Loving the child you didn't expect

When we dream of love and a family, we dream of children like ourselves - bright and happy, who will conquer the world and who will bring joy to our lives. What happens when the child you had dreamed about, comes out very different from your expectations?

This is the premise of Andrew Solomon's wonderful book "Far from the tree: Parents, children and the search for identity" that touches with great empathy on the journeys of a group of "different" children and their parents to reach a surprising conclusion - difficult and unexpected journeys have their own joys.

Introduction

Diversity is an indivisible part of our lives - each of us is unique, even the similar-looking twins. Yet that diversity is within some undefined limits - the seed of each plant, would come up a unique and a different tree, but it would be still like its parent plant - the seed will not fall too "far from the tree." But what happens when the seed does fall too far and the extent of diversity is too big to be ignored?

With about 650 pages of stories exploring this theme of parents and their unexpectedly diverse children (and an equal number of pages with notes and references), Solomon's book did seem a daunting tome when I began reading it. However, soon I was lost in it, often thinking of events and people from my own life and my extended family, in a new way. The book tells mainly American stories, with only a few persons from Britain or Rwanda. Yet, I could feel and share the emotional journeys of the people described in it, because even though there are social and cultural differences from the persons in other countries, the essential human emotions are still the same.

Themes of the book

The book starts and ends with two personal chapters - "Son" and "Father" - these explore the relationships between "diverse" children and their parents with a special reference to Solomon's own life, as a gay person who suffered through depression and his decision to have children while he was writing this book. These two chapters are the emotional anchoring of the book.

In between those two chapters, there are six chapters dealing with disabilities - deaf, dwarfs, down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia and other disabilities. All these chapters are about conditions that the society and the parents usually look at as "negatives". The next, chapter VIII, is about a diversity that most of us would imagine as "positive" - the child prodigies.

Then there are three more areas of "negativity" - children born of rape of their mothers, children who end up in the world of crime and children who feel imprisoned in wrong bodies - the transgender persons.

On each theme, the book tells stories - each story is told from different point of views of the persons involved in it - persons themselves, their parents, their siblings, their friends, etc. In between the stories are scattered some reflections and information about some of the key issues regarding the different dilemmas that those people face.

For example in the chapter on dwarfs, there are stories of "little people" and in between the stories, you can understand about organisations of little people, the different names they prefer to be called, their dilemmas about having children like themselves or "normal" children, how looking at them individually we tend to focus on their shortness while when they are together as a group, we can see them as individuals, the different kinds of dwarfing conditions, the long suffering for getting "elongation operations", etc.

This way of telling stories is like building a story-pyramid, where each stone shows a different facet. In the end you realize that each diversity is made of countless diversities, each is similar to others and yet unique, and that you can't take for granted anything because as human beings, we continue to surprise ourselves and others, not just with prejudice and ignorance, but also with generosity and dedication.

Comments

It was a long time since I had read a book that touched me so deeply and I would like to thank Solomon for that. Diversity surrounded me since childhood and probably that is true of everyone else as well.

Diversity raises barriers around you, I had experienced it as an immigrant in Italy - you are different from others, and in many different and subtle ways, people react differently to you. I had had long discussions about the nature of those barriers with a friend who uses a wheel chair and negotiates different kinds of barriers all the time. As a child, I had grown up with two of my aunts being "diverse" - one because she was born with a few fingers missing in a hand, and another who had small pox as a baby and carried the signs of that infection on her face. Growing up, I had seen how we all behaved differently with the deaf brother of a close friend. A few years later, first one of my school friends and then another aunt, both had had children with Down's syndrome.

I chose to work in the area of disability and community-based rehabilitation. Often I have also interviewed persons with disabilities and their families. Many of the issues about which Solomon has written in the book, were not new to me. Yet, I found the book illuminating because it went much deeper and had a more profound connection with people it talks about. I must have read countless books, articles and journals on the issue of disability, but still Solomon's book gave me new understandings.

So if you work with development issues or in a community programme, even if not specifically in a disability related programme, read this book. If you are a health professional, don't miss it. Even as human beings, I think that everyone should read it. I hope that it will be translated into other languages.

Among all the different kinds of diversities Solomon writes about, for me the most difficult part was reading about the severely autistic persons. Not to be acknowledged, not to receive even a tiny smile or a flicker of recognition in the eyes - I think that I will find that the toughest thing to bear. However, there are different stories in the book that show that when we become familiar with a person and his/her condition, we can deal with it. It is the unknown, the "other" that makes us afraid.

Solomon writes very well, his empathy makes you understand people's feelings, fears and pains, but it is only in the chapter on Prodigy, that I could appreciate the poetic beauty of his words.

For example in the story of Zhenya (Evgeny Kissin) Solomon gives a vivid understanding about his early life in a state-controlled country with his words, "The Kissins lived the life of the Soviet Jewish intelligentsia: physically uncomfortable, constantly frustrating, the pleasures of the mind partially filling in for ordinary discomforts of the flesh and ideology’s constant intrusions on the spirit."

Or, this description of Zhenya that brings him alive so beautifully, "Zhenya is too tall and too thin, with a strangely large head, enormous brown eyes, pale skin, and a mop of crazy brown hair in which you could mislay something. The overall effect is slightly gangly, and his bearing combines the tense and the beatific. Watching Zhenya sit down at the piano is like seeing a lamp plugged in: decorative though it may have seemed, only then does its real use become apparent. You feel less that he is pouring energy into the instrument than that he is receiving energy from it. “I don’t know if I would be able to live if I suddenly became unable to play,” he said. Zhenya plays as though it were a moral act that could redeem the world."

Limits of the book

In terms of the stories that Solomon presents, I think that there is an inherent bias - people who did not want to care for their "problematic" children, for whatever reason, are under-represented in this book. I think that at one level our societies ignore or actively discriminate against "different" families, but at another level, people who feel that they can't take care of their children and give them up to institutions or to foster care, are also seen negatively. We expect people to "look after whatever God has given them, even if it is a difficult task!" And, thus I think that for such people, it is very hard to overcome feelings of being judged and probably feelings of guilt, so they do not share their stories in this book.

In the Indian context (and in other developing countries), often there are no institutions or foster care where you can "give up" such children. I am sure that communities have ways of "dealing" with this issue. Thus in my work, often I did meet persons who have chosen to take care of their "different" children, but there was no way for me to meet those had made other choices. I am saying this without any intention of judging others - for poor families that struggle to survive, there are not many choices and none may be easy.

The book explains that internet has given new opportunities for "diverse" people to find others like them and to create "communities". I wonder if through internet there are groups of parents who had chosen to give away their disabled children and can find solace and understanding with each other. Their stories remain largely unknown.

