Touchstones: Powerful, innocent promises
I am no historian, economist or political scientist. However, I do have a good memory (even at 73) and can remember almost all that happened to fashion my life in these seven decades. My friends call me a storehouse of useless information and although they don’t always mean that as an acknowledgement of my powers of recall, I take it as a compliment. So, I am currently writing a book to document all the trivia that has a history of its own and that links others of my generation to a galaxy that is light years away from the globalised world that has rendered faceless, or useless, all those who are not connected digitally.
The ’50s and ’60s were the foundational decades of our country as we know it now. Moreover, for those like me, who were born then, it went along with a way of life and an upbringing that left a deep imprint on each one of us. Everything that is still good in this country dates to that time, but all that eventually derailed the innocent promises of that age can also be traced back to those decades. My birth in 1951 was the year when India had just been given its Constitution. So, I like to believe that the values that it was founded on were also the same that were instilled in us as my generation grew up. Today, when I look around, I find that all those who stand up for those moral values belong to that age group. You will find them in each public demonstration against the erosion of human rights, the division of this country on the basis of caste and creed, the centralisation of power and the snuffing of weak voices.
This is, of course, a romantic view and peculiar to a certain section of the upper middle class, who had a long history of a liberal education behind them but who lived modest lives. In the small towns of Uttar Pradesh, this meant that we were products of a mix of Hindi medium and English medium education. We went to posh missionary schools that still taught us British rather than Indian history, prayed in chapels and abided by the rules of a Christian way of life. At home, our lives were different: we spoke in our own tongues, had pet names such as Chhotu and Motu that we hid from our school friends. Our mothers had a strong belief in religion and taught us prayers such as the Durga Saptashati and the Shiv Pancharatnam sloka, while at school we started the day with the Lord’s Prayer, said Hail Marys and prayed to St Jude, hope of the hopeless. At home, St Jude was replaced by the Hanuman Chalisa. That is probably how we grew up, firmly anchored in our secular world.
As I remember that time now, our day began with the prayers my mother recited as she did her morning rituals, then walked to school and stood still at noon as the chapel bell rang for the Angelus and Benediction. And when we went out to play after school and homework was done, my mother told us to return home before the evening azaan floated from the local mosque. Whether we believed in other religions or not, we were made aware from an early age that this country belonged to people of different faiths and that no religion was superior to another.
This background was already receding even when we were growing up. In the secular world that was fashioned by the State to promote equality and tolerance, ritual worship and cultural traditions became a casualty. I have no shame in admitting that I still say my prayers each day, and that includes the Christian ones learnt in school, alongside the Sanskrit ones we were taught as children and recited at home. Since we grew up in what was a home where often three generations lived under one roof, we learnt tolerance for the eccentricities that accompanied my mother and mother-in-law’s way of life. So, not only was our kitchen a staunchly vegetarian one, but as long as my mother-in-law controlled it, onions and garlic were a no-no. However, as our boys grew up in Chandigarh and often ate with their Punjabi and non-Brahmin Hindu friends, they began to ask her why it was forbidden to get meat or chicken cooked in our home. My father-in-law (a wonderfully liberal and fair man) then stepped in as the magisterial voice on such occasions. He told my mum-in-law firmly that she had run her own home according to her prejudices but now that she lived with her son and daughter-in-law, she had no right to impose those taboos. ‘You are one against six,’ he reminded her. ‘Always remember that there is a difference between the Queen and the Queen Mother.’
Give and take comes naturally to those of us who grew up in large clans. Alas, with the rise of the modern nuclear family living in gated communities, we are in danger of becoming uncaring of others and self-centred in a way that is alarming. Looking out for the needy, the disadvantaged and those less fortunate may be our State policy, but I see little of it in urban homes now.
If only we could learn to listen to the voices that hesitate to speak loudly, what a great country we could be.
— The writer is a social commentator
