Zainab Bawa’s Blog

Today started off as a mediocre day. But I have to post and therefore, here is the attempt (while listening to Art Company’s Suzanna, I’m crazy lovin’ you!).

So we were all waiting at the K. H. Road bus stop, waiting for our respective buses to arrive, so that we could reach our respective destinations. The 360 series buses were plenty. Two women at the bus stop were speaking in Kannada. Seemed like working women, belonging to middle working classes. I was watching them and assessing my own condition of immobility. These days, I have been largely at home, trying hopelessly to get somewhere with the Ph.D. The feeling of immobility strikes in these times when even with the desire of wanting to go out somewhere, I am unable to get myself to move. So here are these women, who are mobile everyday, who get out into the city to reach their places of work. Are they also immobile despite their ability and compulsion to move every single day? Are they mobile and simultaneously immobile, both conditions produced by routine? What kind of comforts does routine provide us? What securities does routine grant us? I found it interesting that I encounter these random strangers on the bus stop, for a few minutes, in that moment of all of us waiting for buses, and then I start trying to understand my situation vis-a-vis their situation. How often does that happen to all of us?

So here are these two women, waiting at the bus, for buses to arrive. They seem middle-class, workingwomen. Perhaps Bangloreans for a long time. And the buses that arrive are of the 360 series. All these buses are bound for Electronic City. One of the two of the women complains, “what is this? all these buses going to Electronics City? It is holiday season. Therefore there are fewer buses for our destination in the evenings.” Her irritation appeared as a matter of fact, as a matter of acceptance that work patterns and therefore routines in Bangalore have changed and some crowds will be serviced more than others owing to the economic changes in this city. I am entirely unsure if she was complaining of the distinction between IT and non-IT crowds, that distinction which is being emphasized off late in order to comprehend the pathologies of this city. Would it make a difference to our cognition of the city and its conditions if we view IT as just another economy? What is this IT imaginary? Why does it have to feature in our attempt to make sense of this city, its cacophony, its, spatiality and the place?

So here we are, the two workingwomen and myself (in addition to the others), waiting for our buses to arrive. Mine comes and I wonder if it is their’s too. But I could not bother to see. I got into number 13. I don’t know what became of those two women. But for that moment of waiting for the bus, I ended up entering their lives and achieving that moment of solidarity with them, sharing the same irritations (including the idiocy of a bus driver honking to glory at the bus before him, knowing fully well that there are passengers getting into that bus and there is no space on the road to maneuver).

Inside the bus was another world, another space. A woman conductor keen to ensure that all passengers had purchased tickets. The bus was jam packed. Two Muslim women were sitting in the absolute front seat. A blind man got into the bus and stood near the absolute front seat. The Muslim women were being persuaded to give up one of their seats for the blind man. The Muslim women fought back stating that the blind man should not have gotten into the ladies section. The blind man was blind to all this cacophony. He managed to make place to stand in a manner where he would face least hindrance and disturbance. The others continued the for and against argument for him. He had made his place.

After a point, I had also managed to make my place in the crowd. The bus got more crowded and then it became emptier. Women continued to stand at the door, out of a sense of insecurity that moving inside would mean locking themselves up with each other into a crowd and then making it impossible for themselves to get out when their stop arrives. That insecurity was also compelling me to stand near the door. But I could not afford to hold on there.

At Siddhapura, a woman entered the bus with her baby boy in one arm and her daughter by her side. The daughter must have been about 4 years old. The woman was trying to make her place. I felt very sorry for her, given the baby in her arms, the crowd in the bus and how was she managing to hold on despite all this madness? Her little girl stood in the middle. My stop was arriving. The conductor was right there. I asked the conductor to move so that I could get off. The conductor kept telling everyone, “swalpa jaaga kodi” but that was not making any difference. The crowds continued to stick there. I had to get off! I tried hard to manage my way without harming the little girl. Eventually, I had no choice but to crush her to make my way out. And then I had to shout at the women at the door to get off the bus so that I could get off.

I did not feel bad about crushing the girl after a point. This is not a survival in the city kind of narrative. It is just acknowledgment of the conditions that we live in from time to time. At some times, we enter into the lives of absolute strangers to feel some ground in the city. We enter their lives without their permission, through our minds and imaginations. And then, at some times, we navigate in aggressive and violent ways in order to make our own spaces. Sometimes we just end up making space, unknowingly

(And there is no end to this post)

zainab Uncategorized city, everyday, ground, place, Space

So I cannot recollect what triggered this, but as the auto was passing below the double road flyover, I suddenly felt that I had accomplished a good deal in my life.