I also felt not completely convinced about the chapter on the prodigies in this book. I could understand the sense of alienation of these persons and their families and the sense of their diversity, and yet, this chapter is very different from all other chapters in the book. Solomon focuses on musical prodigies and the chapter is almost halfway in the book - it comes as a relief because, for once he is not talking just about pains and difficulties, but also about common joy, success and pleasure.

Conclusions

I think that if there is only one book from 2013 that you can read, then it should be Andrew Solomon's "Far from the tree". Not just because it talks of people who face enormous challenges and find joy in those challenges. But because it makes you appreciate and understand the emotional anchors of your life and how important are the love and affection of people in our lives.

You can read more about this book and get a glimpse of many of its stories on the book's webpage. The two images used for this post are from this same webpage.

***

Our Family - The Four Legged Kind

A wonderful Guest post by Madhu Kamath

***
A few weeks back I read Gerald Durrelli’s delightful book “My family and other animals”. It put me in a rewind mode, sending me down memory lane forty years back when I had my initiation into the world of four legged ones.

Sweety and Kaloo were my in-laws’ and hubby’s pet Lhasa Apsos gifted to them by Laotian friends. When I got married in 1973, they had been with the family for more than four years. My mother-in-law had passed away the previous year after a brief illness. I had been an occasional visitor earlier but despite the fact that I had become a family member, Kaloo was suspicious of me. The moment he saw me touch something, he would pounce on me. Sweety minded her own business. I had to be cautious about my movements and that kept me tense. Till that day four months later …

I had taken leave from school as I wanted to visit my gynaecologist. She had confirmed I was expecting but off and on I was getting mild cramps. After my husband and father-in-law left for office, as I got up to lock the door, I went blank and fell. It took me a moment to get up and lie down. The cramps had suddenly become unbearable and I was alone! Well, not really! Both Sweety and Kaloo jumped on the bed, emitting barely audible whines and sat on either side, looking at me mournfully. With tears in my eyes, I put my hands on their heads. I was pleasantly surprised that Kaloo did not mind. May be I was half expecting it as I had seen his affection for the other family members. He had finally accepted me although under distressing circumstances.

When the pain subsided a bit, I called out to our landlady downstairs who promptly got a cab and took me to a nursing home. I was undergoing a miscarriage. She stayed with me till my husband and father-in-law arrived. The good soul was always there for us in need.

Although Sweety and Kaloo had been there for four years, Sweety had never had a litter. A few months later we were surprised to hear sounds from our quilt. We woke up to find Sweety and six new born pups all over our quilt.

The previous night, she had been moving restlessly all over the house, whining. We thought she had a tummy upset and tried to comfort her with a hot water bottle. She was so hairy that no one noticed she was pregnant. When she sat, it was difficult to make out which was her front and which back. She looked like a huge, fluffy black ball.

The pups were so entertaining. Every afternoon, when I returned from school, it took me at least a few minutes to enter the house because the moment I unlocked and opened the door, all of them would gather around my feet, followed by their proud parents. Sweety started avoiding them when they started teething because their teeth hurt her, she could not nurse them any more.

We had a large circle of friends and finding homes for the pups was no problem. A litter of five and another of 4 came in the next one year and needless to say, there were more puppy seekers than the number of pups to be adopted. Our pets’ curiosity about the new family members lasted only a few curious sniffs when our elder daughter was born in 1975. As she grew Sweety became her best friend and playmate. Ajju, her grandpa, called her Bukul. We never asked him why. Bukul sounds sweet, doesn’t it? By the way, in their mother-tongue, it means tomcat. The way our association with four-legged beings grew over the years, her pet name seems significant.

Now ours is a family that loves travelling. When Ajju was travelling, we used to stay put. When we had travel plans, Ajju would be there to be with the pets.

As the months went by, Kaloo, inexplicably became vicious. With a small child in the house, we had to be extra careful. Sweety kept herself confined under the bed or the sofa. Kaloo bit Ajju as well as my husband. Both had to take a full course of injections after we took him to a veterinary hospital. We were advised to get him put to sleep. It was a sad day for all of us. The medication he was getting at the hospital was not helping calm him. His left eye had come out of the socket and he looked wild. Baffled by the change in him, Ajju insisted on getting tests done. He had contracted rabies despite getting tests done. He had contracted rabies despite getting his annual shots.

Sweety also left us in a year’s time. She seemed to be fine, her usual self. She just crawled under the couch, let out a loud sound, ostensibly her last breath, and that was it. The house felt so empty!

Ajju, too, went suddenly when Meghna, our younger daughter was four months old. A massive heart attack when he was getting ready to go up to his room after a hearty dinner of his favourite fish curry and rice, took him away from us.

With Ajju no more, we could not think of keeping another pet, for, there would have been no one to look after it, when we were to travel.

***

In 1993 we moved from Delhi to Hyderabad, leaving Bukul there to complete her graduation.

Meghu got admission here in class X. One day as I entered the garage to switch on the motor to boost water, I saw four kittens quickly scurry under the wooden boxes stacked there. And then I saw the mother! She spat at me to keep her babies safe from me. We had no idea this family of five had been in our garage. Gradually, they started coming out and befriended us, treating the whole house as their own.

A few days later another cat (we named her Mausi) coolly stepped inside our garden and she her two kittens also made our house their home. And then came Chutki, all by herself, spending long hours on the swing we had in the verandah. We had names for all of them but after all these years, we remember only wink-eye and Satan; the first because it always seemed to be winking and the latter because we changed its name from Satin to Satan when we realised it was a male. Surprisingly , one by one, all of them disappeared in the next few weeks. It was as if they had a premonition of what/who was to come!

Bukul used to come home during vacations and one such visit, just a few days after the last of the cats disappeared, we were about to go out in the evening, when she saw a black rag near the main door. As she bent to pick it up, she jumped up with a shriek. It was a new born pup, black and brown. Tiny, barely able to move and bleeding from the rectum. Where had it come from?

Thankfully we knew of a vet in the neighbourhood and rushed to him with the pup. He treated him and refused to charge us for the treatment. The pup was soon out and about, prancing, chewing socks, shoe laces and eating well. Needless to say, we could not have left him out on the road.

We had to keep on telling him, “Don’t do this, don’t do that.” With all the don’t do’s in the air, we ended up naming him Dhondu. He grew up to be a handsome, loving, much loved family member. The most endearing thing about him was putting his chin on our knee when he wanted what we were eating, imploring!

One evening when Meghu had taken Dhondu for a walk, she heard a whining sound coming from some bushes. On closer look, she found a tiny brown pup probably trying to feel the presence of its mother but not being able to find it. We brought it home and gave it milk with a dropper. Its eyes hadn’t opened and it looked doped. The vet confirmed it was a female and named it Dopey. Like Dhondu, Dopey also stayed. He was five and she, may be ten days old.

Babli was our colony dog. Apart from us, two other families used to feed it. It was amazing how, whenever she had a litter, it used to be raining. Thus for every litter she produced, our garage came in handy. After the 5th or the 6th (not sure!) we got her sterilized.

