Bimal Jalan had a close view of financial governance while he served as Union Finance Secretary and Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Drawing on his vast experience he compares two distinct periods: 1980–2000 and 2000–15, and examines the transition India has made in the last four decades from a strictly regulated, slow-growth state enterprise to one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
In his latest book, India: Priorities for the future he lists out few areas India needs to pay attention to.
Here is a list of ten of those priorities:
One of the foremost priorities regarding financial governance
Priority for the banking sector
Another reform in the financial sector that the India has to bring about
The RBI has to keep working with financial experts to develop procedure for the debt markets to grow
The outcomes of the present schemes in terms of actual benefits is pretty low
Performance reviews of a ministry will lead to better execution of policies
Red tapism needs to be done away with
Outsourcing to different agencies reduces petty corruption and delays
An urgent political reform is to speed up investigations of persons who are in political parties
An utmost priority lies in making the states accountable for policy execution than the Centre
Which priority according to you should be the India’s topmost priority? Tell us.
In Conversation with Osama Siddique
Osama Siddique has been a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, a lawyer in New York and Lahore, a policy instructor in various countries. He is also a legal scholar, university teacher and reform consultant in Pakistan, and a successful doctoral candidate and visiting professor at Harvard Law School. His most recent book is an acclaimed and multiple award-winning critical legal history of postcolonial justice systems. We spoke to him about his debut novel Snuffing Out the Moon.
Below are the questions we asked him.
You are and have been a very successful lawyer and legal scholar. Why did you decide to write a novel?
There are many kinds of legal discourses of course that allow much room for critical expression. Quite apart from more conventional work, as a lawyer and an academic I have always been particularly intrigued by how law can be and is manipulated by the powerful against the disempowered. Regardless of which era we speak about what goes by the name of law has always been a strong weapon for those who can use it – for better or for worse. Indeed I have explored this theme in my legal scholarship. There are, however, certain limits on expression imposed by extant conventions of style, structure and methodology. Fiction on the other hand is a very vast, rich and multifarious terrain that provides tremendous flexibility and license to explore this and various additional themes that I dwell on in my novel – themes that I had always wanted to write about. Themes ranging, for instance, from ancient political landscapes to omens of impending evil to lives of petty criminality to literature as a weapon of protest to social media as a medium for hate mongering to environmental apartheids of the near future. Only fiction allows engagement with all this in one book. Such is its largesse. Hence the novel.
Why did you situate the book in these particular six epochs of time?
In large part because having blessed access to their archaeological sites and cultural artifacts I have been greatly fascinated by them since childhood. I continue to fondly visit them, read about them, live amidst them. Mohenjodaro also because it continues to be such an enticing enigma and unsolved mystery. The Gandharan civilization because it has left such an exquisite artistic and architectural imprint on the Pakistani landscape. Lahore – my beloved city – appears in three contiguous eras, which are all reflected in its hybrid culture and built heritage. And the near future is of course the source of tremendous curiosity and indeed concern to all of us – given the highly troubling times and the various political, environmental and civilizational crises that we currently face as humankind.
Somewhere in the book you say something like: “all eras are driven by the same hopes and fears and passions and we continue to make the same mistakes.” — Could you elaborate on this and also your concept of “time.”?
While one can surely detect evolution in various spheres of human endeavor – political structures, organized religion, modes of technology – it does occur to me that across the ages our fundamental aspirations and imperatives remain very closely aligned, if not identical. It is fascinating to think, for instance, how hope, fear, love, hate, dissent and the resulting conflicts drive people to act in such similar ways, regardless of whether we speak of today’s milieu or one of four thousand years ago, from whatever we know of that distant era. Naturally, it causes one to wonder whether we are caught up in a constant cycle of repetition. Civilizations come, flourish, decline and ultimately vanish. Whether time is linear or cyclical. Whether we are headed somewhere or will the wheel of time continue to turn and turn till one day our kind will simply be no more. That we will simply vanish. Without even a whimper, let alone a bang. Without any explanation, let alone an apology.
What are your thoughts on the concept of “evil”?
