The Big F - on festivals, functions and Family!

Is blood really thicker than water? An essay about belonging, family and redefining my family as an adult, 'single' woman!

Every winter – I observe the reappearance of two ‘f’s in my life.

One is ‘festivals’ – spanning from Navratri starting October, all the way until Holi in March.

And the other is ‘functions’- some years ago, I would have simply called them weddings, but I now believe that ‘wedding’ is an inadequate term.

Weddings today have multiple smaller gatherings that could span across several days from a ring ceremony, to haldis and sangeets, the muhurtham, followed by a reception and then after-parties, the list could be never-ending.

The pandemic has determined what kind of function is possible and suitable in the past two years, but one notices that the desire and enthusiasm for a grand ‘function’ is still omnipresent.

Beyond weddings, there are functions now for anniversaries and birthdays such as turning 21, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60 … you get the picture!

And then there are infant and toddler birthday parties which I notice for new, millennial parents, become an opportunity for them to simply unwind or reminisce the past year of social engagements they couldn’t attend to because … well, they are parents now.

Thus, in my vocabulary – where the introvert in me must dress up, delight and engage with other human beings as a social necessity– the blanket term for occasions like these on my calendar, is just ‘functions’.

If there is a festival that spurs on a few functions of its own, it would be Diwali/Deepavali. A festival that is perhaps uniquely, pan-Indian. Each region has its own tweaks and chords to the festivities, but by and large – our nation comes to a moment when we celebrate an ontological victory of good over evil. The season changes, the harvest is ready, and with many new beginnings according to various calendars – it really is that great Indian festival of shared merriment that is etched in our ethos.

And each winter, as I navigate through the many functions and festivals, I always find myself wondering about the big ‘F’. The one upon which all of this rests upon and has embedded itself - Family.

And how our collective social fabric asserts that festivals or functions, no matter how big or small, are for Family.

My mother and I have our own Diwali traditions. Our ancestral home gets spring cleaned starting a month prior. We adorn the house with rangolis and diyas.

Mouli, the dog gets a special oil bath and is then called to join the aarti (singing prayers) which my mother leads (she sings well), I join in on the chorus (I sing tonelessly) and Mouli sometimes yowls in the beginning, but eventually retreats quietly into her corner.

We have not bought or burst firecrackers since 1998.

Diwali with my family!

And then once the actual festival descends – it becomes our mission to get-out-of-the-city as soon as possible to escape the noise and pollution.

Last Diwali, my mother and I drove down to this beautiful property in Eklingji, Rajasthan that is a few miles outside the city of Udaipur. We were early patrons of this newly opened wellness resort. It is an approximately 7-hour car journey from Ahmedabad that could be exciting and exhausting depending on your mood of the day.

To our delight, this resort was a sprawling, quiet one with lush environs and stone-walled structures. The stillness of this abode was such that it seemed like we were the only ones occupying the whole place.

But once it was meal time, we would realise that the place was at its full occupancy, because the resort’s only restaurant was always full. At any time, there was at least one or two other families occupying entire rows of tables meshed together. Large and noisy families.

We watched in amusement how 13-15 family members across three generations, would take at least 30 minutes to ponder, cross examine and then bellow at the staff to place their order. The bellowing was not because any individual was rude or difficult – it was simply the volume required to detect any instruction to the staff, as they would all talk excitedly, simultaneously and over each other.

Finally, when the Manager would come to our table, he would smile with an infectious optimism that we detected as a huge sigh of relief. After all, at our corner, it was just us – a quiet mother-daughter duo who took about thirty seconds to decide what to eat!

This Manager was in his late 20s/early 30s, and we noticed that he was soft-spoken and had a certain panache about him. We learned that his name was Bhupendra and he was from Udaipur itself, but prior to the pandemic, he worked on a cruise and loves travelling and exploring new cultures. We quickly surmised that the (now barely audible) soft Jazz music and country ballads that were playing in the restaurant was a mixed tape that he had curated for himself. And that his earnest recommendations to sample some of the desserts were excellent choices that suited our palette perfectly!

Everything was going rather swimmingly, until, one afternoon when there was a child two tables away, bawling like a banshee. It took the combined efforts of the child’s mother, aunt, grandmother, grandfather and sister or cousin to calm him down.

When Bhupendra could finally come to attend to us he approached me with a big smile and said– “Aap aapke family ke saath nahi aye?!”