In the last litter, Babli had three male pups. Meghu named them Pumpkin, Munchkin and Coffee. They too would have ventured out with their mother but father dear had a wish! He wished to keep the white one, Munchkin, for himself. His reasoning - “Bukie has Dhondu, Meghu has Dopey, what about me?” Amusing! A fifty two year old sounding like a kid.

To let you in on a touching family trait … it all started with the time when father dear himself was a young child. His mother was no less an animal lover. They had a dog and a cat, both got along well and were looked after by them. Tiki and Tik-Tik sure had loving hands and hearts to care for them. So, you see! It runs in the family.

And thus Munchy stayed. Babli had free access to our house to come and play with him. We gave away the other two compassionate families after Babli stopped nursing them.

Now Dopey did not trust anyone. Not even us. God knows what trauma she must have endured when she was alone in the bushes. The day after we found her, we took her to each and every house in the neighbourhood to look for her mother and her siblings, if any, but in vain. Still, we all existed under the same roof, in a some what peaceful co-existence, wary of her snapping at anyone who came close to her.

Dhondu left us when he was 11, afflicted by age related ailments. Although Dopey growled at anyone who even touched her by chance, she had a way of saying sorry by lowering her head and raising her paw. She lived to be 13.

***
And then came additions of the feline kind to our family when Bukie found a tiny kitten, eyes not yet open, almost in the middle of the road. She brought it home and fed it with a dropper. Fortunately, we have a gate separating the ground floor and the first floor so the dogs would not be able to reach the cat. She was named Daisy.

Daisy started going out on her own and stayed out, for long hours, but by the time we started thinking of getting her spayed, it was too late. One night she got into one of the cupboards in our ground floor bedroom and delivered a male and a female kitten. Our grand daughter Aari was delighted. Her soft toys and dolls took second place. Chutki and Bheem (that’s what she named them) became her companions. The two used to roam around with dear mom and occasionally brought back mice to devour. That was the only problem we faced with them.

Tragedy struck when Bheem came under a vehicle and got crushed. No one saw how it happened. I saw his inert body covered with a newspaper outside our house. We burried him in the small mud patch in our garden. Aari missed him the most.

There was also Yuki who appeared out of no where and used to sit behind the fridge. She disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared.

We got Chutki spayed well in time but another tragedy was waiting for us. My husband, Meghu and Aari had taken her to the vet a day after her surgery, when Meghu, realising that she was urinating, put her down to prevent herself from getting wet. The moment she put her down, Chutki took off like lightening, jumped over a wall and disappeared. In the growing darkness, they were not able to locate her. The vet’s staff also failed though they searched high and low. She was wearing a huge cone shaped E-collar round her neck, so she must have been noticed, we hoped. The next day, Bukie, Meghu and Aari went back to enquire in the neighbourhood but with no luck. That is how we lost Chutki. We still hope that she is safe wherever she is.

Aari is great friends with Daisy also, the occasional scratches not withstanding. Another small baby kitten Aari noticed outside our house was infested with ticks and fleas and her breathing was very shallow. We took her to the vet. He put her on a drip but was doubtful of her survival. The poor thing breathed her last in Bukie’s arm later that night. She too, rests in peace in our mud patch.

Life carried on with Munchy downstairs and Daisy upstairs. In April this year (2013), on hearing mournful mewing from some where around, Bukie and Aari went in search and found three kittens, a couple of weeks old, scrawny, but moving around, at the back of the vacant house next door. For a couple of days we fed them milk there but doing that several times a day was very tedious so we brought them home.

Meghu’s bedroom was lying vacant as she is posted overseas, so with a food bowl, litter tray et al, that’s where we lodged them. Aari took it upon herself to mother them and named them Kittoo, Grey and Minnie. She treats them like her own babies and spends a lot of time talking to them. Of course, she does not mind getting scratched.

Soon after we brought the latest additions home, we got them their shots. Just like Daisy had started going out on her own, we assumed that these three will do the same. But no. Whether we lock up Munchy in the bedroom and let them roam around or put them in the bedroom with the windows open, they rarely go out for more than ten minutes.

Coming back to the meaning of Bukul’s name assuming such significance, we are convinced that some unknown factor was at play when her Ajju gave her that name. After all, it was she who was instrumental in bringing the helpless Daisy home. Her daughter Aari pointed out the presence of the dying kitten to her. It was she who first heard the piteous mewing of the three siblings who have now been with us for almost eight months. Connects? Doesn’t it?

There is a tom cat roaming around in our colony. A few days back it attacked Kittoo near our main door. Bukul rushed out and drove it away. Male cats are known to kill male kittens so we are really scared. Minnie will soon be able to conceive. Must get them all spayed. There isn’t room for more additions. Sorry, house full!

***

Homelands of my heart

The angst for the far away homelands that emigrants carry in their hearts has been a constant theme for films, fiction and memorials, especially over the past couple of decades as globalization has spread. "Immaginary Homelands" by Salman Rushdie (1992) was part of expressing this angst.  Pico Iyer's talk "Where is home" on TED is another articulation of the feelings of rootlessness. Pico explains that rootlessness is not just angst, it can also be a pleasure, freeing you to decide and choose your homelands.

If you have not yet watched Pico's talk, I strongly recommend it. He is a wonderful speaker with an evocative style.

Pico's talk has two main threads that he uses to weave a word-web of memories, experiences and emotions. First thread is a question asked by others, "where are you from?", and the second is about our own feelings of what defines a home for us. In his talk, Pico often moves between these two threads, implying that both are inter-related.

After watching his talk, I kept on thinking about it. My feeling is that the two threads are not really inter-related in the way Pico seems to suggest. If I ask myself Pico's question, "where is home?", I would not think of the question, "where are you from?", I would ask other questions.

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

It is the question asked by the new "others", often when we meet them for the first time.It is probably as old as the times when humanity started its journey from Africa and spread to different parts of the world.

In most parts of the world, before the industrial revolution and urbanization, only a tiny percentage of persons ever left the places where they were born. In their life times, at the most they could have hoped to make a few trips to the nearest town. Almost invariably, people married persons from the same region, if not the same village. They spoke the same languages, ate the same food, prayed to the same gods and celebrated the same festivals.

This belonging to the the "birth-place" found common expressions. For example, if Indian traditions forbade crossing of the seas, Italians had sayings like "Moglie e buoi dei paesi tuoi" (Wife and buffaloes should be from your same village). I am sure that different other cultures had similar ideas.

Thus, in those times, when you met new persons, it made sense to ask "where are you from?", because you knew everyone there was to know and you rarely met new persons. With this one question, you were asking many different questions - to which place do you belong? where were your mother and father born? which city/village is linked to your family?

Today the world is profoundly different. Often you do not have the time to listen to the complicated answers to the question "where are you from" and it does not make any difference to you.

