Parenting: East vs West? – II

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat.

– Rudyard Kipling

              Like food, music, culture, politics and a host of other things in life, parenting styles too differ between the East and the West. As Indians residing in foreign lands, it is better if we educate ourselves on a lot of things including the local laws related to child protection. Sometimes, a little awareness goes a long way in avoiding unpleasant situations like these where the kids involved in both the cases were taken back to India as a result of custody-issues.
              While the world is coming closer as a result of globalization and barriers are breaking, there still exist differences between the traditional ways of parenting in the eastern and western worlds. Please understand that the purpose is not to criticize one above the other – rather the idea is to present both the perspectives and let you be the judge of how you want to deal with these issues while raising your kids. Another thing is – traditions change too. What was the norm a few decades ago in the US or India does not hold true today in many areas. This might be as a result of the latest research, a consequence of changing demographics and laws or just a sign of the changing times. I’m covering just the basics here, not the bigger aspects like education, disciplining, morals or spirituality etc.
               So here we go:

• Pregnancy:  Though there’s no baby born yet at this stage, I included this because the journey with your baby begins well in womb. The traditional Indian way till recently used to have very less involvement from the would-be dad during the 9 months of pregnancy. In many instances, the would-be mom used to go to her parents’ place for some much-needed rest and pampering.
                 Traditionally, American women go through all the 9 months of pregnancy – throw-ups, swollen feet, heartburn, shopping for the baby, lamaze classes and all – with just the husbands by their sides. Surely, there are advices and help from parents, in-laws, neighbours; but having someone else other than the spouse stay to help you during pregnancy is not the norm.
• Birth:  In US most hospitals offer the option of having your husband or any close relative by your side when you welcome your child to this world. Roughly one-third of births in the US are Caesarian while in India, C-sections account for 9% of all births. The reasons for Caesarians differ though between the two. In USA, C-sections are performed mostly for medical reasons such as placenta issues, breech position, fetal distress, multiple births etc.
                 According to a WHO study, in many Asian countries including India, the reasons for C-sections apart from medical ones are: Fear of pain during labor, less time consumed during C-section compared to the natural process (for both patients and doctors), financial gains for the doctor and/or the hospital, wanting birth to occur on auspicious days and times, wrongly perceived notion of C-section being less risky.
• Eating: The traditional Indian way is……. to feed your child in any way possible! The adage ‘ The ends justify the means’ was probably coined to describe the obsession of Indian parents and grandparents to feed the kids as much as possible employing any means of distraction.TV, laptop, Ipad, books, stories, acting, music, outdoors, bribing, threats – everything is tried, tested and justified in order to put that last morsel into the baby’s mouth.
                 What’s the American way? Well, the kids here learn to feed themselves at an average age of 18 months. They start feeding themselves with finger-foods and graduate to using spoons and forks in a few months or years. I have never seen an American mom running behind her son imploring him to finish off his food. Our pediatrician told us specifically that we as parents should take care of only the quality of food; the quantity of intake should be left to the kids.
• Toilet Training: The Indian way is based on, what I call,  cues and clues. A soft whistling or a grunting (cues) by the caregiver makes the baby associate those sounds with pee/poop. The caregiver, in turn, looks for clues that the baby is ready to relieve and to be carried to the toilet. All this comes under Elimination Communication.
                 Interestingly, the American way used to be similar to the above earlier until the advent of mass-scale diapers in the 1960s. That changed things for sure and the average age of potty-trained US kids jumped from less than 1.5 years to  well over 3 years in recent years. Here’s an interesting article on how there are different approaches at play even here within the USA. Don’t forget to check out the funny ‘naked and $75‘ technique in there 🙂
                 Then there’s the issue of usage of toilet-paper versus water. There used to be an ad showing a person eating and then cleaning his plate using paper instead of washing it with soap and water. I don’t remember the context but the question was probably of hygiene. Toilet-rolls, wet wipes, bidets, hand-held sprayers, or just good old water and mug – there are more options out there than you’d think!

Baby sleeping separately from parents in a crib

• Sleeping: When I used to read Calvin and Hobbes, I always used to wonder why there were so many ‘monster under my bed’, ‘monster in the closet’ chapters. But today as a mom of 2 and 5 year olds, I fully understand where all that fear comes from! The standard norm in the Western world is to have separate beds and/or bedrooms for each of the kids, depending on affordability and comfortability. Audio or video monitors are used to keep tabs on the child. There are various variations of this in No Tears or Cry It Out methods.
  

  Baby sharing bed with parent

                 The traditional Indian way has been what is termed as Co-sleeping. A few neighbours and friends asked me this – “If you share your bed with your kids, how do you manage to get …err…intimate with your spouse?” Oh, come on…, looking at India’s population, do you really think existing kids have been a problem? 🙄 If a couple is into each other, they will always find time and space to be intimate; On the other hand, if emotional barriers exist, then even being next to each other you can be far apart forever.

              What works for your kid at 3 months of age might be different from what works for her at 3 years of age. The key is to be flexible and keep your options open. Also, you might find that a combination of both styles works the best for you. A perfect example would be the attachable crib called bednest, using which you can care for your baby lying right next to you, while the baby has a separate space to sleep nonetheless.