Evil is such a vital and fascinating concept in every religious and cultural tradition as well as manifest, however you define it, in so many human catastrophes through the ages. One of the most compelling questions remains whether evil is just another name for our baser instincts, distinct external influences that corrupt and corrode us and compel us to do abhorrable things, or an actual physical embodiment – a virtual devil. What causes us to indulge in devilry and why has humankind failed in putting a stop to murders, pogroms, genocides, travesties and wars. These questions provide a vital undercurrent to my overall narrative and evil manifests itself mysteriously and multifariously in the lives of the different characters. Quite apart from the more analytical dimensions there is also something very emotive, something very sinister and forbidding about the concept that impacts our senses in a remarkable manner. The fear and foreboding evoked by the concept of evil has been depicted so powerfully in many great pieces of literature and it has always been something that I also wanted to write about.
Your protagonists are non-conformists who dissent and then pay a price for it. Can you tell us more about choosing protagonists who are dissenters and the importance of dissent in human history?
Arguably, as critically as ever before in out history we face the challenges of curtailment and censorship of free thought and speech. What is also obvious is a globe-wide shift to harder governments, to despots, officially sanctioned histories, blind dogma and also now, alternative facts. The present epoch is as Orwellian as it can get. Meaningful dissent, therefore, is a precious but also much maligned virtue and hence all the more worthy of preservation. Mine is just one modest endeavor to underline how vital dissent is for societal sustenance and integrity. Even otherwise, dissenters make much more compelling and effective protagonists than conformists. Dissent has contributed tremendously to history and brought about significant turning points and breakthroughs in human thought and achievement. And yet the dissenters have often paid a tremendous personal price, which makes their entire endeavor all the more heroic. There is thus no way that I would have been tempted to choose protagonists who are not dissenters. Having said that those who habitually conform and capitulate are also curious in their own way. Perhaps in my next book if there is one.
5 Priceless Things We Learn from Ruskin Bond’s Books
Ruskin Bond’s stories have never failed to thrill us and leave us feeling warm inside every time we read one. Our growing up years would not have remained the same had it not been for Bond’s beautiful characters and anecdotes that immediately take us back to the best years of our lives.
But through his enchanting stories of childhood, friendship, family, love and nature, we unknowingly learn a few precious things which, perhaps, none of our school books could have ever taught us.
Here are 5 times Ruskin Bond quietly told us something invaluable about life and the world that will stay with us forever.
When he told us why we should aim for excellence and not settle for being a mediocre “anybody”.
When he told us that nature is our best home.
When he showed us that the will to do something is greater than any obstacle.
When he pointed out the perils of disturbing nature.
When he showed us that the beauty of life lies in its changes, like the changing seasons.
Share with us what you have learned from Ruskin Bond’s delightful stories on the occasion of Teachers’ Day!
Managing Your Boss, The New Angle to Boss-Subordinate Relationship
TO MANY PEOPLE, THE PHRASE “managing your boss” may sound unusual or suspicious. Because of the traditional top-down emphasis in most organizations, it is not obvious why you need to manage relationships upward—unless, of course, you would do so for personal or political reasons. But we are not referring to political maneuvering or to apple polishing. We are using the term to mean the process of consciously working with your superior to obtain the best possible results for you, your boss, and the company.
Recent studies suggest that effective managers take time and effort to manage not only relationships with their subordinates but also those with their bosses. These studies also show that this essential aspect of management is sometimes ignored by otherwise talented and aggressive managers. Indeed, some managers who actively and effectively supervise subordinates, products, markets, and technologies assume an almost passively reactive stance vis-à- vis their bosses. Such a stance almost always hurts them and their companies.
If you doubt the importance of managing your relationship with your boss or how difficult it is to do so effectively, consider for a moment the following sad but telling story:
Frank Gibbons was an acknowledged manufacturing genius in his industry and, by any profitability standard, a very effective executive. In 1973, his strengths propelled him into the position of vice president of manufacturing for the second largest and most profitable company in its industry. Gibbons was not, however, a good manager of people. He knew this, as did others in his company and his industry. Recognizing this weakness, the president made sure that those who reported to Gibbons were good at working with people and could compensate for his limitations. The arrangement worked well.