Today, even if you never leave your home country, internal migrations are a constant part of urban lives and increasingly, even the rural lives. More than ever before in the history of humankind, people from different cities can get married, have children in different cities, send those children to schools and colleges in different cities, and find work and move to different cities in their life times. Thus, emigrants or natives, it has become harder to answer this question "where are you from?".

You no longer have the name of one place to answer this question. You may need to give long and complicated answers describing your shifting home-cities. I think that most of Pico's talk is about this question. The question of "belonging".

But is this question really about the place identified by your heart as your home, as Pico suggests in the second thread of his TED talk? Not for me.

HOMES OF THE HEART

In his talk, Pico mentions different places, buildings and countries where he has lived at different times in his life. He talks of his schooling in Britain and university in the USA. He also talks of his love for Japan and the burning of the family house in California that had "set him free".

However, people seem to be missing from Pico's world. While he talks of his grandparents' house, he never talks of his grandparents themselves. He never mentions his mother or father or siblings or cousins. He does not talk of his wife, his children. There are no friends of his heart in his speech.

And while reflecting over his talk, I asked myself, how can we talk of our home, without talking about the people we love?

When I had left India, my home was mainly in Delhi, in the rented house where my mother had lived. But parts of my home were also with other family members and close friends. In the past three decades, as our family has spread to different parts of India and some persons have emigrated to other countries, parts of my home have also spread with them. My feelings of "home" are linked to my family.

Over the years, the memories of the intense friendships of adolescence have dimmed and none of those childhood friends is active on the social media or even emails so our contacts are rare - thus today I am not so sure how strong are the links between them and my "home" feelings.

As long as my mother was alive, my strongest feelings of home continued to be linked to her. Today, while I sit in Bologna (Italy) and talk to my sisters on telephone, one in USA and the other in India, I feel at home in that moment. Their voices, and our shared memories are my home.

The voices of some of my cousins are also indelible part of my "home" feelings. Even just to think of them, makes me feel at home.

And, I have my new home, linked to my wife and my son. Strangely, though I have lived for more than two decades in Bologna and we own a house here, in Italy my feelings of "my home" are stronger towards Schio, the town of my wife's family - again, I think that this feeling has something to do with close family members and not so much with the cities themselves.

So, for me, the place that I feel in my heart as my home, has to do with my emotions - feelings of family, love, affection, friendship - and little to do with geography or other things.

And for you, where is the homeland of your heart?

***

Families on Noah's ark

When someone says "family", my first thought is of a man, a smiling woman and their two kids. They look like the family shown in a cereal ad on the TV, a testimonial to the power of advertising. However, real life families are different.

Depending upon people's backgrounds, the word "family" makes most persons think of "nuclear families" or small families, composed of parents with one of two children. In some countries, some people still think of "extended families" including grandparents, uncles and aunts, but their numbers are fast decreasing.

Whatever is the image of a "family" in your mind, a mother and a father seem to be a neccessary component of a "family". However, increasingly in urban spaces accross the globe, even this is not true. There are other variations of families, like a Noah's ark, that is much more richer and interesting, then the stereotypes of nuclear or extended families. For example, there are single parent families. And, there are families where both father and mother are married to different persons, so children can have two moms, two dads, and different multiples of grandparents.

However, families with same sex couples as parents are still uncommon. If they are there, they are usually hidden. This article explores some examples of these new kinds of families and the challenges they face.

A cover article in a recent issue of Outlook was about "coming out" of Lesbian couples in India. One of the stories in this article was about a family composed of a woman, her companion and her 18 year old son from a previous marriage. “It’s best to disregard taunts from classmates and neighbours,” the son had said, hinting at how stereotypes influence public perceptions.

A few days ago I saw an exhibition in Bologna on "new families" called "So many families, all are special". Some of the examples of "new families" in this exhibition included - two men with a child; a European couple, with two adopted children, one child from Africa and the other child from Asia; two women with a child.

In the west (and in urban areas in countries like India), the increasing number of divorced couples means that single parent families are not no longer rare. Thus, these children from single parent families or families with divorced and remarried parents face less discrimination today compared to the past.

The "New families" exhibition reminded me of some groups that had participated in the last Bologna GLBTIQ pride parade, that I had participated in 2012. Earlier, when we spoke of alternate sexualities, we talked mainly of gay or lesbian couples. However, with time, many other groups of persons have "come out", each specifying their own specific situation that is different from those of the other groups. Thus today when we talk of sexualities, we talk of hetrosexuals, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, intersexuals and queers.

I think that the growing numbers of groups under "alternate sexualities" is a recognition of infinite diversities of sexualities among human beings and thus, the GLBTIQ (gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, intersexuals and queers) lable needs to seen as symbolic rather than an accurate representation of the reality of sexualities. I think that sexualities can be dynamic, at least in some persons, so that that they may place themselves differently in the GLBTIQ spectrum at different points in their lives.

In the last Bologna GLBTIQ pride parade, there were some groups representing specific professional categories such as a GLBT police-military group and lawyers' group. This was a reminder that in spite of stereotypes, GLBTIQ persons can be in any profession and not just involved in fashion, cinema or arts.

In the parade, there was also a group that runs a telephone helpline on GLBTIQ issues. I think that such a service is important for young and adolescent persons, who are not sure of their sexuality and who need to talk to someone about their doubts. Such a service can also be useful for parents who need to talk to someone to understand what is happening to their children and how they can support their children. Such helpline is also useful for persons who face discrimination and harrassment at their workplace.

There were some other groups in the parade that were concerned with the relationships between sexuality and religion, especially about a dialogue with Catholic religion. These groups of persons explored the issues around non-acceptance of alternate sexualities in their religion, and thus, asked how they could continue to feel part of their religion.

Parvez Sharma's documentary film "A Jihad for love" had explored similar questions for same-sex Muslim couples, some of them with their children.

In most religions, there is little acceptance of alternate sexualities, and thus little recognition and support for these families. Sometimes, religions are used to justify violence and discriminations against GLBTIQ persons.

In the Bologna GLBTIQ pride parade in 2012, there were a few examples of families dealing with alternate sexualities."Famiglie arcobaleno"  or Rainbow families, are families where the parents are same-sex couples, composed of two men or two women. Their children may have been born with support of surrogate mothers or artificial insemination. Sometimes, a gay and a lesbian couple may also decide jointly to have a baby.

There was a another group, presenting a variation on the Rainbow families, those LGBT persons who had children from their previous heterosexual relationships.

These were also some organisations of parents of gay or lesbian persons. Sometimes as parents, we may have our own ideas about alternate sexualities and thus, we may not accept our children's sexuality. However, often it is the fear of the opinions of others (family, neighbours, communities)  that makes parents refuse their children because of their sexuality. Sometimes, parents are against same sex relationships because they think that if their son or daughter is gay/lesbian, they will not have grandchildren.

