Abuse of Power- The quickest route to hell

Power is a strange thing. It's wonderful to be in possession of it but can make you do shitty things without you being comprehensively aware of the consequences that will catch up with you sooner or later. When you abuse the power you have you go down a steep slippery route of recklessness that is impossible to recover from. It's like a drug, it brings you tremendous exhilaration, but with every additional step towards it, you are also proceeding towards a canon ball of self destruction that will hit you hard enough to crush you to jelly.

Starts well, ends with rock bottom.

Few days back my husband and I finished watching season 2 of Narcos- Pablo Escobar who killed and destroyed humans as if were ants, earned and splurged money as if it was just another piece of paper, who lived and dined as though he was the king of kings, died the death of a street-side con running across roofs with his overgrown disheveled hair and beard scattered over his shock stricken face and his inner parts spilled around him in horrific disarray.

Pablo had started off small, with a business that was illegal but he had the support of the disenfranchised Colombian masses of Medellin who saw in him their Robin Hood distributing largesse among the needy, food for the hungry and shelter for the homeless. But power being the thing it is had to go mess up with his head and he equally carelessly blew up hundreds in the city center to get even with the President. And mind you, that's just one of his many exploits.

Pablo is portrayed as a loving son, husband and father yet today his family lives on in other arts of the world having changed their names to escape from the horror of his legacy.

Pablo's was a real story, just as was Gaddafi's and Saddam Hussain's and just as many others in the anals of history. These power stories happen everywhere and they are so interesting to read or see; titillating to the point that you feel drawn to it and consumed by it. In a corporate environment, it's a sleek battle of flirting by the rules until the same rules screw you over. A person gets some power, gets comfortable with it and starts wanting more. Some work, some smartness, some luck and you get more power. Then if you are the wrong kind, you start having an opinion that is bigger and more bloated than the collective intelligence. Power is your aphrodisiac. People tease with your views until they figure where your line of intolerance lies. Some decide it's not their cup of tea or worth their time. There are other people around you (a smaller subset) that stand by because they revere you deeply for the power you have. Mind you, this acceptance should not be confused with respect. But given who you are, that is the exact mistake you will make. Some of their growth is also in your hands and they are willing for their personal sense of righteousness take a backseat for their next term goals. You enjoy the subordination more and more and tinker with it all along feeling a great sense of exhilaration.

Power is like a cataract that cloaks your vision of reality. It makes your ego grow bigger than your sense of righteousness. 'Power is the most persuasive rhetoric'- You may be saying all the right things on paper, like that you believe in humanity, in equality in diversity, in justice, in the power of redemption and yet you may be fawning the vices exactly in contradiction to those values. Like Lincoln said- 'Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power' and you fail just that test! You tolerate only those that agree with you and help confirm your views not those that have a lateral view point. You tend to think the former are smarter though all they are doing is being calculated in their moves to please you and move up the value chain with your support. You shun everyone else and though they feel lost at first, eventually they find better and more breathable grounds where they and their ideas are respected and the atmosphere is less toxic.

At the end, in the grand scheme of things, we all have limited powers. There are always those that are more powerful who will bring you to your knees. You may get by for a long time either because those around you are scared to speak up or think that it's not the best use of their time once they have moved on. You won, yes, your small dirty games, but really, you lost. Your character.

Bengal and Matriarchy: Views of a Kolkata girl

Being a Bengali woman I have often being told or asked if Bengal is a matriarchal state. The answer is no, it is not. A Matriarchy is a social system in which the women hold primary power, predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege, and control property at the specific exclusion of men at least to a large degree.

This perception about Bengal is widely prevalent in India because Bengali women are generally forward, forthcoming and let's face it, dominating. There are very good reasons why they are that way and this is not me trying to justify a behavior. And based on my life experiences from the first 20 years of my life in Kolkata, which may not be representative of all of West Bengal, I shall summarize them below for the edification of the masses.

In an average literate Bengali household there is not much discrimination between girls and boys, not at birth and not beyond. All the facts below relate to the same broad group.

1. The boy:girl ratio in Bengal is normal which is an indication of low female foeticide. Broadly translated it means that in an average Bengali household, people are as happy to be blessed with a girl child as a boy. Wikipedia.

2. Most households will try and provide the same education and even higher education to a boy and girl.

3. Dowry is less prevalent in 'middle and upper' class Bengali families compared to several other parts in India. The cost of a marriage ceremony is split between the groom and the bride's family with each hosting one of the two primary wedding related functions.

4. Women in Kolkata often travel alone, late in the evening and night and mostly use public transit. Women sit in the front of autos which would be rather uncommon, in say, Hyderabad or Chennai etc. Eve teasing is a problem but nothing like Delhi proportions.