Baby in an attachable crib

              Normally, parents everywhere love and care for their kids with the best intentions in mind. There’s no reason to deduce that just because your neighbour makes her kids sleep in a separate room, she loves them less. Just as you do not become less hygienic if you feed your baby with your own hands as long as you wash them properly beforehand. However, proper communication is a must in order to avoid misinterpretations. For example, we never shy away from explaining why our daughter’s head has been shaved off this summer. What is unknown is feared. As soon as you explain the unknown, it becomes known to them and you would find on your end that most people are open-minded about knowing new stuff. Different? YES. Something to fear or despise? NO. And – it goes both ways. Because…Human emotions are the same everywhere, be it East or West!

But there is neither East nor West,
Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
though they come from the ends of the earth!

– Rudyard Kipling

Happy Holi!

        

      Colors are the smiles of nature. 

– Leigh Hunt

                And nature surely smiles the broadest during spring! 🙂 Of all the festivals in India, Holi is perhaps the one that elicits the most mixed emotions. There are people who just looooove it and miss it a lot when away from the Indian soils. Then there are those who would rather hide themselves in a closet away from the rest of the world on this particular day. I consider myself somewhere in between, but definitely leaning towards the former.

                When I was a kid (this is sometime in the 80s), the day would start early with preparation of colors i.e. mixing up of colors with water in buckets and filling up of pichkaris (spray guns) and water-baloons. We would roam around in the neighbourhood collecting friends for ‘playing Holi with’ as well as tasting various sweet and savoury items prepared meticulously beforehand by the aunties in the colony. Between the drill of preparing colors in different proportions to get the desired combination(s),  the thrill of drenching your close friend in bucketful of color and the sheer joy of tasting delicacies like gujiya, gulab jamun, malpua, dahi bade, nimki, thandai – what is your favourite Holi moment? Difficult to say, right? So come spring time…and my husband and I would get nostalgic recollecting to each other the different times we played Holi back in India.

                So naturally, as soon as we came to know of the Holi mela in Iskcon DC this year, we decided to go there. The temperatures luckily were in 50s that day. And weren’t we glad that we attended it!? The atmosphere was magical!

                We started with a visit to the temple. The deities were clothed specially for the occasion in pristine white, but the garlands were multi-colored; and in the background were the many colors of life; even the offerings were of different colors. The overall effects were dramatic! (Click on the pics to see an enlarged view).

Radha Krishna at Iskcon DC

                Next we ventured into the actual festival area. Being in the US where privacy and freedom are valued a lot, I was pleasantly surprised to experience what I term a perfect Indo-American style of Holi. Total strangers approached us gleefully and put gulaal on us…after asking our permission, of course 🙂 Initially I was a bit apprehensive. After all, any woman who has grown up in India, knows to be wary of and cautious about drunken revelry especially on occasions such as Holi. But after some time, I too let my hair down and started soaking in the atmosphere fully. There was pinata for kids; several stalls for the grown-ups. There were huge queues for the food – one could buy vegetarian thalis, snacks, baked items at reasonable prices.   

           

                Especially interesting were the reactions of the kids, some of whom were being introduced for the first time to this grand festival. I  spotted a few that were bawling; my own son was kind of overwhelmed at first. Which 5-year old wouldn’t at the scenes of seemingly crazy people dressed their worst and smeared in all kinds of funky colors from head to toe? (There were some young men even with torn clothes amongst the crowd.) However, soon he got the hang of things and started approaching other kids with a fist full of color and a silly grin on his face. 🙂 There were dances to the music of Radha-Krishna bhajans.

                What was my favourite 2013 Holi moment? Undoubtedly, the one where there was a countdown from 10-9-8-…and at 0, the airs got strewn in a myriad of hues – from pink to purple to green to red and orange. It was beautiful!

                There was Holika-dahan at the end.

                Finally, we headed back home humming to the highly addictive tunes of Shri Radhe Radhe and with promises of returning next year with loads of friends and colors.

The first Swami in the US

Swami Vivekananda

                 I often start the articles on this blog with quotes from the great master – Swami Vivekananda. January 12, 2013 was his 150th birth-anniversary. The theme of this blog is being an Indian in the US; and I couldn’t help but note that Swamiji was the first Hindu Swami who gave the message of Vedanta to the US and to the West at large. He paved the way for many that followed – Swami Yogananda, Swami Prabhupada, Mahesh Yogi and so on. The list of lives that he influenced and transformed either directly or indirectly in just 39 years of his life reads like a Who’s who of both the Eastern and Western worlds:   Netaji Subhashchandra Bose, Rabindranath Thakur, Mahatma Gandhi, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Aurobindo, Bagha Jatin, Max Muller, Salinger, Nikola Tesla, Leo Tolstoy, John D. Rockefeller, Lord Kelvin, Sister Nivedita, Hermann von Helmholtz.  Though every piece of his work is inspiring and every sentence is like a drop of nectar that can transform one’s personality and life, I have compiled below some of my favorite quotations by Swamiji. They show a man of great wisdom, intellect and strength – one clearly ahead of his times!

On Soul/Religion

• Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divine within, by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy, or one or more, or all of these –and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines,or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.
• Religion is not in books, nor in theories, nor in dogmas, nor in talking, not even in reasoning. It is being and becoming.
• The mighty word that came from the sky of spirituality in India was Anubhuti, realization; and ours are the only books which declare again and again, “The Lord is to be seen.”
• Each individual has to work out his or her own salvation; there is no other way.
• Soul is the circle of which the circumference is nowhere, but the centre is located in one spot; and God is an infinite circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose centre is everywhere.
• Unity in variety is the plan of nature, and the Hindu has recognised it. Every other religion lays down certain fixed dogmas, and tries to force society to adopt them. It places before society only one coat which must fit Jack and John and Henry, all alike. If it does not fit John or Henry, he must go without a coat to cover his body. The Hindus have discovered that the absolute can only be realised, or thought of, or stated, through the relative; and the images, crosses,and crescents are simply so many symbols — so many pegs to hang the spiritual ideas on.
• What is material and what is not material? When the world is the end and God the means to attain that end, then that is material. When God is the end and the world is only the means to attain that end, spirituality has begun.