Thus, I think that associations of parents of GLBTIQ children can be an important peer group to support us to be more accepting and open to our children. Personally I feel that it is easier for mothers to accept their gay sons and lesbian daughters, and it is much more difficult for fathers to accept it. Friends, colleagues at work, society at large, insinuate that there must be something wrong with you as a person and as a parent, if your son or daughter is a homosexual, it is your "fault".

As parents we need to learn that if we want to support and love our children, we may need to fight for their dignity with our friends and families.

In the Bologna pride parade, I saw a group of parents walking with the poster of a young boy who was murdered because of his being a gay. As a parent, I can understand the fear we can have for our children because we know that our societies can be harsh and cruel to them when they do not fit in. Talking about it with other parents in similar situations and supporting each other is important.

In my opinion, the basic reality of human relationships is the same every where, the west and in the east, across christians, muslims, hindus, jews and everyone else. GLBTIQ persons are there in all cultures, religions and countries. However, in many places, they have to hide and be afraid because their societies do not wish to recognize them and accept them. They are seen as a danger to morality.

I believe that hiding or killing persons because they are different, in the name of religion or culture or morality, is wrong. A society where people can be who they wish to be, rather than who they must be, is a society where rights of everyone is respected, a world of diversity and richness.

***

Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Issai - Inter-religious Bollywood

Artists don't believe in conventions, everyone knows it. Ordinary mortals are expected to follow the social rules, but for artists we are usually ready to make exceptions. Look at Bollywood. It is common enough to find marriages and relationships that go accross religious lines in Bollywood.

But if film artists can go beyond social conventions in their private lives, they also need to sell the tickets of their films. Do people go to watch films that defy social conventions?

In this three parts article, I will look at - (1) inter-religious families in reel-life Bollywood; (2) inter-religious love in reel-life Bollywood; and, (3) inter-religious stories from real life Bollywood. This first part of the article is about inter-religious families in Bollywood films.

Multi-religious societies & Cinema

I think that among all the different films made in different parts of the world, Bollywood and Indian cinema have touched on the issue of inter-religious issues many more times, compared to all other countries. May be it has something to do with the way Indians perceive themselves?

Almost all the countries of the world today are multi-religious. However, most of them do not think of themselves as multi-religious. Or rather did not think of themselves as multi-religous till recently. On the other hand in India, we think of ourselves as being part of a multi-religious country for a long time. May be it is because of our history. It may be also because many religions started in India.

In India 80% of the population is Hindu, though Hinduism can be interpreted very differently among different groups of people in different parts of India, and remaining 20% is composed of different religions. In US, about 75% of population is Christian (protestants and Catholics), while the remaining 25% belong to different religions, including those who do not believe in any religion. In UK about 70% of the population considers themselves as Christians. In Italy, 80% of the population identifies itself as Catholic. So more or less, all these countries have similar percentages of majority groups and minority groups.

Yet, in my opinion, the awareness about different religions and their beliefs, is much higher in India than any where else. Could that be the reason why Bollywood has been extra-sensitive to the issue of inter-religious relationships?

If I think of films from any other country - USA, France, Italy, Japan, Korea, China ... I can't remember even one film on the subject of inter-religious relationships. Even when their films have characters from other countries/religions, usually they are shown in a way where religious differences are not an issue. However, I have seen some American documentary films on this subject, specially on the issue of inter-religious marriages between Christians and Jews.

If you know of some examples of mainstream films from any country touching on inter-religious relationships, please do let me know.

Persons of different religions in Bollyworld

Bollyworld is the make believe world of Bollywood that exists only inside the cinema halls and DVDs. In Bollyworld, the idea of including persons of different religions is so pervasive that it hardly makes news. For reaching out to people of different religions, often Indian films include persons of different religions, most common being Muslims but also Christians and Sikhs, shown usually as "almost family" like friends.

Films where Muslims, Christians or Sikhs or Parsi are the main protagonists are less common, but there are some examples of these. Muslim socials was distinct category of Bollywood films till 1980s with films like Nikaah, Mere Huzoor and Mere Mehboob. However, this genre of films is less common today. Sikh culture has found greater expression in Punjabi cinema, though there are some examples from mainstream Bollywood such as Singh is King and Jo Bole So Nihaal.

More commonly, Bollywood places its main stories in Hindu famlies, while persons of other religions are shown as friends, or less commonly as villains. There was a time when this practice allowed film makers to introduce specific things like ghazals and shairo-shayari in the narrative. It is hard to think of films which did not have such characters from 1960s and 1970s. From Hrikesh Mukherjee, to Ramanand Sagar, Prakash Mehra, Manmohan Desai and Tarachand Barjatya, all their films had such characters.

Even more recently, some of the big box-office successes of Karan Johar, such as "Kuch kuch hota hai" and "Kabhi Khushi kabhi gham", have continued with this idea of close family-friends kind of relationships with persons of different religions.

I think that the basic idea behind it is to make sure that persons of all religions can relate to the film (and make it a commercial success). At the same time, it does reflect the real-life reality of India, where it would be impossible to find any person who has not interacted with persons of other religions in the neighbourhoods, friends and workplaces.

Mixed Religion families in Bollywood

While the more popular Bollywood films used characters of different religions in close family and friendship relationships, they also maintain clear boundaries between them. Thus, in most of these films, Muslims are always married to Muslims, Christians to Christians and Hindus to Hindus.

However, the idea of mixing up of religions in the Bollyworld families has been touched upon many times. When I think of significant Bollywood films that have touched on theme of inter-religious families I think of four films - Dharamputra, Amar Akbar Anthony, Zakhm and Bombay.

There are other significant films like the recent Kurbaan, but I see them more about inter-religious love stories rather than about inter-religious families. However, I do concede that this division into inter-religious love and inter-religious families is arbitrary and subjective.

Dharamputra (1961): This Yash Chopra film was my introduction to a world united and yet divided because of religions. It was about a Muslim girl (Mala Sinha) who has to give away her son, born before her marriage, to a Hindu couple who are her family friends (Manmohan Krishen and Nirupa Roy). Years later, that son (Shashi Kapoor) grows up into a Hindu fanatic and during the partition riots goes to burn the house of his Muslim mother.

Amar, Akbar, Anthony (1977): This Manmohan Desai film is another old favourite about three brothers who get separated when they are young, and grow up in three different families beloning to three different religions - Amar (Vinod Khanna) grows up as Hindu, Akbar (Rishi Kapoor) grows up as a Muslim and Anthony (Amitabh Bacchan) grows up as Christian. One of its most celebrated scene had blood transfusion tubes running from the arms of the three brothers and going into the arm of a blind woman (Nirupa Roy) who is actually their mother, but they don't know it.

The film looked at religious differences as being important for the individuals and yet almost unimportant for the relationships among people. The three brothers growing up with different religions, are shown to be in love with girls from their own religions. They are shown living in the worlds made of persons of their own religions. The film never discusses the impact of religious differences but rather seems to take it for granted that the persons from different religions would love each other "because they are brothers".

