Some Reflections on ‘Selfishness’
Romit Chowdhury | 17.May.10
After a speedy one–week vacation at home in February last year, I found myself on a train bound towards Bombay, where I was studying for a master’s degree in Media and Cultural Studies. My parents had come to the station to see me off. The time being close to departure, I secured my luggage in the compartment and looked through the tinted window to see if I could locate my parents. I didn’t have to look far as they were standing right in front of my compartment. The train started. And I saw my parents wave goodbye. At an image of me in their heads, because they couldn’t see me through the tinted glass. They looked very helpless then, bidding farewell to their son who had already been claimed by distance. The sight pained me deeply.
Even before I could make peace with this sentiment, a garrulous co-passenger (a gentleman probably in his late sixties) initiated a boringly familiar conversation – what do I do; where am I from, where and what have I studied? I churned out the regular replies. Hearing that I had read English literature at Presidency College, he exclaimed, “So has my son! Of-course, he’s much older than you; he’s married now and lives in London.” His face glowed with filial pride. I asked the gentleman where he stayed. “I live in Kolkata. Alone. Am going to Mumbai for a short holiday.” His face fell, and suddenly, he seemed disinclined to continue the conversation. A few moments later, he suddenly said, “Don’t you think young men are rather selfish nowadays? Leaving their old parents alone while they build careers abroad?”
I nodded vaguely at the man and nestled down with a book. But rather than following the lines on the page open in front of me, I found myself reminded of a play that I had seen recently. Ajnatobas, produced by Nandikar—arguably the most celebrated theatre group in Calcutta these days—explores the issue of old-age in a middle-class Bengali ethos. It tells the story of a newly married couple whose otherwise regular life is suddenly interrupted by the advent of a strange old woman, who can’t remember where she has come from. The quiet dignity of this woman forbids them from turning her out of their house or calling the police. Even as they try to understand where she has come from, the conversation moves to questions about their parents, and why they choose to live in a nuclear family. The elderly woman’s suggestion that young people prefer physical space over emotional proximity, finds some resonance in the couple, particularly Payel, the wife, who has moved away from her marital home to support her husband’s (Soumik) search for a successful career. Unable to decide what to do, they let the woman stay over for the night. Miraculously, the next morning, her memory returns and she asks Soumik to take her back to her house. As Soumik reverses the car out of the narrow lane in which the woman lives, he realises that what she calls home is in fact a shelter for the elderly.
In the moral milieu of the play, the increasing exodus of youngsters to greener pastures, away from their hometowns is a direct fallout of the ‘selfish’ motives that drive these aspirations, ones which exclude the well-being of their ageing parents. Given the resounding applause that the performance received, this sentiment, I realised, is clearly endorsed by many.
As I reviewed the play in the light of the experiences which I have just described, I wondered if the issue could really be seen in such clear-cut moral terms. For instance, young people pursuing careers abroad can hardly be seen as an individual project. Rather it is an intrinsic part of the great middle-class dream which is shared as much by their parents as by them. In the average middle-class imagination, no success is quite as sweet as the one claimed in a foreign land. And that’s putting it mildly. In many cases, ‘foreign’ is a non-negotiable qualifier of success. Moreover, in the last couple of decades or so, there has been a rapid lengthening of the education period for the middle- and upper-classes of our society. This has, in part, been generated by more and more occupations requiring greater and more specialised educational preparation for admission into the upper echelons of professional life. Consequently, young people have been charged with very high personal expectations to conform to certain ideas of ‘success’. No doubt, then, it is a little short-sighted to criminalise the professional pursuits of youths as individual selfishness. Curiously enough, such moral tags seldom spare a thought about any lack of social consciousness in these professional pursuits, their implication in the widening social and economic gaps that pervade our society.
I also found it telling that the elderly gentleman thought young men (and not women) ‘selfish’ in that they leave their aging parents to grapple with loneliness and the insecurities of old-age. The patriarchal logic of men as breadwinners expects that men must not only provide for their families but also, in the Indian context, live with their parents, even after marriage. When other emergent cultural discourses—for instance, the need for the middle-class boast of success abroad—exert a contrary pull on these expectations, a crisis is created in those who have internalised these ideals and feel the need to measure up to them. Thus for many men, every day is a struggle not just to ‘make it big’ away from home, but also to reconcile their spatially removed ambitions with the felt need to care for their parents. Indeed, this whole issue of providing and caring for aging parents is deeply gendered. Men will earn the big bucks and, with their wives, look after their parents’ needs, preferably by living with them. But what of women’s parents? Of-course, they don’t need to be cared for at all. Since the day their daughters were born, they have ‘naturally’ resigned themselves to an aged life spent looking forward to occasional visits by married daughters, and perhaps even son-in-laws, if they are lucky.