Yes, I have not written the book that I was supposed to write.

I have not touched my guitar in years inspite of promising myself that I will be a sexy rock singer.

Yes, I have not even started working towards the restaurant that I was supposed to open.

I have not become the dancer that I have always imagined myself to be.

I have not written those stories of films that I thought I would produce.

I have not been drawing from the right side of my brain.

But come to think of it,

I have loved the people I have wanted to.

I have loved those people who I thought I would not.

Some troubled relationships have been worked out (mostly by themselves).

I know how to play chords A, G and D on the guitar and can sing happy birthday!

I can write to please myself.

I can write to please others.

I can cook.

I can be happy.

I have traveled through places, to people, away from people, towards myself, away from myself.

I have managed to retain friendships.

I have started giving up friendships.

I have moved away from home and by doing this, I have moved closer to home.

I have taught,

I have learnt.

I have created memories.

I have lost memories.

I have immemorialized myself.

I  have hoped.

I have given hope.

Now what?

zainab Uncategorized flow, Life

So it was just Saturday.

One of those Saturdays, when there was to be a party in the evening.

And it also happened to be one of those Saturdays when I peeked back into my past.

…

To come alive in the present …

…

M had come down from Bangladesh. Those times that I spent in Bangladesh, nearly 4 years ago, were the happiest times of my life. It was a life of risk, of fun, of cheap living, of enjoying each day that passed through as mundane an activity as cleaning the house!

I was living in Khulna, a small student town in Bangladesh, close to the Indian border. It was a time of my life when I was beginning to make some firm decisions and life was also leading me in that kind of flow. It was also a moment of learning, of learning by making severe errors. And it was a time when words just flowed by me, as if they were me, as if I was them.

M was known as Captain because he was the captain of the university. He was Big Brother. His cockroach eyes would want to peer at everyone, through everyone. And he was an absolutely voracious eater. And he would make me laugh to the extent that onlookers would wonder if something were wrong with me! For M, I was an out of the world creature, different from other girls in the university, one adventure freak! I had been to the Bangladesh road border with a visa by air only to be returned back to India and condemned to flying the next day on a 20 minute flight from Kolkatta to Dhaka!

Those were the days of my life, my life which was rife with adventure. Each moment was beautifully, painfully and anxiously unsettling. Today, I find myself relatively settled, but this settlement is itself unsettling. Even when I am moving from home to other places, it is an unsettling feeling because a certain adventure, a certain joy, is missing. It seems that having become professional, I have lost the adventure of life. But then, have I? …

M also seems settled. I wonder whether he feels unsettled in his settled state. Or perhaps, he has no time to think about this. Sitting in the hotel lobby, we were inquiring about each other’s friends, where they were, how they were. M tells me, “why is it that all of did not keep in touch once we left university? Detachment … psychology of detachment! You should study it!” But then, whoever said that I was detached? I am still very attached with those memories, with those times. I loved them and I still love them. They give me hope, the hope that the adventure of life has not gone, that this is one more phase, one more adventure. So what if it does not appear thrilling, it is still an adventure. It is still a state that I have never experienced before and I will not experience the same things again.

I am ready to be unsettled …

zainab Uncategorized flow, Life, memories, unknown

While I am in a wailing kind of mood right now, let me not rant.

The aim of writing today’s post is to express gratitude to that unknown theater called Providence.

So it has been several years (well, not as several as you may think or I thought of as I was on my way back home!). Let’s put it that it has been some years, some years since we spoke. Or rather, some years since he built the wall. Of course, things were very painful, ugly and difficult, but then they were and there was nothing much that I could do about them.

Last evening, as I was flying to Mumbai, I noticed the mountains during our descent onto the city. I wondered whether these were the mountains of Panchgani. Then I thought, I must be wrong. But those beautiful mountains reminded me of the mountains in Srinagar, those beautiful and ruthless mountains who I consider as my mother, that mother which taught me about beauty and ugliness through the scholarship of life …

So, I was reminded of Kashmir, of Srinagar, of that place where I have learnt of both love and hatred, the intensities of love and of hatred, the many facets of love and hatred. There I was, about 4 years ago, but never returned thereafter.