There are no religious fanatics or any speeches about religions in this film. Thus, I see this film as an allegory for the ideal multi-religious India, where each religion can maintain its distinctiveness, its own costumes, and yet be like a family.

Zakhm (1998): This is one of the my favourite films of all times. Directed by Mahesh Bhatt, this was an autobiographical film. Against the backdrop of religious riots in Bombay, the film tells the story of an old woman (Pooja Bhatt), who has been burned alive by a Muslim guy. As she struggles for her life in the intensive care unit of a hospital, her younger son, with the help of Hindu hardliners would like to take a revenge on the Muslims. Her elder son (Ajay Devgan) tells the story of their family to his younger borther.

It is the story of a Muslim woman in love with a Hindu film director, who dies in an accident leaving her with two sons. She hides her own faith and brings up her two sons as Hindus, even though she is rejected by her husband's family.

The film had a powerful performance by child actor Kunal Khemu as the elder son, during the parts in flash back, where Ajay tells about his childhood.

In South Asia, the boundaries between religions can often be hazy. Many families carry hidden histories of inter-mixing of different religions. I felt that this film brought out the issue of those hidden histories in a powerful way. It was also a strong voice against the fanatics and the hate-mongers of different hues.

Bombay: This 1995 film by Mani Ratnam is one of those rare films that touched on a vital question in all inter-religious marriages - the question of the religion of their children. The Hindu-Muslim couple in the film opt for a civil marriage and ignore the religions.

However, their two fathers would like that their grandchildren follow the family religion. The couple has twins and thus, the two grandfathers decide that one grandchild can receive Muslim religious knowledge and the other can be Hindu. Only when there are Hindu-Muslim riots that threaten the lives of the two children, it makes them understand the futility of religious fights.

Many mixed-religions couples today are like the couple of this story, who do not feel very religious and who feel that they can continue to follow different faiths. However, the issue of their children's religions is a thorny one, especially when there are family expectations and pressures from the two sides.

The different ways in which families deal with this issue, I think that it needs to be tackled in more films.

Conclusions

Bollyworld often shows persons of different religions, living together as close family friends or relating to each other in positive ways.

In a way it is a reflection of the Indian society and at the same time, I believe that it strengthens knowledge and relationships between people of different religions in India.

The past few decades have been marked by shifting of religions towards more exclusionist and radical positions, not just in India but all over the world. In such a situation, I think that Bollywood's role in promoting a multi-religious society is important.

There are many examples of mixed-religions families in Bollywood cinema. Personally, I believe that in this direction, Bollywood (and Indian cinema in other languages) has been much ahead of all other cinematic traditions in the world.

So if you think of Bollywood films dealing with inter-religious families, are there any films that have impressed you? Are there any such films from other countries, that you know of?

In the next part of this article, I will touch on inter-religious love stories in Bollywood films.

***
This article is part of my reflections for an email based research on mixed religious couples and families. This research is called "Mixed Doubles: You, I and our Gods".

If you are or were a part of a mixed religious relationship or if you grew up in a mixed religious family, please consider joining this research by sending me an email at: sunil.deepak(at)gmail.com

You can find more information about this research at the Mixed Doubles Blog.

***

The old pictures

It was an old black and white photograph. There was nothing particular about it. Yet, it caught my attention. And I must have glanced at it only for a moment. With my sister, we were going through old papers of my mother, trying to think of things to keep and those that could be given away or may be thrown away.

There were too many things to be looked at, so we were just trying to look for really important things, and to keep them separately. At the rest, we could take a look later.

"Margo", I told my sister, showing her the picture. The name of the person in the picture had come to me in a flash. There were two of her pictures there and a postcard. I had put them in the bag of things that I wanted to look first.

My mother's diary was the most important thing among those papers, and it was the first thing I did - transcribed it on computer. Day after tomorrow, it will be three months since she died. Going through her papers, her diaries, her pictures, is perhaps my way of trying to hold on to her memories.

So yesterday, while going through some of my mother's papers, I again saw that black and white picture of Margo. It has her signature on it, with her full name, Margaret Louise Skinner. But she liked being called Margo, I remembered it.

I had met her in Hyderabad in June 1960, when I and my other sister, had gone there to spend the summer holidays with our father, who was working in that city at the office of Socialist party. I have a vague memory of going some where with Margo and my mother on a rickshaw. At that time, I had no idea of who she was and what she was doing in Hyderabad. She was obviously angrez, a foreigner and a friend of my father. I also thought that she was somehow related to Socialist party, perhaps someone admiring Dr Lohia, the socialist leader - I don't think that anyone had said it to me, I must have assumed it.

Some months or may be a year later, when we were back in Delhi, I remember her parcel from the USA. There were two animal figures like soft and furry gloves in the parcel, where you can put your hand inside the glove, put fingers in the eyes or mouth of those animals and move your fingers to make them move like puppets. It also had some make-up things like lipsticks and eyeliners for my mother. I remember looking at those gloves once, but I never found them them again and slowly I forgot about them. May be my mother had put them away as they must have been very precious because you couldn't have found something similar in India in those days. Or perhaps, she gave them to some body?

Those childhood memories, sharp and vivid once, slowly faded as I don't remember hearing her name again. Some of those things came back, as I looked at her pictures.

The postcard is from Florence, it has a postal stamp of 19 January 1961. The card is addressed to my father and she has signed it as "M". In the card, in small and neat handwriting she talks about her stay in Florence and the things she has seen in the city ("staying in a pension, for 5 dollars a day, including three wonderful meals and wine"). She also wrote that was getting ready to leave for Paris and then to take the boat back to New York.

The second picture gives a little more information. It is the "afternoon tea" offered in the faculty to "the Fullbright professors Miss Skinner and Miss Smith" in 1953. From the faces of the persons in this picture, I think that it must have been taken somewhere in Philippines. So this means, Margo was a university professor and had been a Fullbright professor outside USA! May be she had also come to India as a Fullbright professor in 1960?

I did an internet search and discovered somethings more.

One Margaret Louise Skinner was born in San Francisco on 10 April 1921, and she had died in 1992. In 1990, together with a person called Fritz Leiber, she had published a book of poems under the name of "Margo Skinner" titled, "As green as emeraude" (Dawn Heron Press, USA).

There was another Margaret Louise Skinner, born in 1921 in Kentucky, who had also died in 1992. She was married but didn't have children.

I couldn't find any of their images on internet, so I was not sure if poet Margaret was the Margo I had met in Hyderabad or was it the Kentucky one?

I tried to look for more information on the poetry book and found my answer. Among the titles of her poems there are - At an Indian wedding, At Mahabalypuram, Vishnu and ... To Deepak.

