative mood, he'd devise "consequences" which were pure affliction, with none of the spanking.  I preferred the beating, any day. Better to get it over with.

Ten minutes later, after he arrived looking exhausted but excited, Georgie-chayan couldn't understand why my father was grinding his teeth, nor could he figure out why his two youngest cousins were so forlorn. Preoccupied by what lay in store for me, I forgot to take his picture, even though I was still clutching Daddy's SLR.

::

When I got home, I was ordered to my bedroom while my father shouted at my mother, his preferred method of informing her of our iniquity.  Immediately after that, my father walked in to my room, picked my children's bible off the shelf and ordered me to show him the Ten Commandments. 

Shaking, I took hold of my second holy book for the day and opened it, wordlessly.  After a few seconds, I found the correct page.  I stared at the Decalogue, waiting.

"What is number five?"

"Honor thy father and mother."

"Don't mumble.  What is it?"

"Honor thy father and mother."

My father stepped backwards and opened the top drawer of my desk, which had been his, years ago, when he was a student fresh from India.  He saw that it was filled with an assortment of My Melody and Little Twin Stars paraphernalia, a few pairs of Barbie's high-heeled, open-toed sandals collected in the little glitter suitcase which used to be my Hello Kitty stamp set and one pink diary with a brass lock. 

He shoved it closed and tried the drawer beneath; this time, he took it out a large stack of paper and shut it less forcefully, since it had contained his quarry.  He placed the paper on top of my desk, withdrew a pen from the box on top of it where they lay jumbled and handed the instrument to me. 

Calmly, he said, "Write that two-hundred times."

"Write what?!"

"The fifth commandment.  If your penmanship is sloppy, it won't count towards the 200, so take your time, edi.  I'll check on you later."

Miserably, I got up from my bed and trudged towards the desk.  Unbelievable.  Why couldn't I just get hit? Outside, I could hear my sister squealing gleefully as the closest thing I had to the older brother I had always wanted tossed her around and dangled her by her ankles.  I was consumed by frustration at the injustice of the situation.  I hadn't wanted to talk to the damned orange ghost.  He should get my punishment, not me.

I sat down, picked up the pen and paused, staring at the unblemished paper.  Someone was coming, I could hear them in the hall.  I looked up and there was Georgie-chayan, with Veena sitting on his shoulders.   

"What are you waiting for?  Do what Daddy said, then we can play.  I didn't come all this way to just do this," he said, abruptly grabbing Veena under the shoulders and sending her head-first for the floor, where he let her dangle so low her silky baby hair grazed it.  She chortled. 

"I want to drop you, too!"

I nodded woefully.  The far-too-fun duo left my room and I heard my father yell at them to not disturb me.  I sighed.  This was going to be a long, wretched few hours.  I commenced writing.  My hand started to move faster, but the admonishment about neatness replayed in my head and I wrote more carefully.  At number 181 or so, I felt defeated and I put my face down on the paper, and fell asleep.

When I woke up, there was a third holy book near me, next to the ruled binder paper I had misused as a pillow.  It was old, the corners were worn and it smelled of dust.  I carefully opened the cover and saw "The Bhagavad Gita" spelled out in letters which rested on serifs.  There was something barely visible in the top right corner of the yellowing paper, which was slightly translucent.  When I turned the page, I saw my father's full name, written in his bold, block-lettered handwriting.  I was confused; why had he given me the same book he almost threw away?

"Latha Antharjanam, if you want to study Hinduism, you don't need a white man or a cult to enlighten you.  That crazy man is not even a real Hindu."

I hadn't even realized Daddy was standing there.

"Besides, Hare Krishnas are Vaishnavas.  Your ancestors worshipped both Vishnu and Shiva.  Sankaranarayanan.  Damnit, If you are going to be a Hindu, at least be accurate about it."

Fade Away and Radiate

1979.

My mother is 29, four years younger than I am right now.