So, I was reminded of Srinagar when I saw those mountains. Then, that thought of Srinagar translated into my dreams last night. I dreamt of him. He appeared from somewhere in the streets. The streets had these dilapidated wooden homes, almost like the chawl frontage of Mumbai. We both started walking on the roads. We spoke of something to each other. I felt myself very serene in the dream as I was talking to him.  He felt it too. In that serenity, I felt he was admiring my beauty. He was admiring my speech, as he has done in the past. He was admiring my maturity, like he has done in the past. He was enamoured to some extent. And to some extent, I realized how much we had loved each other, how much …

Then we walked together to his home, his home from which I have been exiled for four years now. We walked up to the first floor. I saw Faiza (though it was not Faiza). I said bye to him there, stating that I was not sure if I was to come upstairs and meet his folks. He, in his usual crafty manner, smiled and said bye, leaving it open for me to decide whether I really wanted to come upstairs. And if I wanted to come upstairs, it was to be purely my decision. The consequences were to be purely and squarely mine.

The dream was certainly a resolution. It was also a calling, a calling to come back, to come back to the place that I have called home. I don’t know how long it will take for me to come back home, to those mountains – my mother, to the waters in which I have sunk and learnt to swim, to those Chinar trees upon who I have cast glances in moments of sheer romance, to those roads on which the adventure of my life has passed and who still call to experience the unknown … To Srinagar, my home …

zainab Uncategorized Dreams, Providence, resolution

So, after a depressing day at the High Court, listening to the CMH Traders association court case against the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation, I thought I had spoiled my entire day. I felt I would not be able to focus on anything else after this. I somehow knew in the morning that court would not decide in their favour. When I asked one of the traders what he was feeling and whether he was nervous. He mentioned that he was confident and that god was on their side. I wished the same too. But some designs of the universe are unknowable and the court case just reinforced this belief that sometimes you have to fight because you have to, detaching yourself from the consequences.

Surprisingly, this evening I encountered a 14-year old girl who started off by calling me “aunty”. It was very interesting meeting her. I felt I was almost her. She expressed this desire about wanting to know what was happening in the world around her. I almost thought she was out to save the world. I gave her copies of Ishmael and My Ishmael the stories of a man and a 14-year old girl(respectively) who want to save the world. A gorilla is their teacher and he is out to teach them on how to save the world. He does so by telling them the story of evolution. Beautifully written – kudos! to Daniel Quinn!

The best part of all this encounter with her was that I unhesitatingly gave away two of my precious books to her, in the knowledge of the fact that my books may never come back to me. I am learning to dispossess myself …!

zainab Uncategorized Consciousness, urbanity

So,

How do you kill time?

How do you appear busy?

How do you pretend you know when you do not know?

What are these vulnerabilities?

My current experience of Bangalore oscillates between vulnerability and feeling in control. The perception of immobility makes me feel disempowered, vulnerable.

How does one become mobile in a city? As I ponder over my own experiences in Bangalore, I recognize that mobility is not merely a matter of having a good public transport infrastructure. Surely, having a good public transport system matters. And it matters most when autofares are so exorbitant. But what also matters, as a woman, is whether you feel secure in a city. That sense of security is what enables mobility.

What provides a sense of security? Immediately what comes to my mind is the provision of adequate street lighting. The other night, when I was walking on Hosur Road, the patches where there were street lights seemed a relief to walk on. Where there was no street lighting, I felt a tremendous sense of fear that someone would stick his hand out from the Army Military School compound and grab me. Moreover, the movement of traffic on Hosur Road provided me with a sense of comfort. The fact that there were so many vehicles moving on the road, besides me, was a feeling of reassurance. At the same time, when bicycles and motorcycles moved too close to me, I would have to move away from the edges of the footpath and walk a bit inside. This is because of the fear that some of the riders would want to touch me, grab me.

The lack of vibrancy on the streets is somewhat discomforting and irritating. It feels like this city is absolutely flat. But coming back to the experience of vulnerability, I feel another factor that produces this feeling is the inability to trust people and constantly having to ask auto drivers, vegetable vendors, paanwallahs, etc. to explain how they arrived at the figure that they are quoting. It is this feeling that everybody is out to cheat you and that you have to have your defenses on, all the time. It gives this feeling of tiredness if I have to keep my defenses on me all the time. It is as if I am defending myself, instead of living.