In 1975, Philip Bonnevie was promoted into a position reporting to Gibbons. In keeping with the previous pattern, the president selected Bonnevie because he had an excellent track record and a reputation for being good with people. In making that selection, however, the president neglected to notice that, in his rapid rise through the organization, Bonnevie had always had good-to excellent bosses. He had never been forced to manage a relationship with a difficult boss. In retrospect, Bonnevie admits he had never thought that managing his boss was a part of his job.
Fourteen months after he started working for Gibbons, Bonnevie was fired. During that same quarter, the company reported a net loss for the first time in seven years. Many of those who were close to these events say that they don’t really understand what happened. This much is known, however: While the company was bringing out a major new product—a process that required sales, engineering, and manufacturing groups to coordinate decisions very carefully—a whole series of misunderstandings and bad feelings developed between Gibbons and Bonnevie.
For example, Bonnevie claims Gibbons was aware of and had accepted Bonnevie’s decision to use a new type of machinery to make the new product; Gibbons swears he did not. Furthermore, Gibbons claims he made it clear to Bonnevie that the introduction of the product was too important to the company in the short run to take any major risks.
As a result of such misunderstandings, planning went awry: A new manufacturing plant was built that could not produce the new product designed by engineering, in the volume desired by sales, at a cost agreed on by the executive committee. Gibbons blamed Bonnevie for the mistake. Bonnevie blamed Gibbons.
Of course, one could argue that the problem here was caused by Gibbons’s inability to manage his subordinates. But one can make just as strong a case that the problem was related to Bonnevie’s inability to manage his boss. Remember, Gibbons was not having difficulty with any other subordinates. Moreover, given the personal price paid by Bonnevie (being fired and having his reputation within the industry severely tarnished), there was little consolation in saying the problem was that Gibbons was poor at managing subordinates. Everyone already knew that.
We believe that the situation could have turned out differently had Bonnevie been more adept at understanding Gibbons and at managing his relationship with him. In this case, an inability to manage upward was unusually costly. The company lost $2 million to $5 million, and Bonnevie’s career was, at least temporarily, disrupted. Many less costly cases similar to this probably occur regularly in all major corporations, and the cumulative effect can be very destructive.
This is an excerpt from HBR’s 10 Must Reads (On Managing People). Get your copy here.
Credit: Abhishek Singh
5 Quotes from Akhil Sharma’s ‘A Life of Adventure and Delight’ Which Make His Book a Must-Read
Stories are, after all, nothing more than accounts of the workings of the human heart and mind in relation to the world. And the mark of a successful storyteller, as we all know, is nothing more than the ability to get under the reader’s skin and tug at their heartstrings. Akhil Sharma’s new collection of short stories — A Life of Adventure and Delight, consolidates his reputation of a master storyteller with eight stories of the fragile human heart, told in a way that’s “as hypnotic as those found in the pages of Dostoyevsky”.
Here are 5 instances from Sharma’s new anthology to convince you to pick up a copy right now.
A retired divorcé, in search of love and companionship, decides to relearn how to impress a woman by reading women’s magazines. But how does his search end?
A young boy explores his relationship with the divine and negotiates with God to get what he wants.
A young boy observes his older cousin grow up to break norms and lead a life that often leaves him in a state of shock.
What happens when you wake up and fall in love with your husband, only for a day?
An ordinary man’s life takes some exceptional turns during a few extraordinary moments. Does his life change forever?
Grab your copy of Akhil Sharma’s fascinating new collection of stories here now!
Rusty’s New Room: ‘The Room on the Roof’ — An Excerpt
‘The Room on the Roof’, by Ruskin Bond, is the celebrated writer’s first venture into literature. The heart-warming story of Rusty, a seventeen-year-old orphaned Anglo-Indian boy, looking for a ‘home’ in the charming hills of Dehradun has lived on through decades.
Here is an excerpt from the book on Rusty’s search for a corner he can call his own.
Rusty had never slept well in his guardian’s house, because he had never been tired enough; also his imagination would disturb him. And, since running away, he had slept badly, because he had been cold and hungry. But in Somi’s house he felt safe and a little happy, and slept; he slept the remainder of the day and through the night.
In the morning Somi tipped Rusty out of bed and dragged him to the water tank. Rusty watched Somi strip and stand under the jet of tap water, and shuddered at the prospect of having to the same.