In India

It was the first time that I came to India through Bangalore. We were going to have a regional meeting on traditional medicine. The arrival hall of Bangalore international airport was a shock. Though the Delhi international airport is quite a let down but Bangalore was even worse. All the thoughts about Bangalore being the silicon valley of India and an international symbol of the new resurgent India seemed like a joke when we arrived in that airport. They are building a new airport I was told, but a city that hosts the new infotech giants seems to be taking a rather long time in getting its act together!

Outside, the narrow streets of Bangalore choking with traffic, blaring horns and an unfinished fly-over close to the airport, is in sharp contrast with its bright shops selling top international brands. We were staying on Brigade road off the famous MG Road. The row of shops selling computers and latest infotech gadgets, and the swanky malls seemed out of the first world, squeezed in the third world of old poor India.

The traditional medicine meeting was organised in collaboration with People's International Health University and Ayurvedic medical college of Bangalore had participants from Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. It was very interesting and provided an opportunity for reflecting on the dominance of western thought that relegates everything else to "old, traditional, indigenous" boundaries. That ancient wisdom of milleniums that have resulted in systems of medicines like ayurveda, yunnani and sidha, are forced to "prove" themselves "scientifically" is a sign of that dominance.

Naturally we found time to go around the city for some tourist visit. The old palace of Tipu sultan completed in 1791 is beautiful with its dark browns and mahagony. On the last day, on my way to the airport, Krishna, our driver, insisted on taking me to the Shiv temple next to the Kids Kemp shopping centre. The giant statues of Ganesh and Shiv in this temple are very imposing.

***

On 19th, I flew to delhi. I had some work but mostly these days in Delhi are for family reunions. Delhi is the new home of Luca and his wife Polly. Luca is my old friend Enrico's son and has come here recently. So it was natural that to visit him and to check if everything was ok for their settling down.

Om Thanvi, editor of the Hindi newspaper Jansatta invited me to his home for a party, introducing me to his other guests as "he runs a webzine call Kalpana". Surrounded by his literary friends, I felt as if I was playing a new role, used as I am to be seen as a doctor! It was a lovely evening with wonderful Rajasthani vegetarian food cooked by his wife Premlata. It was also an opportunity to meet some interesting persons like Renuka Vishwanathan and Madhu Kishwar.

Finally I saw the new central park in Connaught Place. The new metro station of Rajiv Chowk has been completed and all the "work in progress" boards have been taken off, replaced by green lawns and flowing water. There was a beautiful exhibition showing off the changes in C.P. in the central park.

***

As usual, the travels to India get over so quickly and I am back to Bologna, getting nostalgic about the India days!

***

Crumbling papers

I am transcribing old articles in Hindi. Articles written by papa, when he was alive. Or, written about him, after his death.

Mummy collected all of those and made neat packages. Mankind articles here, Kalpana articles here, stories here... All the life cupped into yellowing, crumbling papers. His and hers. He did it for living and she did it for him.

She is retired, let her do it. She will keep busy, I'd thought.

Then she wanted them to be printed. Collected works of ... all the essays on student movement of Bihar ... all the articles on the famine, on Gandhi, on socialism... She made the photocopies of the files, sending them to this or that person.

An old friend of papa said, "Why don't you pay to get them printed? Two of you are living abroad. All of you earn good money. What does a little money mean to you? Pay to get them printed, they will be useful."

Pay to get them printed? I felt a little offended. Print it because only you want it, no publisher wants it because it won't sell any way. It hurt because I thought it was true.

And mummy, her memory is becoming RAM, gets erased quickly.

Give them to me, few at a time, I will transcribe them, I offered. And then I will put them up on the web at Kalpana, I thought. We went together to the old cupboard, that once used to hold the medicines in my clinic. It is full of rotting papers. Old files smelling of crumbling papers. She hardly remembers, what is there in which file, and gets worked up. Can't forget watching her sitting there on our old sofa with old papers strewn all around her, the pain in her eyes.

And so I sit here at the computer. Slowly transcribing in Hindi. Writers, journalists, socialist leaders, friends and colleagues of papa. It was his world, that I knew about but I hardly stopped to look at. I was there, but I was too busy living my life. Now I read about them and fragments of memories come back slowly. Kishen Patnaik, Ashok Seksaria, George Fernandes, Jay Prakash Narayan... names and faces.

*****
There was a comment yesterday.

I treasure them since they are so rare. It is from Arundhati. Could it be ... for a moment I thought of the fleeting meeting at Delhi airport, a few years ago. No, it is not. The name of her blog is almost an answer to my "Jo Na Keh Sake" - "Leave it unsaid". It is another Arundhati, who writes about silences to answer declarations of love, and about becoming one, merging together with her loved one.

Huh!

I prefer being myself and her being herself. That way it is more fun. I suddenly think of how little time we actually spend together, we are too busy in running all the time. Or in writing blogs (only me!).

She will wake up soon and come smiling for the first hug. And then she will bring me coffee. That is how we do it, I sit in front of the computer and she brings me coffee or prepares sandwich for taking to work. And the day starts.

And she doesn't like silences for answers. Nor do I, while I come to think of it.

******
Children working, their eyes hard and wry. The ones sitting next to their mothers and fathers, asking alms, they have the toughest job, I think. And the worst.

***

Blogging Blues

How many persons read, what I write? That was the question, I was asking myself. I mean, is it worth spending time writing things if no one reads it? There are hardly any comments to what I write in English or Italian. In Hindi, there is a close network of persons encouraging each other to write in Hindi, so my Hindi blog "Jo Na Keh Sake" (That I was unable to say) is most satisfying since it gets me lot more feedback. So I finally decided to link all these blog pages with an Italian tracking programe to see how many persons read these blogs.

After a week, I am surprised about the results of this tracking. The Italian blog has been read just once by one person this week. The English blog, this blog, has been read by 139 persons and only 8 of them are regular readers of this blog, means they come back regularly to look at the updates. The Hindi blog has been read by 85 persons though 28 of them are regular readers and overall they look at more pages and spend more time reading what I write.

This morning, while walking in the park with my dog, I was trying to reflect about these results. Does it mean that I should not waste my time writing the Italian blog? I mean, I know the one person who reads it regularly and why not send her an email? When I started to write, I used to think that I am writing for my pleasure and it does not matter, if someone reads it or not. And, now I am thinking that perhaps it matters? If I start worrying about who reads my blog and why, etc., is it not going to influence the way I write and the things I write about? I am still reflecting!

***
There is an anonymous comment about the post about Ramlila written from Delhi in October. The post asks if I can explain "what is written above". I am still wondering what does it mean? Does it refer to the sprinkling of Hindi words used in that post? Or is it asking I explain the comment in Italian?

I don't want to explain the occasional Hindi words I use in my posts. I think that I want people from India to read these and if others can't understand these words, too bad for you. Then I think of our Indian association in Bologna. With members from Karnataka, Kerala, UP, MP, Maharashtra and Delhi, often we end up speaking Italian since many of those who came here long time ago, do not remember English so well. So I ask myself, am I writing only for North Indians? I am still reflecting.

