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.

Babyji

I have been reading Abha Dawesar's Babyji. What is so wonderful about it is the nonchalant manner in which it questions deeply entrenched notions about sex, sexuality and morality typical to an urban Indian middle class. It is provoking as it brings out in the open things propriety would dictate taboo. In short, I love it! And yes, there are several things I find problematic in the novel, but 'morality' has nothing to do with it. Maybe I'll write down those issues later. For now - some excerpts:

"In the Delhi I grew up in, everything happened. Married women fell in love with pubescent girls, boys climbed up sewage pipes to consort with their neighbors' wives, and students went down on their science teachers in the lab. But no one ever talked about it." ***

"Science had told us this century that nothing was certain. The universe was chaotic and relative; these aspects measurable. There were few hard facts on which one could base a way of living one's life. I'd always scoffed at religion as a crutch for the masses, so it wasn't even a consideration. We'd spent two thousand years only to find out that we didn't know. That moment, sprawled on my bed, changed my whole life. I was free all of a sudden. Free of the burden of knowledge and therefore of any morality that proceeds from knowledge. Only feelings counted. And sensations." ***

"Everyone was complacent and measured success and failure by the same yardsticks- car, house, electronic goods. Jhuggi [slum] people like Rani thought that a government job was the epitome of power and that a government servant was a very big sahib. She wouldn't understand why I adored writers and scientists, intellectuals who could only be measured by the volume of gray matter in their brains. She probably didn't even know what writers and scientists were. If you didn't have any education, could you know how knowledge itself was classified? But she did know what a doctor was. Almost everyone knew what a doctor was."

Rejoice!...For Dumbledore is Gay.

To talk about other things, Rowling has declared that Dumbledore was gay. I suppose I should celebrate considering how I had always rooted for the Sirius/Lupin, Sirius/James, Parvati/Lavender pairings as a counter to the more popular speculations about Ron/Hermione, Neville/Luna, etc. It is wonderful that there can be character with an 'alternative' sexuality and yet not be caricatured on the basis of it. But I somehow resent the fact that this declaration is being made now after all the books in the series have been published. Couldn't this have been put directly in the books? I am aware that the most common argument against this would be that the majority of readership for these books constitutes children and young adolescents. But this has not deterred Rowling to insert other such "unsuitable themes" before. If she can focus on things deemed very "mature" such as death, betrayal, racism, war, etc, why not homosexuality as well? Or is Dumbledore's sexuality to be taken as something only incidental to his person, serving no other purpose in the narrative? Besides, the very notion that a homosexual character doesn't fit into/is unsuitable for writing meant for children needs to be reexamined too. Are we saying that it is unsuitable because we are talking about something apart from the ordinary; something different from what we define as "normal"; something then that would condition kids the "wrong" way because it would lead them to see something "abnormal" in a normal way? Having said that, however, I must say that I still remain slightly fond of the series. I still am willing to settle for this incidental revelation about Dumbledore's sexuality instead of none at all. And I can only hope that critical work done on Harry Potter will take this fact into account much more than the books themselves have done.