Before removing his shirt, Rusty looked around in embarrassment; no one paid much attention to him, though one of the ayahs, the girl with the bangles, gave him a sly smile; he looked away from the women, threw his shirt on a bush and advanced cautiously to the bathing place.
Somi pulled him under the tap. The water was icy-cold and Rusty gasped with the shock. As soon as he was wet, he sprang off the platform, much to the amusement of Somi and the ayahs.
There was no towel with which to dry himself; he stood on the grass, shivering with cold, wondering whether he should dash back to the house or shiver in the open until the sun dried him. But the girl with the bangles was beside him holding a towel; her eyes were full of mockery, but her smile was friendly.
At the midday meal, which consisted of curry and curd and chapattis, Rusty met Somi’s mother, and liked her.
She was a woman of about thirty-five; she had a few grey hairs at the temples, and her skin—unlike Somi’s—was rough and dry. She dressed simply, in a plain white sari. Her life had been difficult. After the partition of the country, when hate made religion its own, Somi’s family had to leave their home in the Punjab and trek southwards; they had walked hundreds of miles and the mother had carried Somi, who was then six, on her back. Life in India had to be started again, right from the beginning, for they had lost most of their property: the father found work in Delhi, the sisters were married off, and Somi and his mother settled down in Dehra, where the boy attended school.
The mother said: ‘Mister Rusty, you must give Somi a few lessons in spelling and arithmetic. Always, he comes last in class.’
‘Oh, that’s good!’ exclaimed Somi. ‘We’ll have fun, Rusty!’ Then he thumped the table. ‘I have an idea! I know, I think I have a job for you! Remember Kishen, the boy we passed yesterday? Well, his father wants someone to give him private lessons in English.’
‘Teach Kishen?’
‘Yes, it will be easy. I’ll go and see Mr Kapoor and tell him I’ve found a professor of English or something like that, and then you can come and see him. Brother, it is a first-class idea, you are going to be a teacher!’
Rusty felt very dubious about the proposal; he was not sure he could teach English or anything else to the wilful son of a rich man; but he was not in a position to pick and choose. Somi mounted his bicycle and rode off to see Mr Kapoor to secure for Rusty the post of Professor of English. When he returned he seemed pleased with himself, and Rusty’s heart sank with the knowledge that he had got a job.
‘You are to come and see him this evening,’ announced Somi, ‘he will tell you all about it. They want a teacher for Kishen, especially if they don’t have to pay.’ ‘What kind of a job without pay?’ complained Rusty.
‘No pay,’ said Somi, ‘but everything else. Food—and no cooking is better than Punjabi cooking; water—’
‘I should hope so,’ said Rusty.
‘And a room, sir!’ ‘Oh, even a room,’ said Rusty ungratefully, ‘that will be nice.’
‘Anyway,’ said Somi, ‘come and see him, you don’t have to accept.’.
Find out more about Rusty and his delightful adventures today!
Love Will Find A Way — Prologue
Anurag Garg is the bestselling author of A Half-Baked Love Story and Love Not for Sale.
Here is an excerpt from his latest novel Love Will Find A Way.
10 July 2016
New Delhi Railway Station
As soon as the delayed train reached the platform, passengers rushed to board. We quickened our pace as clouds began to gather in the sky. Looking up, I saw insidious grey encroaching on the blue expanse. The city was ready to welcome its first rain.
As the first few drops fell, we entered the carriage along with the other disgruntled passengers. When we found our berth, Gitanjali grabbed the window seat, as always, and asked me to buy a bottle of water from one of the stalls in the platform after placing our luggage in the overhead bin. I gave her an exasperated look. She looked outside as raindrops began to trickle down the window pane. She was wearing a pair of skinny black jeans and a turquoise T-shirt. Her warm chestnut hair rested on her neck and her long eyelashes swept alluringly against her rouged cheeks, from time to time.
‘Get me a packet of chips, too.’ She thoroughly enjoyed it when I catered to her every need, especially when we were on vacation. Three years into our relationship and we still bickered like teenagers! I handed her the requested goods while she plugged in her headphones.
I rummaged through my bag to find my neck pillow and settled down with my Saadat Hasan Manto book as the train pulled out of the station.
