Poornima Manco

Author

Poornima Manco

50 Not Out!

by

My father had once told me that life is as unpredictable as cricket. Taking the metaphor further, I can happily report that I have hit my half century with élan. During days of Covid that is not a blessing to be sneezed at! I fully expected to feel some sadness at leaving my youth behind so definitively. Instead, all I feel is a sharp sense of relief. At no point in my life have I ever felt so sure of myself, so comfortable in my skin, and so content with my lot.

Alongside, I’ve learnt quite a few lessons too. This is hard won wisdom, and in detailing it here, my intent isn’t to bore you, but to remind myself how far I’ve come from that gauche, awkward young girl setting foot into her twenties. Of course, there is no end to learning and in the years to come, I hope to amass many more life lessons. However, where I stand today, these are my little nuggets of sagacity. Do with them what you will.

  1. Forgive. My goodness me! If only I’d known how liberating this was. Conventional wisdom always dictated to forgive and forget. I’ve been terrible at both. But as I approached my 50th birthday, all those petty grudges and long-held resentments seemed to fall away. I really didn’t want to carry any of it into my fifth decade. So, my mantra has become forgive, but don’t forget. If someone has wronged me repeatedly, then I’d be a fool to let them do it again. But I will forgive because I do not want to carry the burden of my anger into the future. If I’ve wronged someone, I hope they can find it in their heart to forgive me too.
  2. Ask, don’t assume. Another one of my failings has been to jump to conclusions, often erroneous ones. With only half the information at hand, one can often make totally wrong assumptions. Isn’t it better to just ask, politely? Clarify rather than hypothesize? It’s already serving me well, as I just ask outright if I’m perplexed by someone’s behaviour. More often than not, it turns out to be the most innocuous thing.
  3. Say No and mean it. Aha! This takes many years to solidify into a behaviour choice, especially if you are a people pleaser like me. But, but, but… Time is not an infinite resource. It is up to you to decide where and what you want to spend it on. In my case, I’ve decided that I would rather say no at the very outset than not deliver on a promise.
  4. Be true to yourself, i.e. have some integrity. Recently I’d paid the bill at a restaurant, only to discover later that they had left the entire alcohol tab off the final tally. I could have let it go. After all, it was saving me a pretty packet. But after a sleepless night worrying that I could cost someone their job, I returned to the restaurant to settle the remainder of the bill. Yes, in the short term it hurt my wallet. But in the long term, my conscience and I could live together happily ever after.
  5. Enjoy every day. This is so oft-repeated it’s almost a cliché. It is so important, though, to really stop and smell the roses, to slow life’s treadmill enough to enjoy the view. Who knows which day may be your last?
  6. Have an attitude of gratitude. Really! Try it. Just say thanks to whoever/whatever you believe in. If you have no religious beliefs and think that the world is just chaos, then thank that chaos for everything it’s given you. Life, love, a home, a family, food to eat, clothes to wear, holidays to go on – everything is a gift that we must never take for granted. Just a simple ‘thank you’ will bring many more blessings into your life.
  7. Patience. This from one of the most impatient people you may ever have met. That’s moi! If I could have something day before yesterday, I would. However, life has taught me that all things come to those who wait. Waiting doesn’t mean sitting on your hands and hoping for a million pounds to fall into your lap. It means working quietly and diligently towards your goals without expecting to be rewarded immediately. There is an Indian proverb that goes – सब्र का फल मीठा होता है – which literally means that the fruit of patience is sweet. That it most definitely is.
  8. Confidence. I have two young girls, and I watch them as they navigate the world, unsure of themselves and their place in it. I always pretended I was more confident than I was when I was younger. “Fake it till you make it” was my internal instruction to myself. I don’t need to fake it anymore. Knowing who I am, what I’m not, and that I add value to the world allows me the luxury of being confident, not arrogant. I hope it doesn’t take my girls thirty years to discover their own unshakeable core of assurance.
  9. Growing old is a privilege. Yes, it is, and it’s one denied to many. In the last eighteen months when we’ve lost so many loved ones to Covid, it is even more important to acknowledge that living to a ripe old age is yet another blessing, a prerogative that only the lucky have.
  10. A legacy of kindness. What do we leave behind that is truly important? Wealth, name, fame? Or, the fact that we may have touched someone’s life with a little bit of kindness? To me, that is the only legacy that matters.

50 not out! It’s been a fantastic game so far, and I’ve hit a few sixers along the way. The day I’m bowled out, I hope everyone says, “She had a good innings.”

Because, you see, I really did.