On Reason

• I am sure God will pardon a man who will use his reason and cannot believe, rather than a man who believes blindly instead of using his faculties He has given him. 
• All religions are going beyond reason, but reason is the only guide to get there.
• Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth can’t be sacrificed for anything.
• Comfort is no test of truth; on the contrary, truth is often far from being comfortable.
• Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true.

On Women

• The best thermometer to the progress of a nation is its treatment of its women.
• The idea of perfect womanhood is perfect independence. Woman has suffered for eons, and that has given her infinite patience and infinite perseverance. Women will work out their destinies—much better, too, than men can ever do for them. All the mischief to women has come because men undertook to shape the destiny of women.
• The first manifestation of God is the hand that rocks the cradle.

On Education

• Our supreme duty is to advance toward freedom—physical, mental, and spiritual—and help others to do so.
• Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.
• You have to grow from the inside out…There is no other teacher but your own soul.
• Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience; there is no other way to know.
• As long as I live, so do I learn.
• If any of you believes what I teach, I will be sorry. I will only be too glad if I can excite in you the power of thinking for yourselves.
• To me the very essence of education is concentration of mind, not the collecting of facts.
• The powers of the mind should be concentrated and the mind turned back upon itself; as the darkest places reveal their secrets before the penetrating rays of the sun, so will the concentrated mind penetrate its own innermost secrets.

On Work/Success

• Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.
• Work on with the intrepidity of a lion but at the same time with the tenderness of a flower.
• Never mind failures, they are quite natural, they are the beauty of life,these failures. What would life be without them?
• Great convictions are the mothers of great deeds.
• Fortune approaches him who is industrious. It is the weak-minded who says ‘fate gives’.
• Never mind if your contribution is only a mite, your help only a little. Blades of grass united into a rope will hold in confinement the maddest of elephants.
• Each work has to pass through these stages—ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance.Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be misunderstood.
• In the world take always the position of the giver. Give everything and look for no return. Give love, give help, give service, give any little thing you can, but keep out barter.

On one’s own Self

• My own experience tells me what food is good for me, and no army of doctors can tell me that. So I know from my own experience what path is the best for me.
• It is our own mental attitude, which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful,our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds.
• The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves! If you do not exist, how can God exist, or anybody else?
• I, for one, thoroughly believe that no power in the universe can withhold from anyone anything they really deserve.

On Strength/Fearlessness

• You must not say that you are weak. How do you know what possibilities lie behind that degradation on the surface? You know but little of that which is within you. For behind you is the ocean of infinite power and blessedness.
• Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succor you want is within yourself.
• Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a Personal God, a Savior or a Prophet to do everything for us.
• Be strong, my young friends, that is my advice to you. You will be nearer to heaven through football than through study of the Gita.

On Love

• Love is the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore, love for love’s sake, because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.
• Love opens the most impossible gates; love is the gate to all the secrets of the universe. Every step that has been really gained in the world has been gained by love. 
  
• When there is a conflict between the heart and the brain, let the heart be followed.
• First, believe in this world – that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you do not understand it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves!
• We must not look down with contempt on others. All of us are going towards the same goal…. All difference in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.

Wanna change the world? Change the mindset…

               

                “We are what our thoughts have made us, so take care about what you think.”

– Swami Vivekananda.

                Our thoughts shape our mindsets, which in turn influence our actions; our actions determine how society and the world at large is shaped. Every act of violence begins in the mind, so take care of not only what you think, but what your friends, your neighbours think; what your family thinks. When you think you have seen it all, out comes a crime so depraved in nature, so chilling in its details that shames you to your core! It makes you wonder whether the perpetrators belong to the same species as you. What kind of monster will walk into a classroom and spray 6-year olds with bullets? What kind of monsters will rape and torture a woman with an iron rod in a moving bus and throw her out to die? As the year draws to a close, and we try to make sense of the recent horrendous crimes, there is one thing that may give a clue on how to minimize them: Actively try to change the mindset of yours and those around you for the better. Even if one life can be saved or changed for the better, it will be well worth the efforts.

Gun-culture in the US

                 When I wrote earlier  “..And so the stalemate will continue and human beings will continue to be butchered…”, I never imagined that the next victims of a mass-shooting will be innocent 6 and 7 year olds in their classrooms. For the families of the 26 who died that day, the rest of the their lives will never be the same. The parents of the 12 girls and 8 boys will live the rest of their lives with a hole in their hearts. I have written about this issue earlier, where we looked briefly at how powerful the Gun rights lobby (including NRA) has been aided by money and power. But it is also the mindset of its supporters that enables the NRA to have such a clout.

Weapons of Murder

                According to Wikipedia, USA has about 5% of the total world population but its residents own about 42% of all the world’s civilian-owned firearms. The homicide rate in US is 30 times higher than in other advanced countries. Gun laws vary from state to state. So in some states, it is perfectly legal to carry guns anywhere from school to church to a pub.