In the precious 11.47 minutes she has before my eight-month old baby sister will need her again, Mummy has ambitiously decided she will give me a "full bath".  She is shampooing my very long, very thick hair, all the while muttering dark things about how I will be the last child of hers with such a high-maintenance head.  (Indeed, by the time my sister was three or four, she was given a modified bowl cut, one which my DBD Aunts exclaimed "looks like Sharadha".  I still don't know who this Sharadha-character is.)

I'm humming, lost in my own four-year old's world, and I pick up the khaki-colored pitcher my mom uses when she needs to dump water on my head.  Since she's futzing with tangles and an uncooperative, nearly-empty bottle of Johnson's Baby Shampoo, she doesn't care that I have commandeered her plastic vessel.  I happily commence dipping it in bath water, filling it, and then holding it up as high as my arm can manage, only to let it trickle out dramatically, splashing me and Mummy as it falls.  This annoys her and she snaps at me to stop it, but via the magic of the Malayalam language, two monosyllabic words mutate in to four: literally "find or look for another job".

I drop the pitcher and commence humming.  Soon, I'm singing, since I have nothing better to do and the music has been stuck in my head; it needs to escape. 

"Keep haaaanging up the telephooone."

I repeat this a few times, though it is always preceded by a minimum of two enthusiastic rounds of, "Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blaa-aah..."

Mom pauses, but just for a moment.  She's considering her strange eldest daughter as her brow wrinkles.  Then, she physically and mentally shakes it off; she has no time for such shenanigans.  Any moment now, screaming will ring out from the far end of this ancient house, and she will be summoned to her other, tinier tyrant.  As if that wasn't torment enough, if she leaves me for even a minute, when she returns, she will only find tepid bathwater, because I will have run off, naked and dripping suds in my wake.

"Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blaaah...keep haaanging up the telephone!"

"What are you singing?  What is this?"

"You don't like it?  I'll change it!"

"To what?  Did you learn this in school?"

She's referring to Montessori, where I have a very strict Sri Lankan teacher who is allowed to beat me, if no one else is looking and I'm asking for it.  If you ask her or my parents, I'm always asking for it. 

"One way and another...I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha...one way...or another...I'm gonna getcha!  I getcha!"

This is actually my favorite song, so now I'm getting excited and dancing around while she's trying to rinse that classic "No More Tears" formula from my hyper, flailing form. 

"HOLD STILL."

"I'll getcha!  I'll getcha!"

"Oh, you'll get something..."

"One way lady next week!"

"STOP IT."

I cease abruptly and she visibly relaxes.  In return for my cooperation, she grabs my head and pushes it under the thundering bath faucet.  She's running out of time and I have a lot of hair.  This is not a moment for mere pitchers.

"I caaaaag bweeeethe!"

"You're not supposed to."

And just like that, she eases up and the second it seems possible to do so, I try and shove my head back out of the water.  My mother, being gifted with that maternal, psychic ability to predict exactly such stupidity, shoves my skull downwards slightly and swings it laterally, preventing my decapitation via early 20th century plumbing fixture.

"Be care-ful, edi..."

"Is my bath over?"

"Yes.  Thank--"

"Yippee!   Again I can sing.  Call me!  Lala you can call me, call me, call me now.  Call me!"

My frustrated mother has thrown a heavy "Turkey" towel over my head, so that I resemble a resented bird cage.  Now she is rubbing it about viciously, trying to dry wet tangles.

"Owww, that HURTS!"

"Tell your Father.  This hair is his stupid idea, not mine.  If I had my way, I'd cut it all off."

"Why?"

"It's too much work to take care of.  It's too heavy for your head."

I shrug.  As she continues her declamation, I'm already drifting off. I am wondering about tomorrow, when I will again be left with my babysitter, who is concomitantly a trusted family friend and an extra miserable teen.  I have already decided that as soon as I burst through the door to their room, and that pained look of suffering crosses their face upon seeing me, I will ask them to play this record which I like.