Thine own boat

by

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a person’s physiological needs (food, clothing, shelter) need to be fulfilled before they can move up the pyramid towards self-actualisation. On this pyramid there are five levels, the aforementioned being the lowest before it moves up to the next level of safety and security, the one up from that being love and belonging, the one above it being everything connected to a person’s self-esteem, and the apex of the pyramid being self-actualisation or the achievement of one’s full potential.

In the West, most of us are lucky enough to have the bottom three levels covered. Think about it. If you’re here, and you’re reading this, in all likelihood, your tummies are full, you have enough clothes to wear, and a roof over your head. You are also probably in a safe environment, and have at least one person who loves you (I hope). The top two levels are also within your reach. You might have job satisfaction, and if not that, you may well have hobbies you love and that fulfil you in some manner. If not, you have the option of changing jobs and developing new connections and interests. As for achieving your full potential, highlighted at the top level of the pyramid, that may or may not be something you aspire to. But, it is certainly within your reach should you choose to go there.

Now, let’s think of the other half of the world. Think of the people who are scrambling to get a foothold on that bottom level. The ones who don’t know where their next meal will come from, how long the clothes on their backs will last, where they will sleep the night, and whether they will be safe where they are. Think of the people fleeing Afghanistan, think of the refugees anywhere in the world willing to walk thousands of miles, hang off the undercarriages of planes or swim in shark-infested waters. Think of how far they are from that top level on the pyramid.

As someone who grew up in the East, and had a privileged upbringing, then moved to the West and have a very comfortable life, I never forget how fortunate I am, and what a small percentage of the world’s population I really belong to. “There, but for the grace of God, go I” was something I often heard my mother say when I was growing up. It is a remark that resonates strongly, and even more so, at a time like this.

Immigrants are often looked down upon because they aren’t fluent in the nation’s language, often live in squalid conditions, and do not have the funds to live aspirational lifestyles, at least not when they first arrive. How few of us think of just how much they’ve gone through to get here. How, for them, self-actualisation is an alien concept, survival being the primal need. Yet, ironically, within a generation or two, the descendants of these immigrants are often the first to point fingers at those who ask for their basic needs to be fulfilled.

There is more than enough in this world for us all to have the first three levels of human needs, as outlined in the pyramid, to be realised. Yet, greed and power create chasms of inequities, reducing humans to little more than animals, fighting for survival while the rest of us turn a blind eye, or worse, judge them as our inferiors purely because of the accident of birth or circumstance.

There is an old Hindu proverb that goes:

“Help thy brother’s boat across and lo! Thine own has reached the shore.”

Let us, within whatever our capacity may be, help and not judge; be compassionate and not indifferent. Then, perhaps, our fellow man may reach the pinnacle of that pyramid, raising all of humanity alongside.

 

 

What’s that all about?

by

Blame it on my age, but I’m truly at a loss here. What on earth gives anyone the right to ‘cancel’ anyone else? Yes, I’m talking about the phenomenon of ‘cancel culture’. For those who don’t know what this means, here’s the definition according to Mirriam-Webster: the practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling as a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure.

The long list of people cancelled in recent years include the likes of Liam Neeson, Ellen DeGeneres, Jimmy Fallon and J. K. Rowling. What have they done, you might ask, that merits this kind of social (media) ostracism? Well, some have said some inappropriate things, while others have maybe consorted with the enemy, and others still have held an opinion that is contrary to the public tide of the moment. I won’t spell it out, because Google will do that bit for you, if you’re interested. My point is, while none of them are squeaky clean, what gives anyone the moral authority to pass judgement on these people?

The reason this trend bothers me so much, and why I’ve felt the need to express it on my blog, is twofold. One, there is something sinister in how free speech and opinions that differ from the mainstream, are suddenly being held up to social scrutiny that is at best, infantile and one-dimensional, and at worst, policing that harks back to the censorship wielded by totalitarian regimes. Two, where is the scope, in all this moral grandstanding, for people to make mistakes, to learn, to grow and repent? None of us are born perfect, but if you’re a celebrity, you’d better never have put a foot wrong, because that will come back to haunt you at some later stage in your career. At that point, not even a grovelling apology and a promise to do better could redeem you.

In all fairness, some people need calling out on their obnoxious behaviour, their toxic beliefs and their gruesome opinions. But let’s do it in a fair manner, a manner that befits a society that believes in debate, in conversation, and not in clamping down and deleting a person just because they did not adhere to the popular motif of the moment.