                A question on everybody’s mind is about Nancy Lanza, the murdered mother of assassin Adam Lanza. What was she thinking?  Teaching a mentally ill son to use guns, stockpiling assault weapons whose sole intent is to kill people – all these enabled the massacre that followed. An oft-repeated argument by Gun Rights activists is : ‘Guns don’t kill, people do’. True, it took a madman to kill children, but what definitely aided the process was possession of guns by the mother. The same day the Sandy Hook massacre occurred, another madman in China went on a stabbing spree attacking school-children with a knife. 22 kids were hurt, but every one of them survived. See the difference?

                I had mentioned this earlier too – As opposed to the rest of the world, keeping guns is seen as a right by a large number of Americans. A lot of this thinking comes partly from history, partly from tradition, partly from movies and games that glorify guns and violence. May be it is a time to reconsider those traditions, change that mindset. If not now, when?

                Many of us had signed a petition to the White House to immediately address the issue of Gun Control through stronger laws. You can go here and look at the petition as well as see the response from the US President Obama and from the Chief of Staff to the US Vice President.

Rape-culture in India

                Many of us Indians might take offence to this seemingly blasphemous title – What!? How can our great Indian culture be a rape-culture? Yet, that is what it is at present.

                Rape is but the subjugation of a person in a most depraved manner. It is not about sex. It is about humiliation, perversion, torture, violation, cruelty inflicted on a body and a soul. I am no psychiatrist to decipher what causes one to rape, but even I can tell you as a layperson that – Rape starts with the dehumanization of the victim by the rapist – the attitude that the woman or child or man(in rare cases) in front of me is ‘easy meat’, with lesser rights as a human being than I am entitled to.

                What I have termed as a ‘rape-culture’ prevalent in India is actually the collective mindset of people – A mindset that treats women as subservient to men. It starts at the womb really and continues till the grave.

                It is our mindset that allows new parents to kill their infant or unborn daughters instead of cuddling them and showering them with kisses.
                It is our mindset that allows more than 70% of women to face some form of sexual harassment; it does not matter whether the ‘woman’ in question is a 2 month old infant or a 75-year old grandmother.
                It is that mindset which enables 57% boys and 53% girls in India to think that a husband is justified in beating his wife, according to Unicef’s Global Report Card on Adolescents 2012.
                It is the kind of mindset that makes a highly educated doctor in Andhra or an IAS from Bihar or an engineer from Maharashtra ask for dowry as a sort of ‘fundamental right’, the ‘rate’ of dowry being dependent on the status of or income from the position.
                It is the mindset that makes India the 4th most dangerous place for women after Afghanistan, Congo, Pakistan, according to a Thomson Reuters Foundation Survey.
                It is the same mindset that allows a politician to refer to another woman politician to speak in derogatory language thus – “चार दिन हुए नहीं आपको राजनीति में आये हुए और आज आप चुनावी/राजनैतिक विश्लेषक बनके घूम रही हैं! कल तक तो आप टेलीविज़न पर ठुमके लगाये फिरती थीं और आज आप नेता बन गयीं?” ( It’s just recently you’ve stepped into politics and today you’ve become a psephologist! Till yesterday you were dancing on TV screens and today you’ve become a leader?)
               It is the sort of mindset that makes an Indian in USA exclaim after the birth of his daughter – ” I’ll have to go back and settle in India now to teach my daughter proper values; with a son it would have been different!” (You see, sons in Indian families do not need to be taught proper values :-), the onus of carrying on Indian cultural traditions is always solely on the womenfolk.)
               It is the kind of mindset that makes everyone from politicians to police personnel to ministers to judges to your everyday road-ruffian remark after every single incident of rape/molestation thus – she must have worn inappropriate clothes; or she must be of loose morals; or she must have provoked the rape somehow; or she must have asked for it; or she must have been inebriated; or she must have been in the wrong company; or she must have been out at an inappropriate time. No dearth of excuses to hide the inefficiency and complacency and utter uselessness of the system, if there is ever one.

               There is a lot that can be done through legal and judicial means…and this goes for curbing both gun-violence and sexual violence. But the ultimate change in mentality must come from within us. Many of us would be able to come out of it in our lifetimes, but the vast majority will probably take generations to change this mindset. If the recent incidents jolt even some of us into action, if they result in a safer society in the long term one step at a time, then only there is some meaning in saying ‘RIP Nirbhaya, RIP Sandy Hook victims’. Finally, this is the song I dedicate to the memories of the victims:

Photo credits: http://www.flickr.com/photos/portablematthew/3652202637/

Women’s issues and US Elections 2012

                It was with great sadness and somewhat disbelief that I read about this case: A 31-year old Indian woman died in Ireland due to blood-poisoning after repeatedly asking for abortion when she was found to be miscarrying.  There are several things that went wrong in this case. For any woman who wants a baby, going through a painful miscarriage would be devastating for her mind and body. And it is the responsibility of the authorities, family and friends to support her in her most vulnerable moment. To have the medical practitioner deny an abortion repeatedly, because ‘the foetus still has a heartbeat’ and ‘this is a Catholic country’ – is a sacrilege to the Hippocratic oath in which the wellbeing of the patient is paramount.

                You would think this is an isolated incident in one of the Western countries. Not so. Here is this case of a doctor (a female one at that!) in Oklahoma, USA who refused to give a 24-year old rape victim the emergency contraceptive because it went against her religious beliefs. Then there is this case of a prison guard doing something similar with another rape victim again citing religious reasons.

