Issues in the Fifties and Sixties

In the introduction itself, I have mentioned that these 'Ramblings' are more in the nature of personal memoirs and that I would only occasionally divert my attention to the broader scene. I should here confess that there is another dimension to such omissions. As a young carefree girl and woman, I was only vaguely interested in national and other public affairs. This is not to say that I was not assiduous in reading my daily newspaper or listening to Akashvani daily; or time and again get into hot discussions about the issues of those times when some major event or issue was in the air. But I was not as involved in, or concerned about, them as I later became.

What were some of the issues after our attainment of independence [ I was just 14 when that happened]:

The constitution-making and on the international arena, post WW II division of the global power structure and the beginnings of the Cold War; the first elections in which I was too young to take part in, but an interested observer; India as one of the leaders of the non-aligned movement [NAM]; the newly freed countries of the South, our national plans – all these I recall as being interested in [i did follow some of these with more than mere interest] but now I can recall no more of my feelings or opinions regarding them. Gandhi's assassination touched me as many others of my generation more personally and we for days we all were immersed in our national mourning and the hot debate about the role of the RSS and the consequences.

The next big event I recall is the Sino-Indian battle for the Himalayan space near NathuLa pass in 1962. After the effusive Bhai-bhai of the NAM at Bandung, that was a severe shock! And when we got so roundly beaten, and beaten back, it was worse. Licking our wounds, the scapegoat was of course Nehru. Perhaps that was the beginning of the end of the country's honeymoon with this charismatic leader. Today, it is fashionable to blame him for all our ills, the slow progress we made over the decades when he was the unquestioned leader. For me, as perhaps for many of my generation, the aura of his fiery oration, his gentle international policies and his image can never be totally erased, despite my coming to terms with the realisation that not all his policies were solid or far-sighted. Anyway, he died a couple of years after that disastrous war.

My one active foray into national patriotic endeavours was the blood donation I made in Bombay during the 1965 war with Pakistan. I also made up my mind to volunteer for some nursing aide work if it came to that. But of course the war ended too soon for such needs from outside the regular forces. I think that it was around this time that I started veering towards what has now my very firm pacifist stand, but I am not sure.

Living the Good Life
During this period, I was mostly focused on work and sports, friends and the cinema, or, of course, shopping! But my spending sprees were never in town; on each trip, the entire Marketing Research team would head for the sari shops. After all, one would find a totally different genre - the materials, the designs and textures were so new each town and the local prices so inviting that we ended up with a sari in every town we went to! Even today, after so many emporia from the different states and better advertising and marketing strategies, one still can find some special local ethnic varieties on travels within the country.

We did need a large number of saris [cotton usually] as we used them for work and even play! As I have mentioned before, we practically lived and died in a sari, once we graduated from the skirt and blouse, as do millions of Indian women today. But this must soon be a situation of the past, as the salwar kameez is fast becoming the choice of almost all youngsters in even small towns, and even in the deep south.

Though I had worn this attire even in college, it would have been absolutely unacceptable to wear it on work in those days. Nor did it even occur to me to brave it and try. I stitched myself a couple off and on, and basically used it to lounge at home. I also used to wander around in a housecoat for a while in Madras, much to Amma's horror [ that has now transmuted to a 'Nightie', the favorite of the Indian middle class woman at home to sleep and during waking hours: many even go for their morning walks in it; sometimes, they even pop out to do their immediate neighbourhood shopping. I prefer my casual pyjama-like pant and top.

I did decide on one official trip to don the salwar suit for the train journey to a mofussil town in Tamilnadu. When Mrs. Paul, our 'Brother' saw me, she was scandalised and exclaimed, “You are not going to meet the Dealer in that!'. I assured her that I would change into a sari on the train itself before arrival at our destination so that I looked respectable enough to meet our wholesale dealer to check on our lodging!

My literary Ventures
About this time, I started working on a novel, with a difference, I proudly decided – it would not play on sensationalism, sex and sob stories as so many cheap novels did, but would revolve around a solid plot, strong characterisation and a light, lucid style. I showed the draft to Beno, who thought it very good, but Kumar laughed at some sentences in it, and I lost interest in it [only due to that? - I am not sure]. It is lying somewhere ever since. Beno recently asked why I never published it – she said she had thought it was good; maybe I should look at it again so that I will not deprive posterity of that jewel! Trouble is it is all handwritten [scribbled, rather] and nowadays that seems so tiresome to key in on a computer! If I ask for someone to do it for me, they may not follow my handwriting.

I had had a poem published in a journal that a Mysore University professor was editing some years earlier – it was inspired by Vinoba Bhave, the Gandhian who called for land reforms and allocation of cultivable land to the landless. Somehow, I never tried my hand at more poetic outpourings.

I used to read voraciously still. All sorts of fiction, poetry, occsionally non-fiction. I recall Annathatha once telling me he could not imagine how I could read all those novels and short stories; he could at his age [I guess he was around 70 then] only take to serious stuff. I replied that I could read fiction all my life. But later, as I neared that age, I too find I prefer non-fiction, and serious works. Almost all my reading was in English, though as I have mentioned before, I got to buying Kannada novels at railway platforms – these were on social themes, probably a forecast to my tastes later. As for Tamil, I only managed to be able to read Ananda Vikatan jokes and snippets – the limitations of the alphabet made my reading so slow that I got frustrated and went back to racing in English.