There was a couple with two children in the seats next to us. We exchanged smiles as a man selling tea came our way. They attempted to engage me in small talk even though I tried to keep to myself and buried my head in my book. Gitanjali, however, adores making conversation. With her legs folded under her and her hands gesturing wildly, her face glows when she narrates one of her tales. She began talking to the couple and playing with the kids. It made me immeasurably happy seeing her bright eyes and animated smile.
The TTE came to check our tickets.
‘They’re on your phone,’ I said to her, as she continued playing with the little boy.
‘No, they’re not with me, Anurag,’ she said, her attention focused on playfully tickling the boy, oblivious to the TTE who was breathing down our necks. She turned to me when the little boy suddenly started crying.
‘Were you asking for the tickets?’ she asked as she showed the TTE the IRCTC message on her phone. I heaved a sigh and said, ‘Thank you, madam!’ Gitanjali just smiled and began consoling the wailing kid. She had this uncanny ability to comfort those around her.
Just as the train left the Anand Vihar station, I went to the toilet to change into comfortable clothes for the long journey ahead since mine were slightly wet from the rain.
On returning to our compartment, I saw a beautiful middle-aged woman sitting there, dressed in a floral knee-length kurta and smart trousers. I presumed she had boarded at Anand Vihar. The woman wore spectacles and had green eyes, just like Gitanjali. As she smiled at me, I was struck by an eerie feeling, as though I somehow knew her.
Most of the passengers were going to their hometowns for the summer vacations, whereas some of them, like us, were going to Nainital on holiday. We had to get off the train at Haldwani, which was the closest town to Nainital, from where we had to take a taxi or bus to reach the hill station. I gazed at the scenic vistas as the train trundled through the countryside.
In Amroha, we saw farmers harvesting crops and cows grazing in the paddy fields. Little huts made of bamboo and mud dotted the scenes that rushed by. Gitanjali nudged me as I wrote down the plot points for my next book.
‘Have you decided on the theme of the story?’ she inquired loudly.
‘Yes, I’ve been thinking about something . . . but I’m not sure. I want my character’s motives and emotions to be driven by some sort of psychological disorder.’ My words drew the attention of the beautiful woman and she looked up curiously from her book.
5 Things You may not have Known about the Landmark Case that Led to the 1975 Emergency in India
The history of independent India changed forever on the night of June 25, 1975, as then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, declared a state of Emergency to be imposed on the nation for a period of 21 months.
What acted as the catalyst to this infamous moment in Indian history was the watershed case of Indira Gandhi vs Raj Narain, which has been documented in detail by advocate Prashant Bhushan in his book The Case that Shook India.
Taking a peek into the book, here are five facts from The Case that Shook India that take us back in time to witness the most riveting courtroom drama in Indian history from front row seats.
The Emergency finally concluded on March 21, 1977, thereby ending a period of not just political controversies, but heavy censorship, suspension of civil liberties and personal freedoms. Read more about it in Prashant Bhushan’s The Case that Shook India.
Forever Is A Lie: An Excerpt
Novoneel Chakraborty is the bestselling author of nine romance thrillers and he is back with another beguiling dark romance thriller. The first of a two-part series, Forever Is a Lie is about an eighteen year old girl who falls in love with a man, almost double her age. But what she doesn’t know is that whoever the man loves, dies.
Here is an excerpt from the book.
This was her profile information on Facebook. Ditto on Tinder, a dating app. With moist eyes, she checked the about me section on the app, which she had just filled up:
I’m here to hook up for a night. Anyone who wants anything that goes beyond a night, please swipe left.
Prisha forced herself not to think as she started browsing through men’s profiles on the app. Tinder was recommended to her by Zinnia, her roommate. Two years her senior in college, Zinnia was from the same neighbourhood as Prisha in Faridabad. She had shifted to Bengaluru to pursue media management from Cross University.
Prisha had followed in her footsteps and shifted to Bengaluru a month ago and had taken admission at the same university. She had enrolled herself as a BA student, with a major in mass communication. Zinnia and Prisha stayed together in a rented apartment on BTM Layout.
It was Zinnia who had first described Tinder as a saviour of singles in the city. But Prisha hadn’t made an account on the dating site because she was single, but because she had been feeling emotionally violated for a few months now.