I was writing these words in the cafe of Rangshankara auditorium . I was alone there, waiting for the gong to go so that I would move into the theater. I did not know anyone in the cafe. As I stepped into the cafe, I felt vulnerable.

How am I going to kill time?

What am I going to do that appears as if I am doing something meaningful and not occupying space without eating or drinking anything other than a cup of tea?

At that moment, what struck me was that the city is the experience of encounters, encounters of all kinds. Until now, I encountered the director of a play that was a visceral experience. I encountered a man sitting next to me in the auditorium who had a synopsis of the play which I asked him if I could borrow to see. I encountered another man sitting next to me who was being hit by the severe lighting and was covering himself to prevent the glare. I encountered people in the audiences who I never spoke to, but who spoke to the director, many of them stating that they did not understand the play. I encountered the director saying that his play was open for audiences to interpret. I encountered an auto driver who allowed me to take photos of the advertising on his auto. I encountered a man at the bus stop who I thought was trying to make a pass at me, but who probably was as much waiting for the bus as I was. I encountered the bus, the bus driver, the passengers in the bus, the man and woman sitting behind me who wanted to travel to the next stop without paying the extra fare. I encountered the grocer from who I buy vegetables. I encountered the shop keeper from who I purchase provisions and who was angry with a bunch of North Indian men who seemed like labour class. These men were agitating about the shopkeeper not giving a receipt for the purchases. Another one of them was fighting with the shopkeeper for not giving back the change money and the shopkeeper in turn irritatedly saying he had given the money and now if he does not give then what happens?

I guess it is the search for the extraordinary that prevents me from noticing these absolutely mundane encounters. Perhaps, I have to have an encounter with myself in order to understand myself in this city …

zainab Uncategorized city, experience, vulnerability, woman

The other day, I was writing about a meeting with an organization that works with construction labourers. One of the persons from the organization was talking about how the home state workers can be lazy while the migrant workers are hardworking. This person also spoke of how Kerela has no industry and the government simply taps into the remittances made by Malayalis from Gulf countries.

I was thinking about this meeting all of next day. I was visiting some of the periphery areas around Bangalore that are now being integrated into the city. We spoke to a migrant construction labourer in one of the areas. This person mentioned how if he was educated, he would be sitting in front of a computer, and not languishing around. He spoke of how he had made a choice of not working on a farm but coming to the city and working on a construction site. “Farming requires a lot of money. You have to have money to purchase seeds, fertilizers, implements and then you also have to put your own labour into the process. Here, we have a few implements and lo and behold! we are ready to work and there is a daily wage waiting for you.”

We often speak of how in today’s times, we have become consumerist and how this is an age of shopping malls and multiplex cinema halls that are redefining our experiences. But I have been thinking of how this is an age where things are just the same – we still attach value to a person who is working against someone who is not working. Someone who is educated is of a higher standard as against someone who is not educated. What is happening now is that technologies are being utilized in order to mark people and ensure that they are conforming/adhering to the standards and norms. So according to the person from the organization making databases of construction workers, the database and issuance of an identity card will make the person work harder.

This moment is also bandied by some as the time where we can exercise our freedom and choices by choosing between products available in the market. That is what the free marketeers seem to be tom-toming. I wonder whether our freedom gets actualized simply by choosing between maggi, top ramen, chings and xxx noodles. How have we come to ascribe freedom to choosing between products?

I somehow felt quite happy when the worker we spoke to mentioned that he decided not to go to work that day. He said very frankly that by not going to work, he was also aware of not getting wages. “Morzi” (will) he emphasized emphatically and matter of factly explaining why did not go to work that day.

So I had started out by wondering whether this is an era where our experiences and notions are being redefined. I now believe that these values and standards and norms have always been there and are still there in today’s time. These are becoming more strongly attached/ascribed in this day and age. We seem to attribute this era to freedom – some freedoms have been created; some freedoms are simply non-freedoms.

zainab Uncategorized free will, Ideology, norms, standards

Yesterday we visited an organization that registers construction workers. It creates a database of the workers. It is a mediating agency that puts the construction workers on jobs with companies/projects requiring workers specific skills. The organization acts as a mediator. It  registers construction workers, provides them with accident and family insurance, and organizes some skill trainings for them. It does some amount of dispute settlement. i.e., if there is a problem between the workers and the builders or the other way round, it tries to pacify the parties.

