How To Raise A Feminist Son

A topic that is so close to heart – feminism and how to raise kids whose values are rooted in equity and equality, especially the son. This book was a validation of many a thing I’ve always tried to do, as also who I am, with all my weaknesses and imperfections.

Part memoir, part manifesto, Sonora Jha takes us through her life, her years in India, her marriage and its break up, her father who was abusive and the brother who seem to have taken after him, the birth of her son, the angst and struggles of being a single parent and a professional, and her determination to bring him up with the right set of guidelines that she hopes will anchor him through his life.

Jha’s profession as a professor of journalism specializing in social justice movements and social media is reflected in the way she has structured the book. Well researched and interspersed with conversations with psychologists, experts, parents, other kids, each aspect of bringing up a child is explored and analyzed. She punctuates her thoughts with references to Hindu mythology, especially the goddesses, the intersectionality of feminism with caste and privilege as also the necessity and importance of having a support system, the proverbial village.

What was most heartening for me is her admission of being imperfect and errant,

“Feminism is a practice, and perfection is an illusion. You were a good feminist on Tuesday, you embraced a reparative ideology on Friday, but on Sunday your feminist friend may have gone ‘too far.’ You start over and over.’

her calling out the fears that most of us have as parents – how do we talk to them about sex (I’ve found it easier to talk about sex with my daughter than with the son), what if he slips up (a constant fear), what if I slip up (something that I repeatedly do) and how do i really know whether I’ve really succeeded in raising my son as a feminist, to name a few.

“Over the years, often with a sick feeling in my stomach, I realized I was not going to be able to raise a perfect feminist. I couldn’t fashion a boy or man who was wholly alert and engaged in the scrutiny, study, and practice of dismantling an immutable structure that offered him a paradise or privileges for having a penis and taunted him as a ‘pussy’ when he tried to so much as move a single spoke of said structure. What I could do was teach him to see when he’d slipped up, to hear someone when they said he’d slipped up, and to then fucking apologize. A tender, sincere apology, please.“

‘A tender, sincere apology’ – a lesson for not just the boys, but for all of us, whether parents or not, whether or not we are bringing up anyone. This is a manifesto to bringing us up as decent human beings. Period.

p.s. Should be added as a compulsory read in our schools and colleges.

In The Dream House: A Memoir

How do I even begin to describe this book? The theme, how it is structured, the language, how the tale is narrated – each word so carefully chosen and woven into sentences that cuts straight into your heart and leaves a pain so deep that it takes days to get out of it – any way I look at it, this was the most mind-blowing book that I read this year.

Abuse in a lesbian relationship – the author herself says this is something that is rarely written about, or even discussed openly. The nature of the relationship itself is something that is still looked down upon by many, on top of that abuse? Isn’t that a male thing? It is as though there is an unwritten rule that such relationships should work, if only to prove a point.

Insecure about how she looks – curvy-to-fat – as she says, she just cannot believe herself when someone who ‘had a distinctly upper-class, New England air’ would take an interest in her. She was as accomplished as they come – Harvard educated, worked in publishing, lived abroad, spoke French, lived in New York – how or why should she have taken an interest in a girl like her? They soon settle into the ‘Dream House’ of a relationship.

Everything is perfect in the beginning, as it always is. You feel like you are the luckiest person in the world. Cracks begin to appear soon enough, the first sign is the rage when you do something without telling her. Then it is a series of accusations, insinuations, you cannot do anything right. The burden of proof, of loyalty and love is always on you. You start building defenses gradually, you need to provide evidence, so you stop even talking about people in your life. Your friends sense what is happening and is there to support you, but you are not sure. You still think it is something to do with you. She can confuse the hell out of you, you don’t realize you are being manipulated.

“How to read her coldness: She is preoccupied. She is unhappy. She is unhappy with you. You did something and now she’s unhappy. You talk to her. You are clear. You think you are clear. You say what you are thinking and you say it after thinking a lot, and yet when she repeats what you’ve said back to you nothing makes sense. Did you say that? Really? You can’t remember saying that or even thinking it, and yet she is letting you know that it was said, and you definitely meant it that way.”

It’s always a war , and she has to be the winner. And the classic behavior – the next morning it’s all bright sunlight – ‘a new day begins again.’ You are for ever apologizing, but you seldom know why. After a scary event that gets physical, you tell her she needs help, unless she gets it right you are leaving. Things do not improve, you fantasize about dying, you have forgotten that leaving could be an option.

It comes to a surprising end when she falls in love with someone else. The abuse still continues in the form of texts and calls until you decide to cut her off completely. You realize she has betrayed you multiple times over. But you have friends who have always known what was happening and are ready to be the support you need.

After it is over, you are still unsure, whether you were reading too much into it, whether you were being too melodramatic, you are dragged deep into a bottomless pit of darkness again. You know you can get it completely out of your system, your nervous system will always remember, it will turn into a warning system that raises an instant alarm all through your life.

The brilliance of the book is the narrative. The descriptions are seldom graphical. It is broken into snippets, with metaphors for each experience and every thought – ‘Dream House as Time Travel’ where she wonders whether if she knew about the outcome would she have done anything different, ‘Dream House as Romance Novel’ where she talks about the beginning of their relationship, ‘Dream House as Deja Vu’ where she writes about the cycle repeating itself and so on. She says of the structure of her writing during those times –

“I broke the stories down because I was breaking down and didn’t know what else to do.”

An intimate portrayal of emotions, a study on relationships, a text book on what abuse is, especially when it is not physical, most of all a brave baring of soul. Heart wrenching and disturbing to the core. A master class in writing.

Freshwater for Flowers

A lonely, middle aged woman tending to a graveyard somewhere in a small town in France. Sounds macabre, doesn’t it? You couldn’t be more mistaken.

Violette Toussaint is almost fifty and seem to be at peace with herself, tending to the graves and her plants. The two helpers are as lonely and odd in their ways as she. The story unfolds slowly, the layers getting unpeeled in a slow and graceful pace . She has grown up in foster homes, and was a bar tender when she met the flamboyant Philippe Toussaint. They are married soon enough, the reality of what he is hits her only later. Emotionally distant and irresponsible, Philippe is busy with his biking trips and video games while Violette is left with running the house. Before long, they start working as railroad level-cross keepers and lives in a small house close to the tracks. Their daughter Leonine sparks life into Violette, but tragedy strikes soon enough. The events that follow brings Sasha, the grave yard keeper into Violette’s life and she sort of inherits the job from him.

Violette knows the regular visitors to the cemetery and many of their family secrets too. When Julien Seul, a detective from Marseilles arrives with his mother’s ashes to be placed near the grave of a man who is a complete stranger to him. Little does she know how his story is entwined to hers as well. The story weaves in and out, between past and present, through the many characters that have an impact on Violette’s life.

It is a tale that is so well told, of life, death, betrayal, deep friendships, and finding happiness in the most unlikely places. Just when you think you have seen through all the twists and turns, comes the most unexpected one of all, a turn around a murder mystery, if you may call it so.

I loved how each character is built, with their back stories that explains their behavior, good and bad. No one is completely evil, there is a reason to who they are. Isn’t it how it is with each of us too? This is one of those books that has so well explained what ‘layering’ in writing means. As each story is unraveled, another one appears, and every story is interconnected with the other exquisitely. While the setting, premise and most of the events may sound depressing and sad, the success of the writer is in threading the characters and their tales in light and love.

One of the best books I read this year and have lost count of the people I have recommended it to. Go get it!