Anyone remotely good-looking and Prisha would swipe right. In fact, looks didn’t matter at all for what she had in mind. She had heard about Tinder earlier from a number of friends but had never imagined using it one day. Why would she? She had been in a committed relationship since she had turned thirteen—until two months ago when she had stepped into her penultimate teenage year. In all these years there had been only one boy she was doggedly, single-mindedly and with utmost sincerity committed to.
Utkarsh Arora had wooed her for an entire summer vacation before she had finally said yes. She was in Class VII and he was in Class X. (Love, then, was an alien feeling. It slowly turned real as they gave it time). And just when Prisha had started believing that there could be no one better than Utkarsh, he let her down.
She had invited him to a family function. It was a dream to see her boyfriend enjoy with her family and cousins; everyone had approved of him. Three weeks later, she had noticed that Utkarsh’s Facebook relationship status had changed from: in a relationship with Prisha Srivastav to in a relationship with Shelly Srivastav. Shelly was her cousin and two years older than her. Prisha demanded an explanation but all Utkarsh said was that he was now in love with Shelly. Now? Is love a prisoner of time? Not only did Utkarsh not give her any plausible explanation, but he repeatedly dodged her calls and then blocked her on social media and on his phone. When she turned to Shelly for an answer, she simply said, ‘He loves me, not you.’
At eighteen, when one’s world collapses, it also brings down with it the beliefs one has grown up on. You stop trusting in truths altogether. You start believing that a truth is nothing but an illusion. Some call it the loss of innocence. It is then that people start giving in to the collective lies that makes everyone sorted adults. Prisha’s attempt at creating a Tinder profile was proof enough that she had given in to it as well.
Love, Prisha concluded within a month of her break-up, was a fallacy. Lust was real; the body was real. And henceforth, she would get real too. Even if it meant living a life she didn’t believe in.
Seven hours after she had made her Tinder profile, there were thirteen matches. When Zinnia came back from college, Prisha gave the phone to her.
‘I think this dude looks cute. What do you think?’ Zinnia said, looking at the fifth match. Prisha couldn’t care less. Zinnia chatted with the guy on Prisha’s behalf and in no time fixed a date later in the night at Harry’s in Koramangala. Zinnia knew Prisha’s story, but she wasn’t the one who had given her the idea of a one-night stand. It was something Prisha had inquired herself when Zinnia kept ranting about some guy who went by the name the ‘Mean Monster’ in the Bangalore party circuit. Mean because he was infamous for his edging technique—a method by which orgasm could be delayed, pushing the body to feel pleasure like never before. And monster because what he carried between his legs was two inches more than that of an average Indian’s. Zinnia was more than excited when she was finally able to trace the elusive guy and pin him down for a date, coincidentally on the same night that Prisha was supposed to meet her Tinder date.
‘You’ll have to come with me, Zin,’ Prisha said as soon as Zinnia had fixed the place for her to meet the Tinder guy.
‘Of course! But I too have a date, sweets,’ she said. Prisha noticed that Zinnia was blushing slightly, which was very unlike her.
‘What?’ Prisha asked, surprised.
‘Finally I’m going to meet him tonight.’
‘Who?’
‘The Mean Monster.’
When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Gets Going: An Excerpt from ‘Millionaire Housewives’
Twelve stories of ordinary women who achieved extraordinary things out of sheer will and determination come together in Rinku Paul and Puja Singhal’s ‘Millionaire Housewives’, to inspire readers to achieve anything one wants to.
One such story is that of the well-known make-up artist Ambika Pillai. There is a monumental struggle that went behind the glitter and glamour of her life that we see today. Displaying unbridled courage when the going got tough, the story of Pillai is one to stay with us forever.
Here is an excerpt of her story from the book, ‘Millionaire Housewives’:
At the tender age of seventeen, my life took a decisive turn when a prospective groom came to see me. I didn’t even know his name. The one thing about him that impressed me though was his impeccable English. He had an MBA degree, was a gold medallist no less, and I gave up my world without any reservations to follow him to his. The excitement didn’t last long though. Despite his seemingly bright prospects, the reality check arrived as soon as I moved in with him to a tiny single-room apartment in Calcutta, a far cry from my sprawling home in Kerala. I was expected to wear a saree, be up at 5 a.m., cook, clean—things that I had never done before. I didn’t protest, refusing to let any of this affect me since I wanted to make my marriage work. I began to take many other things in my stride; being made to feel that I was not good enough on account of my lack of education was only one of them. I would have lived with all of this, but ours really wasn’t a marriage at all.