A literal translation: “You did not come here with your family?”

For a few seconds, I looked up at him in utter bewilderment and then glanced at the massive family thronged together still trying to calm that child down. It then dawned upon me as to what he was implying – where is the father, the husband and the children, at this table?

I schooled my expression back into a gentle smile and said – “I am here with my family, actually!” Gesturing at my mother, I added – “She is all that I have got, and the only family that matters!”

Perhaps Bhupendra took my response as a remark of my utter devotion to my mother, because he responded “Arre Waah!”, (Oh Wow!) but before he could comment any further – I proceeded to recite my meal order. My mother (noting my slightly clipped tone) quickly interjected with her order as well and then followed up with some pleasantries. Within a few moments he got distracted, and walked back because someone at the entrance was calling for him.

All through this interaction, I was smiling and remained ever-polite – but the moment he was gone, my mother had that all-knowing look in her eye and said placatingly – “Now, don’t start that conversation with him. He means well, the sweet boy!”

I shrugged, but nodded in acquiescence. Yes, he did mean well because the assumption that he made was devoid of any malice or agenda. Moreover, the restaurant was still chaotic and Ma and I were eager to eat quickly and retire for the afternoon to the comforting silence that would welcome us back in our room.

But ever since Bhupendra’s seemingly innocuous remark that afternoon, this topic has been on my mind.

Family – the Big F. The one to which I simply do not belong, and yet am constantly trying to find by redefining it for myself!

In a world of conventional structures and “happy families”, mine is not the norm. My 30-something years of lived experience has been distinctive due to an underpinning fact – the absence of a father, or any looming male presence for that matter.

My mother and Aaboo (my mother’s mother) have always been the perfectly blended concoction of being loving nurturers (what is traditionally deemed as the female parental role), as well as figures of authority (arguably professed as a male prerogative), while I was being raised.

The Family Portrait: Tri'devi' - Aaboo, Ma and me!

I never wanted for anything growing up.

But in a country like ours, and I would argue, the world over actually – there is an all-encompassing superstructure that forms the bedrock of all modern institutions known to humankind. And that is Patriarchy.

As a construct, patriarchy is super successful because it thrives off the ‘softer’ institutions of marriage and family, which nobody criticises or even questions as to how or why.

A “happy family” is what everyone wants, right?

What is an actual ‘happy family’ is open to discussion and interpretation. But there is a picture already forming in your head about what that is supposed to look like - the categorical ideal.

A man and a woman, ceremoniously married and then they must have at least two children – preferably, a boy and a girl.

This is heteronormativity at its working best.

Heteronormativity describes the ways in which heterosexuality – sexual and marital relations between a man and woman, the only two distinct and opposite genders, is normalised through myriad practices, so that it becomes naturalised as the only legitimate form of sexuality (Bell. D, 2009).

{As a concept, heteronormativity is a massive topic on its own, which I will explore further in a future essay. But I have to mention it here, because it is the phenomenon that has left patriarchy, mostly unchallenged, for centuries.}

Everything that we see around us (religion, festivals, functions, government, state), and consume (mainstream film, television, literature, education, cultural practices and social media) lets patriarchy to propagate itself.

It recruits you from the moment you are born. In some cases, (tragically for the girl-child who is aborted or killed) even before you are born. And it remains long past your actual death.

Your name, your family, your social and economic strata, your religion, the institutions you can access – school, colleges, government, services, financial aid and institutions, your marriage, your future children, your mindset, how the state recognises and validates your identity, your role in society and then your legal life beyond the day you die.

Do you think the above is a blanket statement that I am making rather prematurely?

Then take a moment to ponder this.

No matter how urban, wealthy or educated, once a girl becomes of age there are questions that will come her way about when is she getting married - not if, but when.

For a boy –those questions might begin a few years later.

Once married, you will be asked when you are having a child. It is normalised that this is the natural order and not a question of choice. If a couple publicly states that they do not want a child, they get shamed and chastised for ‘being selfish’.

Once a child is born – society has normalised asking you – “When is the next one coming?” And especially, if it is a girl – then it is assumed you will try to have another child because a male child is ‘needed’ for the sake of carrying on the ‘family’.

And to assert the point about how this unit of a ‘happy family’ mandates a child of both genders – I have often observed how even couples with two children who are both boys or both girls, receive snide comments even years later– “Oh! Don’t you wish you could have had at least one <insert opposite gender> instead?!”