                Now let me narrate this incident that I heard recently from one of our friends. The person in question – an elderly Indian-origin man, was looking for a job preferably in restaurant business as he had past experience in that. So when he found one in the neighbouring town, he arranged for his travel, his accommodation and everything else that one needs in order to settle in a new place. One crucial point that he missed is this: he had experience only in vegetarian cuisine back in India; here in the USA, a large part of the menu is non-vegetarian even in Indian restaurants. Though initially his employers  had told that he would not be required to deal with any non-veg items in the menu, but things changed soon thereafter. So he quit his job…as he believed that he could not do justice to it without compromising on his religious beliefs related to vegetarianism.

                The lesson is evident. If one can not perform the duties entailed in a job, then one has no business continuing in it. More so, if the beliefs (religious or moral or otherwise) endanger someone else’s health and safety.

Obama on twitter after his win

Elections
                Though the US elections this year were mainly fought on economy, women’s issues remained one of the most divisive ones on the agenda. In fact, women’s issues like contraceptives, equal pay at work, abortion, birth-control were made to be major issues by a series of damaging and controversial statements made by different Republicans themselves. Sample just a few of these:

• In reply to a question on whether abortion was justified in rape-cases, Todd Akin said – “It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” 
• Richard Mourdock: “And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.“
• Rick Santorum : “I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created, in the sense of rape, but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you…I can’t think of anything more horrible, but nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.“
• Roger Rivard: “… And he just said, ‘Remember, Roger, if you go down that road, some girls,’ he said, ‘they rape so easy.’ “

                Romney’s ‘Binder full of women’ comment did not help either now, did it? In this age of Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, every single gaffe made by a candidate is multiplied manifold; so one can’t be too careful! Women voted decisively for Obama at 55% to Romney’s 44% – a gap of as much as 11%. Men preferred Romney by a margin of 52% to 45% and he lost. One thing is clear – Republicans need to discard policies catering towards the radical right if they want to woo women voters in subsequent elections.

Trivia: This tweet by President Obama, reproduced above, has become the most popular one till date. According to networkworld, it eclipsed the previous records holder Justin Bieber’s tweet within 22 minutues!

                

Indian Festival season in USA

                The Forms and Facilities may differ, but the Spirit remains the same. 

                This is what I came to conclude after attending the Dashahara mela at Washington DC center of Iskcon temple earlier this month. And this is also what this blog is about…the spirit of India in us and of Indians in the US 🙂 Before I left for the mela, I had promised one of my dear friends that I’ll share with her some pictures from the fair. Puja season is a time when all Indians in faraway lands get nostalgic about the memories with which they grew up. Sure the ways of celebrating Durga Puja, Dashahara, Lakshmi Puja, Diwali differ in different parts of India, but the spirit remains the same. The victory of good over evil, of light over darkness, of the eternal over the transient!

                These are some of the Durga Puja pics at Washington DC Kali temple (Click on the pics to see an enlarged view). You can enjoy the Dhak here.

               

                We also regularly attend the Ramakrishna Mission Durga puja. This is held in Briggs Cheney middle school every year. This is how Pujas are usually held abroad in schools by those different Hindu associations that do not own a big temple. The Bhog offered here to the deities and later served to the devotees is to die for! And I suspect this is because of the utmost love and devotion with which each lady prepares her portion of the Bhog. It is like a big potluck party, where everyone comes prepared with a different dish! Everything from the decorations to Bhog-preparation to serving and cleaning up to the various cultural programmes are done by the devotees themselves.

               
                Next are some pics of the Dashahara mela at Iskcon DC. We have been attending this one too for quite some years now. It has always been lots of fun with ample activities for the old and the young alike! There were lots of stalls put up – food, clothes, prayer-items, games and so on. There was a bow and arrow game, that drew lots of kids. Another activity involved making one’s own demon using the material provided – straw, paper, marker, threads – and putting it beside the Ravan to be burnt later that night. The metaphor was well driven home with the message that one has to burn the bad qualities that exist within ourselves – anger, greed, jealousy, pride etc.

              There was a game in which one had to throw off the demonhead using rings of smoke. That was the one which caught the maximum attention.

             

               

               



                And finally, I have some videos to share… The first one is a bit poignant that includes Lakshman Rekha (Lakshman’s boundary), Jatayu-Vadh (slaying of Jatayu) and Sita-haran (capturing of Sita). Don’t miss the Vanar Sena Yuddha, it’s hilarious! Lastly, a snippet of the Ravan Dahan here.

Parenting: East vs West? – I

               The first drops of rain falling on your face, the kiss of a beloved, reading your favorite novel, the hug of your child, a hot chocolate drink on a cold day, watching the sunrise, a call from your best friend!  Some things in life remain just the same wherever you are in the world… in a good way, I mean to say.

               One could very well add the love and care of a parent to the list above – at least that’s what it would seem on first look. Sadly, the reality is a bit different. Our world is not perfect and there are instances of child abuse – sometimes even by own parents. This is where Child Protective Services (CPS) step in. The agencies may be variously known as Child Welfare Services (CWS), Social Services, Family and Child Welfare Services etc. in different regions. Basically, they are agencies that are responsible for acting for the welfare of children who are reported to be abused either physically, emotionally, sexually or through neglect. In many countries, they have sweeping powers. According to the Child Welfare League of America website, they “are also responsible for helping to put in place a plan for safety and services to the children and families. This may include child care, medical care, parenting education, housing, family supervision, drug treatment, or a placement for the child.”

