Babyji - Part II

I don’t think I’ve been very fair in my comments on the book. Just saying something equivalent to “I like it” is hardly literary criticism. In my defence, of course, that was not what I was trying to do with that post, but if taken as criticism, it amounts to the worst possible kind.

So, one way among many in which the text works:

In those few crucial moments of decision in the novel, Anamika (the 16 year old protagonist) attributes her attraction towards women to something genetic, something natural. This works because it dislodges what the socio-cultural order dictates: being compulsorily heterosexual. Homosexuality has no scope within the prevalent moral universe, its justification must then lie outside morality, in something purer – science, biology, genetics or whatever else it gets called. One particular order (science, genetics, etc) gets elevated over another (the moral universe which prohibits homosexuality) in order to critique the latter. But if left simply to this, a huge problem with respect to agency arises: If Anamika can not help but be attracted to Tripta, Rani and Sheela because of her genes, what sort of choice does this leave her with regard to control over her sexuality?

From the norms of morality to the norms of science: If Anamika only just switches loyalties from one to another, her own role and agency throughout would seem to become questionable. And yet, this is not what happens. The justification for homosexuality is attributed to something congenital/ inherent but only so far as it helps critique conventional morality. A ‘scientific’ explanation is never allowed to take a stronghold in itself. It is used only as a tool. The second excerpt in the previous post, for example, illustrates this:

“Science had told us this century that nothing was certain.” [emphasis added]

Science is represented as something relative, temporal rather than absolute truth or pure knowledge. The elevated status allotted to science earlier is found to be a ploy – strategically used to extract a space for homosexuality enabling Anamika to retain her agency. This is something which makes her actions, because they presuppose choice and will, all the more radical and transgressive.

Begging to Differ

A few days ago, on the radio, the RJ remarked on the “nuisance of beggars” at street corners and red lights and asked for listeners to phone-in with entertaining ideas to “tackle the problem”. The RJ’s own suggestion was to apply some sort of check (visa was her word) on immigrants into the city. (Because, of course, beggars = immigrants. Also reminiscent of certain international immigration policies.) Other phone-in suggestions pointed towards torture, imprisonment and various other forms of state intervention – all disguised in entertaining ways. Of course.

Curious, I posed the RJ’s question to several other people – people I considered more sensitised than the morons on the radio show. While most among this group seemed to sympathise with beggars in general, they seemed quite opposed to the notion of begging itself. Several followed the policy of buying everything and anything that a kid at a traffic light may sell them, but refused to part with any money if it was plain begging. Because the effort to sell something, however useless, seemed to be an effort and willingness to do some kind of work. Whereas to beg was a downright refusal of the same.

Going by the above, the opposition to beggars is not completely equivalent to the sort of contempt a privileged class may reserve for the non-privileged (though it comes dangerously close.) A major part of the opposition seemed reserved for the nature of the act rather than its agent.

So then, what is so wrong with begging? Perhaps it is the fact that it poses a threat to the concept of work itself. A unidirectional flow of money without a corresponding flow of a good or service (in the opposite direction) is radical for the reason that it challenges the capitalist idea of work which grounds itself on the notion of exchange. The same logic applies to theft, burglary, etc since they question the capitalist separation of ‘your’ money from ‘mine’. It is also not surprising then that the above is a legal crime – legality being the medium of suppression used by the state machinery.

But the threat lies not in the act in itself, by itself. One beggar or thief isn’t going to shake the entire system. But one beggar or thief does present an alternative. Something that goes to show that the current system is not the only possibility, that several other means of exchange are also possible. And therein lies the threat.

To Ponder Over...

Under the category of 'Daughter of', while filling up a form for obtaining a Voters' ID, I chose to write my mother's name instead of my father's. I may now not get that Voters' ID. A Voters' ID. Something that Vimla, who acts as domestic help for a lot of neighbours, had to convince a very reluctant official to obtain. "What's the point? Doesn't your husband have one?" Her husband. He had abandoned her a long time ago, forcing her to be the sole provider for her family. Vimla today is more economically independent and empowered than several of the women for whom she works. These upper class fully educated women, for whom she works, are very likely to not know about their sexual rights; are very likely to be abused with a marriage and not complain. Because 'single'/ 'seperated'/ 'divorced' status has its own attached social stigma. Vimla would know. But Vimla, in managing to finally get her Voter's ID, was able to register her dissent. And in trying to demonstrate an alternate possibility, even if it was on a government form, so was I.