***
I hardly spoke to my father about so many things that interested me. Fathers and sons didn't have that kind of dialogues once. Respect and obedience were important qualities of father-son relationships! I prefer todays fathers and sons, who can be less bound with the chains of respect and obedience, and have a good time together. I love seeing fathers with their small babies or playing with their children.

***

It is a bit sad to see places that were once happening places and that are almost forgotten now. Like the Antica trattoria (old eating house). Not very far from our house, on one of the old tracks that leads to the river and an abandoned old port, this place was in once a key location, right next to a busy port, where travellers and boats carring goods crowded it. Now it is forgotten except for some old persons who still go there for their glass of wine.

***

Gaping hole in my being

On Sunday I am going to India. For 8 days. Meetings and appointments will eat away most of the time, and the remaining will go for shopping and chatting in the family. It is the prospect of the journey and my own ambivalent feelings about it, that I am thinking about.

Perhaps, I have completed my journey of being a stranger to my own land? The excitement of going back in the initial years, I still remember it. Waiting for months, counting the days, thinking of all the things that I was going to do. Call Munna, call Rahul's home, call Naresh, call Devender, see Rajkumar,... calling up on all the friends was high up on the list. So what is Ravi doing? Did you hear from Anil? Have you any news of Narayan? There was so much catching up to do.

Last year I saw Munna after 8-10 years. Rahul I had met him after ages. When we meet, all the words come out tumbling and rushed, in the beginning. And then they start to dry up. Perhaps, it is because there is no continuing dialogue, no exchange of things happening in our lives.

To visit old houses, old streets, is the same as meeting old friends. They have changed. Some times there is a completely new building. In Rajendra Nagar, all the old houses have gone, in their place there are 3-4 storeyed buildings and streets choking with cars, blocked with iron railings and no one seems to know me any more. The old shops are gone, along with the shopkeepers.

The circle of things that included familiar persons and places gets narrower each time. In the end, it is just an anonymous city with anonymous people and I am a stranger in my own town.

And there is hardly any excitement, no counting of days. Perhaps, it is because I am not spending enough time there, all these short trips, running around for work and not having time to spend with people? May be it is just this day, the rain and the autumn leaves falling down, and tomorrow, it will be all right once again.

This gaping hole in my being, I will close my eyes and it might go away. A bad dream.

***

Another Rakhi

Two days ago, it was rakhi. Like every thing else, only emails and e-cards remind of things that are no longer alive. Rakhi is just another memory with a vague sense of what it is supposed to mean.

Marco wants to send a rakhi to his girl friend. I explained to him that it wouldn't be right. No, he said, it won't be a normal rakhi that a boy gets from his sister, it will be something else, something very special.

Shweta telephoned and said that I will get my rakhi next time we meet. Perhaps, this is good, not just celebrating a festival but accepting the spirit behind it, and it does not really matter when we actually do it.

In our Indian association of Bologna, we are already used to this. Holi and Deewali are celebrated according to the availability of the hall, possibly around the actual dates that these festivals are being celebrated in India, but if that is not possible, we are not unduly bothered!

Manish, Sonia's husband, will be coming here on 24 September. Cynthia and Aniket (Mithoo) say that they might plan a holiday in Italy. Recently Riju had come to visit us and I had taken him to Venice.

***

A cold rainy morning

It is cold rainy morning in Bologna. Sky is covered with dark clouds, crossed by thunder and lightening. I wonder if Delhi's sky is full of colourful kites! When I was young, 15 August was the day of kite flying in Delhi but perhaps, now children are not so interested in kites?

It is already two weeks since Riju came. From his computer, I took some pictures of Vidhu dada, Preeta bhabhi and Srishti. I have never met Preeta bhabhi and Srishti and this is the first time I saw them in pictures properly.

There is another news. Bukul, who is now living in Australia, is planning to get married to Toni in March 2006 and settle down in Bangalore.

This has been a long weekend for me since 15 August is a national holiday in Italy (it is some religious festivity linked to Madonna).

On Saturday, I was in Rimini with my friend Mariangela. Yesterday, our friends in Bologna, Rajesh and Shweta, came for lunch.

Finally today I am alone. It should be a day of complete relaxation and I am going to watch "Parineeta". I am alone at home, and there is no need even to cook since there is enough food leftover from yesterday for today's lunch and dinner.

Tomorrow, Marco and Nadia will be back. They had gone to Bibione for a week.

***

Finally Holidays in Bibione

Finally the holidays in Bibione.

In my opinion, this is the saddest part of the holidays when they actually begin, since it means that soon they will be over!

I have a long list of things to do during these holidays. I want to start with the second draft of my book, write something in Hindi, make some interactive animations with the help of flash and a graphic tablet... For my birthday, I asked Miriam for a graphic tablet and it is wonderful to design with a pen on it and see the designs on the computer.

I am sitting on the terrace in Bibione and it is raining and there is a cold wind. I am back in Bibione after two years. Last time I had come for a couple of days with Meghna in July 2003. Nadia and Marco have gone to the supermarket. In the afternoon when we had arrived, it was sunny and warm. Marco had fixed the long beach chair and I had plonked myself on it with the newspaper, saying that after half an hour I will go the beach for my first swim. I think that I fell asleep after ten minutes. Two hours later, when I woke, the sky was already covered with clouds.

On the way to Bibione, near Portogruaro we had left the main road to go to Brussa, a small village lost among a vast area of green fields, small canals and lovely house, to an old restaurant called Mazorak, where they serve wonderful fried fish. You can also go there by boat and there is a Mazorak boat stop. I must have gone there for the first time with Miriam and Lino, probably in 1982 or 1983, before Marco was born. It was a simple place, eating there didn't cost much and food was superb even if their menu was limited. The menu is still the same, the food is as good, but the place is not so simple or cheap any more. It is now really famous with people travelling 50-80 kms to come and eat there.

The owner of Mazorak, once he knew us all. He would greet us like long lost friends. Marco, a small baby at that time, played with puppies in their house behind the restaurant, while his wife cooked polenta with corn flour. Now his children are all grown up and his grandchildren work in the restaurant. Today, his wife was no where to be seen and the owner, he looked old and sick, while a line of cooks worked like an assembly line production in a factory to produce roasted polenta for the thronging crowds. I am glad for their success but it made me feel a little sad.

Then, Nadia said, "One day we will come here with Marco's wife." I said, "May be we will come one day with Marco's children! While they will eat, we will take out the children for a walk." "You remember that time in Connaught Place, when Marco was crying so much, that you had to take him out and we had to eat by turns?" Nadia asked. Marco rolled up his eyes, he has heard this story hundreds of times!

Suddenly it is wonderful to be on holidays.

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