               The reason I am talking about this issue is because of 2 related incidents concerning Indian parents abroad. The first one occurred in Norway earlier this year. 3-year old Abhigyan and 1-year old Aishwarya were taken away by the Norwegian CWS from their parents – a nightmarish situation for any normal family. Initially, cultural differences were cited by the parents as the reason for this, but later this was found to be untrue. After much drama – including cries of racism by the Indian media, changing of stances by the parents and intervention by the Indian government – the children were finally placed in custody of their paternal uncle back in India. The exact reason for such a drastic action by the CWS still remains unknown; there have been various reports of the mother suffering from depression and the son having emotional detachment disorder, but nobody knows which media reports to believe. The Norwegian CWS remained tightlipped throughout the entire case citing confidentiality.

               More recently and closer home, there is this case of 1-year old Indrashish earlier this month. He was rushed in to a hospital by his parents and underwent surgery in head “due to injuries after falling from the bed”. But the CPS in NJ, USA suspects the subdural heamatoma and retinal clot the child had to be part of Shaken Baby Syndrome. Last I heard of this case is that the matter is sub judice and the child is in the custody of Child Protection Agency.

               Contrast the above with the cases of Baby Falak, Baby Afreen, Baby Shireen and numerous other child-abuse cases in India, a majority of which go unreported in the media. Which system would you prefer? A draconian one that monitors and sometimes takes pre-emptive actions against suspected child-abuse? Or one that is so slow and sluggish that no one knows if or when any conviction will be done within the next decade even when abused children die? Check out this article that states the inadequacies of the system while giving details of the Baby Falak case.

               On any day, I would prefer an imperfect system in which parents are held accountable to law for their kids’ safety even by overzealous agencies to having no proper system in place at all for child-protection. Having said that, separating a child from its family should be the last resort in most of the cases. I recall an incident that our pediatrician was telling us when she was explaining that parents in the United States can face legal action or have their children taken away at the worst if anything drastic happens to the child. In this case, the toddler had fallen down from either a bed or the stairs (I don’t remember which). The baby had a broken femur bone as a result of the fall; and the doctor had to report this to the police under Mandated reporting (more on this later). The parents in this case were let off with a warning as this seemed to be a one-off accident. This seemed to me an adequate response at that time.

               A study of Child Abuse Laws in the USA reveals the following:

The laws concerning this vary from state to state, but the basic premises remain the same.

• Firstly, the child abuse has to be suspected and reported. Some states in the USA have the schemes of mandated reporting. Who reports that child abuse has occurred? Anybody can!
• Mandated Reporting:  In Maryland, for example, the following are required by law to report child-abuse as soon as they suspect it, without waiting for any proof – Health Practitioner (i.e. doctor/nurse), Educator, Human Service worker (social worker), Police Officer. Besides this, any other citizen who suspects child abuse/neglect ought to report it. It depends on the will of the reporter whether he/she wants identity to be revealed. Also, there is a confidentiality clause keeping in mind the welfare of the child first and foremost.
• The local social services department or the law enforcement agency investigates the incident including nature, extent, circumstances and all pertinent information.
• Depending on the degree of child-abuse the responsible agency will decide the further course of action, if the child-abuse incident is found to be true  – Family counseling, Medical treatment, Childcare services, Emergency Shelter home, Foster Care, Legal action etc.

               Does having so many safeguards ensure that child abuse including neglect never happen? Of course, not! But in this system, there is some provision for the weakest sections of the society – babies and children- to have a voice. As parents we need to have at least basic awareness of the local laws of the land. At the same time, we need to have a clear understanding of the differences between eastern and western styles of parenting. Because there indeed are some fundamental differences between these. More on that in the next part…

Guns ‘n Roses

                “Every person is a compound of animality, humanity, and divinity.”

– Swami Vivekananda.

                And according to Vedanta principles, our goal should be to reach divinity through humanity while discarding the animalist tendencies. This was the dominant thought that pervaded my mind as I looked at the events of the past month unfolding around us. You might have thoughts on similar lines as you read.

Guns

                Hardly had the Aurora shooting victims been put to rest when came another news of the Sikh Gurudwara shootings at Wisconsin earlier this month  – grim reminders of the violent world that we live in, an assault on our sensibilities and belief in humanity. At the same time, they have rekindled the Gun Control debate in the USA.

                Gun politics in USA has a long and complex history that you can read about here. The Gun Rights advocates are spearheaded by the NRA (National Rifle Association), while Gun Control activism is not that strong. An interesting fact that I came across is this: Ranked by total filings to lobby Congress, Gun Rights lobbying exceeded Gun Control lobbying by approximately 3:1, while in dollar terms the former spends more than 30 times the latter. So no doubt, they are so powerful! On top of that, Gun laws vary from state to state. So while in Maryland you can not carry handguns unless you are on your own property or place of business or have a special permit;, just a few miles down in neighboring Virginia you can carry a handgun legally without a permit if you just follow some regulations.

                In a nutshell,  as opposed to the rest of the world, keeping guns is seen as a right by a large number of Americans. And this right is guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. So unless there is an amendment to this Amendment or at the very least a different interpretation of it, I don’t see any way how the streets can be cleansed off guns. While the Republican party has historically championed Gun Rights, I don’t believe US President Obama will touch the issue of Gun Control in an election-year. And so the stalemate will continue and human beings will continue to be butchered. Sad, but true.

Roses

                It is relatively easier to talk about the Roses of our times, ain’t it? I was thinking of 2 significant achievements of the USA as a country in the same month as of the shootings mentioned above.