I like these songs more than the awkward, clattering attempts at music I encounter at Montessori.  I also like my babysitter more than the little kids in my class, but the feeling is not mutual.  And so, the more they are put upon to watch over hyper-active, curious, loquacious little me, the more sullen they become.  The more sullen they become, the more music I hear.  And that is why when I was five, my parents found me posing in front of their mirror in my white petticoat, playing "Blondie", as I haughtily informed them, when they inquired what on earth I was doing.

Babies aren't an "I get to be a jerk"-free card.

Once in a rare while, on Sepia Mutiny, the group blog I write for, someone leaves a comment which is so long, it's problematic. It makes scrolling down a thread difficult-- especially if one is attempting to do so via phone-- and it's also a lot of material to consider and respond to. It complicates the conversation.

In those situations, the ever-helpful intern steps in and suggest that a comment which is THAT long is really a post, just yearning to be blogged. "Please do so, then leave the link here, for those who might be interested. Thanks!"

Well, I guess I had a post, just yearning to be blogged. :)

::

1 · tarta said

you are not 33 going on dead,anna! i know u said that tongue in cheek, but i think more and more professional women are postponing marriage to age 35-36 and kids to age 37-39

And thanggahd for it. I've been mildly obsessed with babies lately-- but not like you might think. :)

Last night, I read nearly every entry on a blog called "Take Back the Island". I'll just put it this way-- one of their running features is "Dead Baby Joke". I found TBTI via a NYT article from Feb 11th which introduced me to a curious world called Park Slope, which is in the Brooklyn...apparently thoughtless bitches run wild there, with humvee-sized strollers and similarly-sized senses of entitlement to the sidewalk, an establishment called "Tea Lounge" and finally all the space in a bar called Union-something which has Bocce courts. The article had 300 comments about the self-absorbed shittiness of it all, and I found myself coming down on the so-called "baby-hater" side of things, which is just amazing.

I've wanted to be a mom since I was in first grade, which is when my teacher asked what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said, "Supreme Court Justice. And Mommy". I looooove babies. I started taking Folic Acid supplements when I was 18, because I was so sure I was going to get married right after graduating, to my college sweetheart. Baby, baby, baby.

Now, I want to throttle women on the Metro who brutally force their double-wide, p.o.s. strollers (which hold more bags than babies) wherever they can, as if wielding a battering ram through innocent commuters, only to block the handicapped seating (which I needed to use for the majority of last year) as if it's their deity-given right to do so-- and woe unto anyone who dares look askance, because that will be be the catalyst for the "HOW DARE YOU!" heard 'round the monuments.

On the rare occasions when I go to starbucks in certain nabes, I'm certain to be slammed in to by some hyper-active, three-year old animal who is careening about the store while doing his best impersonation of a pinball-- and I'm even more certain to get a haughty, "EXCUSE YOU. You need to look where you are going", from his Mother, after which I am absolutely certain that I will have to stifle my urge to throw my $5 latte in her stupid face.

And best of all, when I go home to CA, I'm no longer allowed to attend my mother's prayer meetings, because in 2003, I picked up an exceptionally demonic species of crotch-fruit who screamed and kicked me while I attempted to take him in to the other room, to thrown him in to his worthless mother's fucking lap. "What happened?" she trilled.

"He decided to write on my piano with a sharpie."

"Oh, he's just playing."

"My father bought that piano for me 25 years ago. It's not a toy. It's precious and he would be horrified to know that your kid just defaced it."

"No, no. You care too much for material things...he is being cute...hahahaha."

And apparently (though I blacked out so I don't remember this) I lunged for her and my mom intercepted my clawing hands and hauled my ass in to my room so fast, we skipped a month.  My primal attack might have been triggered by all the exquisite hypocrisy about material things, since crotchfruit's tree is the same woman who likes to announce how much her home cost and how she's already bored with her year-old luxury car and considering something newer.

