Sunday, January 6, 2002		Life Ties

SANAM was born a year after Arup. He was a sickly child with weak resistance levels. The entire family fussed over him. He was over-pampered, overfed, over-clothed and over-loved. Sanam resented the attention he received while she was left to fend for herself. She remembers how as a child she wanted to swap her robust chubbiness with the emancipated, undernourished skeleton look of the children living in the slum across in the hope of receiving more love and attention from her parents and relatives.

She hated being treated as if she were a part of the furniture. She would try new tricks to upstage Arup — tear his test note book on the sly, dismantle his Lego models, forget to pass on his telephone messages, give an exaggerated version of his pranks to their mother, and when none of these devious ploys worked she learnt to throw tantrums. Initially she saw her screaming, raving and ranting yield quick results. The moment she started stamping her feet in anger, accusing her parents of loving her brother more and treating her like a stepdaughter, she succeeded in getting her way. She was intelligent enough to know that this tick would stop being effective after a while. She would then think of newer ways of twisting her parents’ arms with the objective of getting what she felt was her rightful due.

As she grew older she mastered the art of persistence. She was persistent and adament not only with her family but with other people as well. If she wanted to go for a movie with a group of girls who were not part of her gang she would hound them till they agreed. A calculated study of the group helped her zero in on the weakest player. Thereafter she would cultivate this girl. Phone calls, flowers, gifts and lavish praises would be showered upon her to persuade her to include Sanam in her prized circle. She focused on the goal without thinking of the bottlenecks and deterrents. She had developed a thick skin. Insults, subtle hints, ridicule and disdainful laughter did not bother her. She was only concerned with the objective she was chasing. She neither sulked nor felt bad to the extent of backing off. She persistently hung on till the person relented. It didn’t matter that they gave in grudgingly or angrily so long as they did and she got what she wanted. This attitude helped her gain access to many areas where a person with a milder temperament would never have been able to.

Was she popular ? Though people avoided her and made excuses to avoid doing what she wanted, they ulitmately got cornered into doing what she demanded. She would take lifts from a strangers forcing them to take major detours to drop her at a place convenient to her. She not only reminded friends that her birthday was round the corner but also forced them to buy her a combined gift way beyond their budget. She borrowed reference books a day before the exam from the class topper who was secretive and possessive. She succeeded in dancing with the handsome head boy, monopolising his attention throughout the graduation day dinner while the other girls gaped at her in disbelief.

Naturally none of these ‘victims’ were happy toeing her line. Left to themselves they would run a mile the moment they saw her approach, sure they would get conned into doing her bidding. They knew she was a terror who would take advantage of their inability to say "no". They also knew there was no love lost between them and her. Yet they fell into the trap of doing something against their wishes, just because she was persistent, nagging and aggressive. Sanam chose her victims with care. They were always people who were, what is called, traditionally ‘nice’. Well-bred, polite and cultured they found it difficult to not give in, especially under pressure. She exploited their niceness and got what she wanted. Since she was not angling to be everybody’s favourite person, their negativity or their shunning her after the deed was done did not bother her in the least. She had got what she was after and that is all that mattered.

When she met Bejan, a Parsee, none of her friends actually thought he would end up marrying her. They had an eight-year-long courtship which finally ended in marriage. His family was not happy with the match but gave in when their son announced his decision, perhaps the only decision in his life which he took with so much certainty.

It wasn’t as if Sanam did not have positive attributes. She was hard working and ambitious for herself and her family. Bejan was a weak-willed man, who liked others to take his decisions for him. He was laid-back and complacent about most things, including his professional life. Within a span of eight years he had switched 10 jobs out of which seven had been "procured" by Sanam. A stage came when he felt he could not do anything without her and marriage seemed the most logical culmination of their long association. Sanam on her part had ‘worked’ on him because she wanted to prove to her friends, family and even to herself that she could indeed ‘net’ a good-looking eligible young man.

With the passage of time Sanam became more and more thick skinned. Instead of acquiring a gentle refinement in her temperament, attitude and behaviour she became hardened, cynical and mean. She rarely returned favours. Her persistence levels were at an all-time high. With complete disregard to others’ time, convenience and resources she piled on, pushing her way through and hounding them till they relented. But these were no college wimps she was targeting. They were professionals and seasoned adults who valued not just their time but also guarded their privacy. Having an ill-mannered, self-centered upstart chasing them for odd jobs was not something they wanted to take lying down. Even in cases where the scales were tilted in her favour, situations got derailed as the person got irritated to the extent of washing his hands permanently off her.

Sanam never really understood what it was about her that was not right. From childhood she had learnt to grab what she could not get otherwise. The emotional, sensitive side of her personality had got smothered as the desire to claim her due overtook her. All her energies were spent in reaching her goal. Having a spouse who was irresponsible added to her burden. She was forever "fixing" jobs for him. But things had stopped moving for her. The buck had finally stopped. There was no one who was willing to help or bail her out. All her persistence was now coming to a naught and she was still none the wiser for it. Had she learnt to be more considerate towards others she would still have had friends and well-wishers. Her belief that if she hounded someone she could get them around, was flawed and became the cause of her isolation from her friends, relatives and neighbours.

It is good to be persistent, focused and single-minded in one’s pursuit but to be over-persistent and insensitive to contrary signals from other people and to turn a blind eye to their convenience and ability is something no one will tolerate, leave alone, accept.