There is a cruelty to ‘cancelling’ someone that is tantamount to a public stoning. A cruelty that doesn’t consider the mental anguish, the financial fallout or failure to allow the person a chance at redemption. Even the law states that a person is innocent until proven guilty, so a cancel culture that rubs out a person swiftly without due process, is no less toxic than whatever abhorrent deed the person in question may have been accused of.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who penned a blistering article on how social media denizens act as moral guardians of the rapidly changing landscapes of what is right and what is not, said it best:

“We have a generation of young people on social media so terrified of having the wrong opinions that they have robbed themselves of the opportunity to think and to learn and to grow,” Adichie writes. “I have spoken to young people who tell me they are terrified to tweet anything, that they read and reread their tweets because they fear they will be attacked by their own. The assumption of good faith is dead. What matters is not goodness but the appearance of goodness. We are no longer human beings. We are now angels jostling to out-angel one another. God help us. It is obscene.”

It is obscene, and it is ridiculous. Go ahead, cancel me now. See if I care.

 

Scar Tissue

by

 

Back in February, I had an accident. I tripped over a metal grate abandoned on the pavement and went flying, landed heavily on my front and while my coat, my sunglasses and my gloves protected most of my body and face, my knees, which were only covered by a pair of workout leggings took the brunt. The right knee was grazed superficially, but the left knee had an enormous gash which required seven stitches.

Why am I telling you this?

Well, just the other day I was looking at the massive scar tissue that’s built up over that wound. It’s ugly, large and raised; puckered in places and dark enough to stand out in sharp contrast to the skin of my knee. It has also taken nearly four months to heal properly because of how deep the wound was. It still twinges occasionally, and bending at my knees is quite uncomfortable.

My body is a repository of scars. With a tendency for keloids (those ugly raised overgrowths of scar tissue), I can trace my history of accidents, injuries and surgeries through all the lumpy, knotty cicatrix on my skin. There is a thin spindly one on the middle finger of my left hand. A dog bite that involved a tussle over a pencil with my angry pet. The horizontal lump on my chest that was a collision with the handbrake of an old-fashioned bicycle. The one behind my right knee that I can’t for the life of me remember how I obtained. And the one just below my tummy, when my distressed infant was cut out of my womb in an emergency C-Section. Each scar has a memory attached to it; each scar is a little bit of me.

But what of the scar tissue that isn’t visible? What of the wounds that run so deep that no amount of time can overlay the pain?

There is the loss of my mother – the deepest cut of all. A reality that no one can escape from, but given time, can come to terms with. Losing her at twenty-seven meant that I never had the years that would have made her loss a bit more bearable. Those years when we could have grown together, when she could have guided me in my marriage, been there for me when I became a mother; when I could have understood her more fully as a woman and when I could have taken care of her as an old lady. That was denied to me through a combination of ill-health (hers) and circumstances (mine).

That loss feels all the more poignant today as I remember her in the week of her birthday. Had she lived, she would have been eighty-one. Maybe losing her in her eighties wouldn’t have hurt as much. Or maybe it would have. Maybe loss is loss, no matter when it happens. And those scars, the ones that stay hidden from sight, are the keloids on my soul.

The month of June has seen bad news come in from so many quarters, it’s been overwhelming. From losing a school friend through Covid, to a colleague through pancreatitis, a family acquaintance through a heart attack and the twenty-year-old son of my husband’s former boss unexpectedly, it has been a tsunami of devastation. These are gaping wounds that refuse to fill. There is grief, anger and shock. There is also an acute realisation of how fragile life really is, and how nothing and nobody can be taken for granted.

My pain is once removed, but what of those who are in its immediate vicinity? What of the wife who has lost her husband, the mother who has lost her son, the son who has lost the only parent he knew, the company that has lost their visionary leader? How long will it take for the scar tissue to build there? And will it stay – ugly, raised and twisted – revealing the depth of those wounds?

Life is pain because pain comes from attachment and love. No one is immune to it, and nor should we be. How arid it would be to live in a world devoid of any feeling. Each wound, each scar, is a testament to our time spent in this world, loving and living.

And those keloids on our souls? That’s where our loved ones reside.

 

Rage

by

Aren’t we living in the 21st century? Haven’t we made several strides in the last hundred years towards women’s empowerment and emancipation? Why then does a movie like ‘Promising Young Woman’ hit a nerve? I’ll tell you why. Because it reveals an unpalatable truth.

For those of you who haven’t seen this powerful, shocking, brilliant film scroll away now because I am going to be talking a LOT about it. About what it means, how relevant it is to our times and also, why the rage that permeates the film is a good thing.

Let’s look around ourselves for a moment. How do you think we’re doing, as women? Are we free to go where we want, do what we want, be who we want? You think yes? Scratch a little beneath the surface and you will discover no. I’m going to take the example of three countries, the three that I have the most to do with.

Let’s begin with India, my birthplace. If the many instances of patriarchy and misogyny aren’t bad enough, how’s this for some additional disgust: A 43-year-old woman, a coronavirus patient, was raped in the hospital by a male nurse while awaiting treatment. She died within 24 hours.

Read the article here.