                The Olympics come once in 4 years and test the limits of human bodies and capabilities in sports – one of the few times when all the countries come together and compete at the same time. At that level, it probably requires disciplining of the mind and spirit as much as of the body! And once again, the US team finished at the top with a haul of 104 medals (including 46 gold). I have often thought – what does it take for a country to keep producing champions, year after year? Analyzing all the factors in details would probably take a separate blog post, but a few are just crystal-clear: having a Sports-culture in the society at large, keeping Sports a priority, pouring millions into identifying young talents and nurturing them with scholarships/good infrastructure/technology/coaches – all of these help!

                The above were for a nation as a whole. What about an individual player? What does it take to reach the pinnacle of glory on the highest platform and that too to be counted as the most decorated Olympian of all times? Michael Phelps started swimming at the age of 7 partly in order to let the excess energy as a result of ADHD out. When he was diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), his mom must have undergone similar stress as any other mom. (By the way, Phelps is a local hero here in Maryland.)

                But it is to the credit of the system that his talent was spotted and nurtured – a system where there is no siphoning of dollars, where money is used where it is intended to, where there’s no room for petty politics, where merit is recognized early enough. On Phelps’ part, I would imagine that long hours of practice, single-minded dedication, a lot of support from coaches and family and a little bit of luck, of course, went into the making of a champion and retaining the top slot year after year.

               On Aug 6th, 2012, the US-based NASA lab made history – the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) created by it successfully landed Curiosity on planet Mars. Mars is a planet that has been mentioned even in many ancients myths around the world. We earthlings seem to have been always curious about this planet, especially with respect to whether life has been ever possible there. But the exploration of Mars has been fraught with lots of failures. So it was a well-deserved culmination of years of hard work and efforts of toiling scientists when the rover landed with great precision on Gale crater.         

               And that brings us to the statement made by the great seer quoted at the beginning of this post. All of us have negative qualities of hatred, jealousy, greed, egotism, anger to varying degrees. But why not at least try to suppress these animalist tendencies within us and move towards the best of what humanity has to offer? It could be trying to achieve excellence in your favorite sports or conquering the final frontiers of space as mentioned above. Or it could be as simple as making a meal for your sick neighbour; it could be trying to be a good caregiver to the elderly or orphans; it could be any good thing that you have ever wanted to do in your life!  The possibilities are endless. Our world could do with a little more love, a little more patience and a little more understanding from all of us for each other.

Photo credits: 

http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-2579028924 by Mr. smashy on flickr

http://www.public-domain-image.com/photography-studio-public-domain-images-pictures/red-rose-photography.jpg.html by Peggy Greb, U.S. Department of Agriculture

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/6385411977/     by NASA/JPL-Caltech

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anhonorablegerman/7742543524/

‘Contingency Plan’ for your home

                “Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it!”

– Mark Twain.

                Those of us in software industry have all heard of Disaster Recovery, Resiliency Management, Contingency Plan, Business Continuity and all such hi-fi sounding words at some point in our career. I suspect these are practised in one form or the other in other professions too. Basically, it loosely means having the ability to have a normal life or the ability to bounce back to normal during and after a man-made or natural disaster. But I remained oblivious to the importance of having a contingency plan for our home until we were actually struck by one!

                It was about 10:30 at night on June 29 and we were ready for a good night’s sleep on a Friday when the power went off.  It is just a storm, we thought, and it will pass for good in a few hours. But we were wrong. Howling of the wind (later reported to be as high as 140 km/h), incessant lightning and rain accompanied by really strong gusts of wind continued for most of the night. Our phone and internet connections were knocked off as well. We were fortunate to have our gas and water connections intact. But people with electric ovens in their kitchen couldn’t cook anything at all those few days. The situation continued for a week in some parts of USA. Millions of people like us were affected. We were without power for almost 3 days in a heat-wave of 105 F. Not a pleasant situation to be in with a toddler and a four-and-half year old! What had hit us was a derecho – a kind of storm that gathers strength as it moves along. This perhaps explained why there were no adequate warnings from the weather department nor any preparedness. You can read more about it here.

               We all know the basics of what to do during an emergency situation, don’t we? Like unplugging electrical appliances, closing window-shutters during a storm, not going near water-bodies when there’s lightning and so on…Below are a few things I found useful on how to cope best when you are stranded at home without power and with small kids:

• Battery operated portable fan heater – This is one device that we sorely missed. Since it has both fan and heater, this would be very handy during both summer and winter power-outages.
• Flashlights / Candles / Matchbox – This one is a no-brainer…..at least, that’s what one would think! But you would be surprised at how little kids have the uncanny ability to get into even the most secured places and misplace things just when you need them the most! Also, the frequency of powercuts in the USA (which is like once in a blue moon) kind of spoils us and leaves us unprepared.
• Mist sprayer – We use this when we go outdoors in high temperatures. But this proved very useful and fun during the power-outage as well. The kids had a blast with this – spraying each other and us!