As a society, we hardly comprehend how normalised patriarchy is.

Of course, until two adult women who look identical but for the 25+ years between them, are quietly seated at a table in a resort, at the peak of the festive season and a young man feels compelled to probe - where is the rest of the family?!

And, where does this leave someone like me?

With a name like Chiteisri Devi – my family’s caste, history and identity isn’t discernible to most. Without a father, a husband, a son or a brother – patriarchy deems that I ought not to exist.

In fact, my last name – definitively otherwise known as ‘Family name’- does not match either my maternal or paternal relatives.

Circumstances as they were and my Aaboo, being the exclusive woman that she was– in thought, act and belief, christened me with this unique identity.

A few years ago, I read an insightful micro-essay by a prolific writer, Rega Jha.

Rega offers a viewpoint whereby ‘Festivals’ being giant conventional structures, aren’t for everyone. One can extend that analogy to festivals and functions – all of which celebrate and validate the superstructure of heteronormative, patriarchal families.

She asserts, and I quote –

“When we're confronted with these celebrations that everyone else seems thrilled to participate in, we can feel like we ourselves are the problem. Like we're doing life Wrong. Failing at something Normal. One option, when you feel that feeling, is to contort and distort yourself in attempts to fit in. I've done that plenty. It doesn't work.

The second, more effective option is to pull the structure apart. Read about people who have questioned it before you (someone always has) and people who've found happy lives outside it (many, many people have). You might arrive at the freeing conclusion that you aren't failing the structure. In fact, the structure is failing you.”

And that is the stone-cold truth. The structure has failed me.

But I have now embraced this, one hundred per cent.

And I do not attempt to fit in anymore.

But if I have to avow that this fluidity is ever-welcome– then that would be a lie.

Every time someone new has asked me “What is your name?” I reply – “Chiteisri” and then follows that expression on their face –which is a giant question mark! I just repeat my name. Perhaps a few times. And then smile politely, and wait for the Inquisition to begin.

Every single official form or document that I have to fill, I do so with extreme care. If nothing, to mitigate the number of times that I am summoned again by the official-in-question to believe that I actually do exist.

Whether it is at institutions, or banks, or any verification process – I prepare for the worst. Typically, I imagine the person before me (factoring in their age, sex and location) and rehearse how best I could appeal to their humanity, so that I am not harassed for having such a non-patriarchal identity.

Obviously, there have been several hits and misses along the way.

Furthermore, how I live, work, and behave in any community is always something I am mindful of. There is a code that I follow for myself, that is flagged by just one rule –never to break my own rules! It suits the very introverted persona that I have, but I have often wondered how adult, single women who like to socialise, navigate the jungle that is contemporary urban India.

Bear in mind that this is my reality whilst being a very privileged, financially independent, majority religion, upper-caste, English-speaking, highly qualified, cisgender, heterosexual and light-skinned woman. There are several tiers of discrimination and harassment that have been dodged with all those sub-identities and labels.

My favourite aunt - Chandramouli Mehta aka Mouli!

And yet, for the families that I do belong to – as my mother’s only child, or Chandramouli Mehta’s niece, or my favourite uncle’s favourite niece, surrogate daughter to many of my mother’s friends, or the Gokhales’ third daughter, or akka (older sister) to Gautam, who is 6’2 and actually doubles up as a bodyguard at most places where I might need a chaperone– am just ever grateful.

Because that list is ever-expanding and includes a family I would like to build online, via this blog too! Each new city or place has been an opportunity for me to find a new space to belong to. Am quite blessed to have people who watch and care for me and often - they are not my blood relatives at all!

Will they all be Family, someday? Only time will tell.

The identity crisis that I faced as a child from the lack of belonging, is perhaps my biggest strength today. By belonging nowhere – I arrive at a new place and to a new family and then say to myself “I am now here!"

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REFERENCES:

• Bell, D. (2009). Heteronormativity. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 115–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-008044910-4.00956-1

• Jha, R. (2020, November 17). On Diwali: A thought for non-belongers. Rega Jha. Guest post on the channel @thementalispolitical https://www.instagram.com/p/CHsp72xJBBg/

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Thank you for reading!

Wishing everyone a happy, wonderful and winsome 2022 !

This is perhaps the first article where the personal gets political - in a manner of speaking! Am eager to hear your feedback on this one.

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