How about the UK, where I reside: Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old, vanished as she walked home in Clapham, south London. Her body was found a week later near Ashford, Kent. PC Couzens pleaded guilty to kidnapping and rape and accepted responsibility for killing her.

Read the article here.

 

And finally, the US, where I work: In 2016 the Stanford Rape Case made headlines when two male Stanford graduate students riding their bikes spotted a man on top of a woman near a dumpster. The woman did not appear to be moving. When they approached the man, he fled. He was later identified as Brock Turner, an “All-American swimmer,” while the victim was relegated to a ten-syllable description of an “unconscious intoxicated woman”. The judge in the case, Aaron Persky, gave Turner a six-month sentence despite the prosecutors pushing for a six-year sentence.

Read the article here.

Notice any similarities? These people (aside from Turner) were meant to protect, care for and safeguard women. Instead, they failed them, and how!

‘Promising Young Woman’ begins with the premise that a lone, intoxicated woman is fair-game to predators, even the wolves who parade around in sheep’s clothing. Because, after all, she put herself in that position, didn’t she? Shouldn’t she have gotten home at a decent hour, dressed less provocatively and been tucked up safely in bed? If then, she is taken advantage of, it’s her own fault, isn’t it?

To dismiss this film as a revenge drama would seriously undermine the hugely important message it is trying to convey. When Cassie, a medical-school dropout, entices “nice” men to take an apparently blind-drunk woman back to their homes to ensure her safety, she has an interesting little surprise in store for them – her sobriety. Cassie confronts that part of the male ego that has long shouted #NotAllMen in response to the #MeToo movement. Not all men will attack a vulnerable woman, but given the right circumstances, can you be sure?

More importantly though, it’s what happens after an attack such as this which is spine-tingling. As in the Brock Turner case, a man can get away with a slap on the wrist, because, after all, there was alcohol and opportunity, plus the bonus of a woman’s ‘stupidity’.

Angry yet?

Emerald Fennell’s astonishing indictment of what it means to be a woman today is meant to provoke rage. It’s a feminist manifesto that urges us to stand up to the status quo, to defend our freedoms and to question what consent means. The title itself is a play on the long touted expression that many of these graduates (Brock Turner included) are promising young men whose future lives and careers can be ruined because of “twenty minutes of action” or some such expression reducing sexual assault to a banality. As for the woman, well, she was “asking for it”, wasn’t she? Her promise, her future, her health and her identity don’t matter a jot. It’s a man’s world, after all!

Which begs the question that when a woman is unimpeachably behaved and still gets raped or assaulted thanks to being in the wrong place at the wrong time (Sarah Everard) then who is to blame? What about date rape? Or the rape of minors?

Fact of the matter is that rape is less to do with sexual fulfilment and everything to do with power dynamics. In the western world, which considers itself far ahead of the more ‘backward’ countries, where men feel emasculated by their female peers, this power struggle takes on an even more insidious nature. On the face of it there is outrage, but behind the scenes, there is the locker-room talk, the upholding of male entitlement and an unspoken understanding that women’s rights can be trampled all over by men placed in a position to do so.

Which is why watching Cassie deliver vigilante justice is so damn fulfilling! Yes, it’s just a movie, and yes, there’s a lot that’s far-fetched in it, but my goodness, do we need to identify with the rage that underpins it? Yes, by golly gosh we do!

None of us go out looking for trouble. None of us want to be assaulted. But if it does happen, what we want is that the perpetrators are given a punishment commensurate with the crime. What we want is that it’s their character, their motives and their actions that are questioned, not ours! As women – wives, girlfriends, sisters, daughters, mothers, grandmothers – we deserve the same rights to the same freedoms that our male counterparts enjoy.

Ultimately, Cassie’s sociopathic behaviour ends in a fitting denouement. She is unable to move on from the incident that led her life to devolve into a vendetta. There is no ‘out’ for her as there is for the people who committed the crime. This story is symptomatic of a larger malaise that plagues society – patriarchy and internalised misogyny – which allows men to get away with words, deeds and actions that betray the fact that ultimately, it still considers women to be the inferior sex.

Watch ‘Promising Young Woman’ and be angry. Be very, very angry indeed.

Hurt

by

 

There is a world of hurt

behind those eyes,

unshed words

that threaten to spill over

 

When did we lose each other

to misunderstandings

misapprehensions

mistakes?

 

How has what should be love

transformed

into anger, recrimination,

and regret?

 

Is there no way back?

Is there no way to bridge

this chasm between

what used to be ‘us’

and what is

‘you’ and ‘me’ now?

 

Perhaps a word,

an acknowledgment,

an understanding

could mend

that which seems irreparable right now

 

Perhaps that word is ‘sorry’

perhaps it is

love.