What was interesting was the approach of the organization. It has so far found it difficult to register migrant workers because migrant workers are least likely to have address proof. The workers themselves are reluctant to get themselves registered, particularly the women workers. So the organization approaches the builders, telling the builders that it will provide Provident Fund (PF) facilities. Hence, the builder “must get” his workers registered with them. I found this irritatingly fascinating. Here is a NGO that claims to work in the interests of the workers but because the workers are uninterested, for legitimate reasons (including not wanting to be on a database lest they come in the eyes of the state for all the possible alleged reasons), to get themselves registered, it invariably ends up using force. Is control so inherent?

Then we are told that construction workers in certain states in India are politically powerful and also these workers don’t work as hard as the migrant workers do. This organization believes that migrant workers suffer at the expense of the politically established, “lazy”, home state workers. Creating an identity card for the construction workers and a nation-wide database with call center facilities will enable the workers to get work in whichever part of the country they may move to, the workers will work “hard”. Then we are told how a state like Kerela has made a choice not to have industry and to benefit from the remittances of those working in the Middle East and Gulf States. By not having industry, the Kerela state government is doing something very wrong! And we asked, what is wrong if you choose not to have industrialization? Who defines that development must be carried out only in one way? Who decides and defines what constitutes development? What if people are not interested in working? Does that automatically mean that people are lazy? Can’t people choose consciously that they don’t want to work and there is nothing wrong in not wanting to work? Is work the only way in which we can categorize people as hard-working, lazy, unintelligent, etc.?

I came out of the meeting asking myself whether control is inherent in us? Like this organization, that believes it is working for construction workers’ interests and is inherently controlling?

zainab Uncategorized control, standards, work

It was yet another day that began with depression and anger, that sense of not knowing what I am doing, why I am doing what I am doing and what I am going to do. Everything seemed like a burden when the day started off. And it got more and more burdensome by the middle of day until I felt like I would collapse under this burden.

Then V sent me a link to his blog post He had written about London and how he feels alive in London. It reminded me of my few days in London and how much I was in love with that city and how I longed to go back again … just to feel alive, just to sleep the nights off on the streets and beg by the days. V and I chatted about how stability was killing us and how I felt that everything that I did was pervaded with an increasing sense of nothingness, of meaninglessness. After talking to V, it felt like I had a goal in life – to get to London. For once, I could not care about money and how to get there. I just knew that I had to get there. That was the first kick of the day.

I decided to walk to the Center today, just for the heck of it. And it turned out to be some experience. Nothing spectacular, just ordinary, but a sense of revelation. The revelation was not about the city, as much as it was about me. For once I realized how I have to let go off time if I have to make something out of myself. Right now, my tightly holding on to time is murdering me, slowly and gradually. In the evening, when Jack and I reached late for our appointment, we felt such a sense of relief. We felt like we had done something for ourselves by being late. Just these simple things in life, such pleasure!

I have decided that I have to spend an hour writing every single day. Even if I write garbage. Sometimes, it does not work to wait on spontaneity to strike you. Like David would tell us during our photography lessons, sometimes you have to just practice, like a habit. Then it becomes habitus, a part of you, where you inhabit it as much as it inhabits you.

zainab Uncategorized everyday, everyday wisdom, habit, meditation, unknown

This morning as I rode out towards Domlur, a sudden anxiety and fear gripped me. I do not have a daily routine in terms of “work”. Yes, I do the domestic work in the morning and in the evening. But I do not go to an office. I have to create my own deadlines for work and my own work routine. Since I work on a project basis, the moment one project gets over, I get gripped by a queasy, uncomfortable feeling in the neck – what next? now what do I have to look forward to? And then begins a desperate search for some more work. In the process, I don’t know where I am going. Just scrounging for more work, instead of trying to do what I really enjoy. But then, what do I really enjoy? (I don’t think I am even enjoying the act of writing now!)

So this morning, as I rode out to Domlur, I was gripped by that queasy, uncomfortable feeling of being out of “work”. What then is work, I ask myself? To me, it is what defines a structure. And the comfort is the structure, even when you are not actually doing the work. When that structure collapses, what do you do? It is discomfort. Every day has to be lived on a day to day basis. Now you are a master of your own time. But that mastery is itself unnerving because we are used to being slaves to time.

This morning, as I rode out to Domlur, I was gripped by that queasy, uncomfortable feeling of being out of “work”.  The structure has collapsed. Now will I build another one?

zainab Uncategorized anxiety, everyday, structure, unknown, vulnerability, work