5. There is no urgency for girls to get married. It is mostly acceptable for a girl to finish her studies, often get a job and then get married.

6. There is decent focus on intellect and qualification for a woman as against than beauty hence there is less stress on a young woman in Bengal to doll up and look pretty to impress.

7. There is generally less use of make-up and accessories compared to Delhi or Mumbai. In a lot of literary circles in Bengal being dressed up involves stark colors, cotton clothes and bags, glasses as against contact lenses, khadi slip ons. Added bonus for short cropped hair, large bindis and books for accessories that create a look of power and intellect and less of feminity.

8. Most women are well versed in some form of art- poetry and music being most common. Literature is a prized accessory for most bengalis. They love showing off their literary wealth rather than their monetary wealth. Hence there are more Bengali women online and offline, writing blogs, voicing their opinion in public, rousing the masses and engaging in political or social debates.

9. The Kolkata I grew up in was not an easy place to be. It's crowded (not just with bengalis but immigrants, many from within India- Rajasthan, Bihar primarily and Nepal and Bangladesh), it's super hot and sweaty and generally poor. It teaches you to be tough and resilient ( did I mention the street food that is so cheap and delicious yet unhealthy that your immunity grows rock solid) and prepares you for life's potential hardships.

10. Parents show no mercy to the girl child when it comes to expectations. They are expected to be smart, to work, be independent and be reliable just as the boy child or sometimes even more. You will often hear people say aloud and unabashed that they have more hope and expectations from their girl child than boy just because they are psychologically stronger.

As a result of all this socio-cultural influences bengali women are gutsy and opinionated. They have been encouraged to take responsibility and take a stance and they do so with confidence. Mamata Bannerjee is a great example of simplicity and confidence if not of many other things. While a lot of women in Bengal may hate to be associated with it, her style is considered quintessential to women of Bengal.

However the forwardness, the confidence, the combativeness does not mean the society is matriarchal. It just means that the society and specially it's men treat the girl child no different from the boy child. Culturally and socially, the woman is still expected to give up her maiden name and adopt her husband's family name at marriage. She still goes into the husband's household and may stay with his parents or family and not the other way around. Kids take their fathers name and carry forward the same and not that of the mother. Individually one may choose to be otherwise.

Obsessive parents come in many forms

My daughter is growing up. Really fast.

I feel time is slipping right through my fingers as I struggle to absorb every bit of her growing up process. This is evident in the way she develops independence around her tasks- from constantly seeking company earlier to now being able to pretend play by herself; from wanting to be dressed to now dressing on her own and developing an acute sense of combination between top and bottom wear; from being completely disinterested in food and oblivious of what's being fed to developing a keen knack for some flavors, enquiring what's for dinner and expressing clearly what she'd like to eat.

I see the same evolution in a very pronounced way with her language development. She does not speak any of our mother tongue (mine or Ajith's) but speaks really good English. She says things I think are fancy for her age, that catch me off-guard, like - 'my neck in aching' (not paining :O), 'papa are you kidding me?',' don't bother me', 'this is too complicated', 'did my teacher validate if I was a good girl', 'Pati i want to remain mute with those kids' etc.

However, there are some pretty basic English phrases she says all wrong.
For example- If I ask her, 'Taanu did you talk during circle time?', she says, 'No'.
Then I ask, 'Are you sure?', she says, 'No', though she means- 'Yes, I am sure'. In her mind she is reading the 'Are you sure?' as a repeat of the first question.
I have noticed her do this consistently and never bothered to correct her. In my mind, this is a quirk from her baby vocabulary that I cherish. Until one day recently, I said, 'Are you sure' and she answered- 'yes' losing that piece of babyism I was relishing.

Another example is when she's showing us something, she says, 'Papa, look at' and points at the object, never completing her statement with a 'that' or anything more. It's always just 'Look at' and a finger pointed! We have always noticed her speaking this way and I have found it rather amusing. Yesterday at Target when she said the same thing, her dad started teaching her how  the sentence is incomplete and how she needs to add a 'that' or more to I found myself thinking panic-stricken, 'No, no, let her say it wrong, I like how it's so her style!'

Another small example is the way she says the phrase, 'My own'. If you hear carefully you'll notice she always says, 'Myrown' and not 'My own'...

It's amusing even to me how I notice and hold on to these small quirks of hers hoping she retains it. I hold myself in my tracks thinking I am probably turning obsessive, specially because I have one child but I don't seem to want to let her grow up and grow out of these. As a mother here I am promoting her speaking a language wrong over wanting to fix it and up-skill her language wise. Is that me showing signs of obsessive parenting in obsessing over my her babyhood?