                 Here are a few things you can do to make life easier while waiting for power being restored in your area:

• Refrigerator cleanup – We had almost no food spoilt in the refrigerator. The trick is not to open the door unless absolutely needed. That way the cool temperature inside was maintained. We just had some water dripping off the freezer and had to mop that up. Also, I cooked off the perishable food items everyday, starting with the most perishable ones first.
• Daytime fun – In the afternoon, it was unbearably hot with temperatures soaring in the 90s. We took the kids to the mall play-area one day and to the Chuck-e-cheese the next. That way, we got to stay in the A.C. and the kids got to play with their peers.
• Pools – We converted the bath-tubs into mini kiddie-pools and let our kids splash and play around with their toys. This you can do only when the temperatures are comfortable and in absence of thunderstorm (It is advised to stay away from water/metal during lightning). Many local clubs had thrown open their swimming pools for people affected by the power-outages around this time.
• Games/Music – When the temperature is good enough to be at home and when you have enough light, this would be a good time to play many games as a family – Scrabble, Antakshari (a game where a player has to sing a song beginning with the same sound with which the previous player ends hers), Cards, Monopoly, Carrom, Chess – whatever suits your mood at that moment. Or just hit the notes on your favorite musical instrument.
• Moonlight dinners – How many times in life do you have candlelight dinner right in your home? Power-outages are definitely the time to have those! We went a step ahead to have moonlight dinners on our porch. That reminded me of the times in childhood when we had similar times at our terrace, back in India.
• Sleepovers – We had friends who either didn’t suffer from the power-outage or had their power restored within a few hours. They kindly invited us over for sleepovers at nights. Of course, we would’ve checked into some hotel for the nights if we didn’t have good friends around. Again, it was a good experience especially for the kids.My son was actually begging for more sleepovers even after the power came back! 🙂

             So next time when the power outage occurs, will I crave for the silence that is there when all electrical and electronic machinery shuts down? Yes! Will I crave for the welcome facebook/gmail/blackberry break? You bet, yes! Will I take my kids out to watch the fireflies dance and listen to the crickets chirp? For sure, yes! In today’s fast-paced world when time is at a premium, power-outages can be a welcome break – of course, only when they aren’t frequent! 🙂 I guess, like most things in life, depends on the way you take it!

So, what kind of Dad are you?

               Having a kid transforms your life – life, as you know it, will never be the same again! There are of course, different parenting styles. When you become a parent yourself, you tend to draw a lot of stuff from the way you were raised by your parents. Today being Father’s Day, this is my observation of the changing times and the Dads around me. So what kind of Dad are you?

Traditional Dad: He is the one who believes in the traditional role of man being the provider for the family.  This often translates into Dad wearing the pants in the family. He is clear about the activities of his kids he ought to be involved in – a little bit or almost none of the feeding/diapering/ bathing/putting to bed part. Sorry, that’s the Mom’s department! He might occasionally read them a story or take them to the zoo or the museum. If something (including kids’ toys /sportsgear /electronic equipment etc.) gets broken or needs repair, Dad’s the one to turn to. He does consider disciplining his kids as one of his sacred fatherly duties. Sometimes, as a result of all this, he appears a bit aloof and authoritarian to his kids. He no doubt loves his kids, but is afraid to show much of that love for fear of appearing ‘unmanly’ or mushy.

 

New Age Dad: He is a ‘hands-on’ dad. He likes to be involved in a baby’s life right from the moment it is conceived! He’s not ashamed to attend childbirth classes or hold Mom’s hand while she’s going through the ravaging pains of labour. He can change diapers effortlessly, can bathe a baby, can soothe a crying infant, can rock a baby to sleep in the middle of the night. He takes time out of his busy schedule to drive his daughter to dance-classes or cheer up his son on Sports day in school. He tries to learn about his kids’ favorite dishes and cooks them if or if not Mom is around. He is not afraid to shower kisses as he tucks his son to bed, nor afraid to shed tears along with his daughter while watching the evil witch put the princess through hardships – mushiness be damned! He is not just involved in most of the activities of his kids, but he actually misses those if he cannot be a part of them for some reason.  He is the modern-day dad who has come far from the days of ‘hunter-gatherer’ to ‘nurturer’ in the truest sense of the word. Thank God for such fathers who are increasing in their numbers day-by-day! Apart from actually giving birth to a child and breastfeeding, there’s almost no other job I could think of, that a New Age Dad can’t do. To borrow an old punchline from an ad,  he is ‘Neighbour’s Envy, Owner’s Pride’ 🙂

 
               So if you are one of the New Age dads, take a bow! Chances are that most of you may have grown up in households where your own moms and dads never ventured out of their  traditional society-defines roles. It is not always easy to learn new things and unlearn old ones. But you yourself have not been afraid of being part of a change. Don’t ever change your way of thinking due to societal pressure. Here’s why(!)- You’ll get a lot more from life being a part of your family in the real sense. Kids grow up soon and before you know it, life will pass by and so will your kids head out the door for college, for jobs. You can have all the time in the world then to make money or play video-games or pursue your love for racing bikes (You can still sneak in time for these activities now, but may be just less amount of time than you would like to). But the time for setting up a good example of  being involved in your kids’ lives is now – when your kids are still young enough to observe you, listen to you and look up to you! And you will be bonding with your kids much better! Not to mention the amazing memories you’ll be making that both your kids and you will cherish for the rest of your lives.

              But what if you are one of the Traditional dads? Well, to you I say – It’s never too late to jump on the bandwagon! The reasons are again the same as above. You need not do all the things at once, but can certainly lend a hand or two to Mom in caring for her baby. Soon you’ll start enjoying the activities fully and the biggest reward is the better bonding you’ll have with your kids. The thinking that Moms are better instinctively at anything to do with children is a myth. Ask any Moms around you and you’ll hear stories of things they have goofed up with kids but never cared to tell you 🙂 Ask any new Mom and chances are that she’s trying to learn things as they come to a pass.

               So enjoy the ride and you’ll end up richer and fuller for the experiences you’ll have… A Happy Father’s Day to you, Dad!