“Jumi! How could you do that? What would others think of you?”
During my childhood I was often reprimanded like this. “What would others
think?” “What would others say?” Most of my childhood and teenage pranks and
errors were caught and curbed so. In a traditional and conservative village in
Kerala, it was most important for a girl to ensure a good ‘image’ in the
society. I was taught to fear public opinion. By fearing public opinion, it was
mandated that I earned their approval too. And thus, I ended up going to church
every day, and entered the good books of old aunties and grannies. “See, such a
pious girl”. I fasted and followed all Lents mandated in the Catholic calendar and
made my grandmother proud amongst her friends. “Oh! Such a devout young girl.
Even my daughter in law doesn’t observe Lent.” I studied well enough and was usually
amongst the top ten students in the class. “See, Jumi always scores above
eighty.” Worse, I was reasonably good at extra-curricular activities and that
made another entry in the good books!
By being in the good books of the elders, I also ensured
that I was disliked, if not hated, by my peers. For them, my existence was a
torture. They were constantly compared and contrasted against me and that irked
them. I fairly doubt that my cousins too dreaded me.
But, the person behind all this was my Chechy, my mom’s
youngest sister, who brought me up. She made sure that I topped each exam,
bagged most prices, and was brought up as an ardent Christian. She would spend
her study holidays to drill Mathematics into my dull head. She got me lots of
books from her college library and made sure I was well-read. She wouldn’t mind
staying up all night to stitch something for me for a competition or a dance
performance. And, the night before an exam, she would even ask questions in my
sleep to check if I have by-hearted everything. That was Chechy, my love. Always
worried and concerned about me!
So, it was she who nurtured this idea of being approved by
everyone. I had to be miss righteous and miss perfect. My uncle was
well-connected and though I studied at a far-away school, each actions of mine
were reported at home by his most diligent informers. I was encouraged to
maintain a daily journal and my uncle and aunt used to go through the entries and
it made the task of ‘bringing up Jumi’ easier. I never realized that they read
my entries; instead I wondered how they came to know about my schemes to ‘stray’.
I was caned, advised and sometimes blackmailed that I toed the line. Public
opinion mattered so much to our family.
A terrible sense of guilt grew along with me and by the time
I was a teenager, I was always worried about others’ opinion about me. I acted
nice with people even while I hoped I could scream at them. I learned to
tolerate people though all I wanted was to run away from them. I could fake
laughs, smiles and worse, happiness. Slowly that became my habit. I am eternally worried about my actions and keep hoping to make the right remarks and perfect conversations so that I please others and not hurt anybody. I lost touch with
the real me and these days, I truly wonder what my real self would be like. And when I think of myself, the image that comes to my mind is that of a caged pathetic bird with two
stubby tufts of feathers in place of wings.
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