So yes, tarta, much like the timeline in your comment indicated, I will have my kids in a few years, because by then, I will be ready to give up my lifestyle for theirs. I will have gotten shit out of my system. I will accept that I can no longer be a selfish bitch. I will not take them to BARS (wtf is going on in Park Slope, people?) because I'm resentful about how my life has changed and I want to have it both ways. I will resign myself to life in the burbs and inane never-ending videos and silly songs and wanting to beat my head against the wall because my own crotchfruit are driving me fucking insane-- but you know what? At least they will be doing that in my sure-to-be-destroyed home vs. at the mall, the movies, restaurants or anywhere else innocent people go.

I cannot comprehend how having a baby makes someone gifted.  Any idiot can fuck someone and squirt out a slime-covered, squalling thing.  Now, not everyone can take that crying newborn and parent it in to a good human being.  I think it is all related to a greater issue-- an explosion of selfishness in America which is most often manifested via cell phone conversations in tiny buses where some douche is yelling, "what?  I can't hear you.  I'm on the bus.  What?".  Why be considerate of others while sharing common, public spaces?  That's for wimps, people dumb enough to care about courtesy.

Unfortunately, with babies, you have a titanium excuse for treating other people like shit, because who is going to tangle with you, when you're holding a tiny person in a diaper?   No one, because anyone who dares stand up for themselves or anything reasonable will be regarded as just thismuch less evil than Saddam Hussein.  "It takes a village", they say.  Well then let me step in and discipline your uncivilized beast-child, since your response to everything is, "he's just a kid!"  And the next time I hear, "you're ungrateful now...but they'll be paying your social security", I'll laugh bitterly, because I want to be on the same powerful drugs which make this delusion so easy-- I don't expect monthly checks in 32 years.  So take that lame justification for your child's appalling behavior and shove it up your birth canal.

I know there are good parents out there and beautifully-behaved babies (Hi, Godson).  I know.  But a non-trivial number of awful apples are making it difficult to remember that (or, even want to remember that).  You don't see these kind people, because when their kid acts up in church or at the movies or at Macy's, they are. out. of. there.  They are sweet enough to be mortified at their child's meltdown, and they are aghast at the thought of inflicting it on innocent strangers.  So toddlers are whisked up, away, to the car and then home.  The ironic thing is, if you parent well, it's imperceptible to the naked eye and nearly impossible to remember.  What does get remembered is the idiot father who turns his back on his kid, believing that "not paying attention" is the best strategy for addressing his offspring's public shittiness.  It hasn't crossed his mind that dozens of people are wincing while he just speaks to the poor salesperson he's corralled in a voice which grows louder to compensate for the screaming he's brilliantly ignoring. 

Even more memorable are the couple I once saw in Fremont, outside a Jamba Juice.  Their children were literally playing in "traffic", in the parking lot, and finally, the inevitable happened-- a shaken driver veered to spare Junior Asshole and ended up slamming in to a parked car.  Said the parents, upon being summoned from their stupor by the sound of breaking lights and mashing bumpers: "Gosh, the way people drive is just outrageous!  Willow, are you okay?  Did that man scare you?"  All of us looked on, agape from the disbelief and willful denial.

I am amazed. My parents spanked us, regularly and we didn't dare let out a peep in public, let alone toss full-blown tantrums, deface others' property or otherwise act like meth-addled monkeys. All it took was one look and we'd quiver involuntarily. But as my mother explained to me after her eventful prayer meeting (after letting me out of my room), "those days are over. Now, parents want to be friends with their children. They don't want to be the bad guy. They don't want to parent. And if you do discipline your child, you better hope no one sees you smack their little butt because you'll go to jail. It's a different era. We didn't let you act out because it was not appropriate behavior. Now, everything is appropriate behavior."

"Mom, if that kid comes near my piano again, with any-"

"So have you thought about moving back to New York?"