Not once in five years did we have a physical relationship. It was hard to explain this to my parents, who were convinced that my inability to bear a child meant there was something medically wrong with me. Trips to doctors, medical tests and even surgeries were my lot as I found it very hard to tell my parents the real issue with my marriage. I had to literally beg my husband to have a child and, thankfully, my daughter, Kavitha, was born after five years of marriage. If I had thought that a child would improve matters, I was living in a fool’s paradise as things started going from bad to worse.
Finally, with a two-year-old child in tow, I mustered up the courage to walk out of my seven-year-old marriage. I went back to my parents’ place. In retrospect, those seven years were one of the scariest times of my life. Kids should not get married as young as I did; at that age, you don’t even know your own mind, forget the other person’s. From wanting to be a happy housewife to coming back to my parental home in the throes of depression, I had come a long way. I had spent the last seven years of my life in a loveless relationship and had absolutely nothing to fall back on. If there was one thing I was grateful for, it was Kavitha. In fact, till this day, if anyone asks me if I regret my marriage, my answer is a vehement no, only on account of my daughter.
I just had no idea what I would do next. In my seven years of marriage, I hadn’t acquired any skills that could stand me in good stead. While my parents were supportive, my dad’s suggestion of letting him ‘look after’ my child and me financially didn’t go down well with me. With my other sisters married by then, I remember asking my father if I could help him with his cashew business—wanting to become the son he had never had. His answer, however, was a resounding ‘no’ as he felt it wasn’t a woman’s job. He couldn’t picture his daughter socializing with his many customers—a part and parcel of his cashew export business.
Never in my life had I felt like such a total loser. I wanted to stand on my own feet, but in the absence of any skills, I saw all doors closing in on me. In my desperation, I even came up with naive options like selling T-shirts on the beaches of Goa, where my lack of education would not be a deterrent. It was on one such day, when I was feeling totally dejected, that I saw an advertisement by Shahnaz Hussain in the local newspaper, inviting students for a hairstyling course in New Delhi. I made up my mind to join it. More than anything else, my decision was based on the fact that being a beautician didn’t require me to be a graduate. My father, of course, was devastated by the idea of me stepping out of the home turf. My mom tried to buy peace by explaining to my dad that at least I was choosing a ‘woman-oriented’ career and that I would be back home after finishing my course.
I landed in Delhi, a totally unknown city, with my daughter in my arms, utterly terrified of what the future held. I had never lived all by myself before or taken any independent decisions. Yet, here I was, fending for myself, looking for accommodations to rent. The problem was further compounded by the fact that I didn’t speak any Hindi. Irrespective of the many problems staring me in my face, I knew that there was no turning back now. I had to do this—more for my daughter than anyone else. While Delhi now feels like home, in those days I was a rank outsider. I remember people calling me ‘kali kaluti (dark complexioned)’. Of course, the saving grace was that since I didn’t know the language, I couldn’t quite understand what it meant. I somehow held on, and managed to finish two beauty courses.
Upon finishing my courses, although my parents were keen that I return home, I took up a job at a small two-seater parlour, which paid me Rs 2000 per month. I paid Rs 1000 as house rent and tried to stretch the balance to take care of my child. Money was something I never had to worry about in the past and these were trying times to say the least. While my father had paid for my courses, I was now determined to seek minimal financial help from him. I remember trying to save money from the measly Rs 1000 I had left after paying rent in order to buy a moped bike that would make commuting easier. Today, if one of my staff members tells me that they want to leave because they have a better offer, I never hold them back for I have witnessed the struggle for money first-hand.
The one bright spot of my life throughout this period remained my daughter, who was three years old by then and had just about started school. I remember telling Kavi stories of my own childhood—how I visited Disneyland when I was thirteen years old and how I would ensure that she did the same, although I had no clue how I would fulfil this promise.
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