In a globalizing world, the lives of an increasing number of people are migratory. Now, more than ever before, people are uprooted from their original social milieu with only a dim possibility of return. The anxiety of ‘homelessness’ has thus emerged as a troubling discontentment of modern life. Loneliness is, therefore, a weighty burden not only of aging parents but also of the long-distance runner. Added to this, are the emotional pressures of adapting ones modes of life to a changed context that may be hostile to them. The external mobility of modern life requires a corresponding mobility at the level of consciousness. This assumes great implications for questions of self-identity, ones that are never easy to negotiate. Does one let go of a style of being, a manner of speaking, because the new circumstance seems to be inimical to them, or does one fight to gain acceptance for them? The choice and the process are seldom easy.
Even as I reasoned these arguments intellectually, at a personal level, I found myself troubled by the contrary expectations of living close to and providing for my aging parents, and pursuing a fabulous career abroad. I carried these thoughts with me to Bombay and, finding myself unduly perplexed by them, called up a 72-year-old friend whom I had left behind in Kolkata. What can people in such situations do to make things better? After listening quietly to me, he told me what his dad used to say: ‘For your family sacrifice the self, for your neighbour sacrifice your family, for society your neighbour, for the country, society, for the world your country. And for your soul, sacrifice the world.’
I tried learning but made little progress; Cultural Studies has made previously easy concepts like ‘family’, ‘sacrifice’, ‘self’ and ‘selfishness’ seem fishy. But soon my mind wandered off... to the blue of the elderly gentleman’s shirt, the curvature of page numbers in the book in front of me, no winter in Bombay, classes, the next day… and for the time being, I forgot my worries.
Even before I could make peace with this sentiment, a garrulous co-passenger (a gentleman probably in his late sixties) initiated a boringly familiar conversation – what do I do; where am I from, where and what have I studied? I churned out the regular replies. Hearing that I had read English literature at Presidency College, he exclaimed, “So has my son! Of-course, he’s much older than you; he’s married now and lives in London.” His face glowed with filial pride. I asked the gentleman where he stayed. “I live in Kolkata. Alone. Am going to Mumbai for a short holiday.” His face fell, and suddenly, he seemed disinclined to continue the conversation. A few moments later, he suddenly said, “Don’t you think young men are rather selfish nowadays? Leaving their old parents alone while they build careers abroad?”
I nodded vaguely at the man and nestled down with a book. But rather than following the lines on the page open in front of me, I found myself reminded of a play that I had seen recently. Ajnatobas, produced by Nandikar—arguably the most celebrated theatre group in Calcutta these days—explores the issue of old-age in a middle-class Bengali ethos. It tells the story of a newly married couple whose otherwise regular life is suddenly interrupted by the advent of a strange old woman, who can’t remember where she has come from. The quiet dignity of this woman forbids them from turning her out of their house or calling the police. Even as they try to understand where she has come from, the conversation moves to questions about their parents, and why they choose to live in a nuclear family. The elderly woman’s suggestion that young people prefer physical space over emotional proximity, finds some resonance in the couple, particularly Payel, the wife, who has moved away from her marital home to support her husband’s (Soumik) search for a successful career. Unable to decide what to do, they let the woman stay over for the night. Miraculously, the next morning, her memory returns and she asks Soumik to take her back to her house. As Soumik reverses the car out of the narrow lane in which the woman lives, he realises that what she calls home is in fact a shelter for the elderly.
In the moral milieu of the play, the increasing exodus of youngsters to greener pastures, away from their hometowns is a direct fallout of the ‘selfish’ motives that drive these aspirations, ones which exclude the well-being of their ageing parents. Given the resounding applause that the performance received, this sentiment, I realised, is clearly endorsed by many.
As I reviewed the play in the light of the experiences which I have just described, I wondered if the issue could really be seen in such clear-cut moral terms. For instance, young people pursuing careers abroad can hardly be seen as an individual project. Rather it is an intrinsic part of the great middle-class dream which is shared as much by their parents as by them. In the average middle-class imagination, no success is quite as sweet as the one claimed in a foreign land. And that’s putting it mildly. In many cases, ‘foreign’ is a non-negotiable qualifier of success. Moreover, in the last couple of decades or so, there has been a rapid lengthening of the education period for the middle- and upper-classes of our society. This has, in part, been generated by more and more occupations requiring greater and more specialised educational preparation for admission into the upper echelons of professional life. Consequently, young people have been charged with very high personal expectations to conform to certain ideas of ‘success’. No doubt, then, it is a little short-sighted to criminalise the professional pursuits of youths as individual selfishness. Curiously enough, such moral tags seldom spare a thought about any lack of social consciousness in these professional pursuits, their implication in the widening social and economic gaps that pervade our society.
I also found it telling that the elderly gentleman thought young men (and not women) ‘selfish’ in that they leave their aging parents to grapple with loneliness and the insecurities of old-age. The patriarchal logic of men as breadwinners expects that men must not only provide for their families but also, in the Indian context, live with their parents, even after marriage. When other emergent cultural discourses—for instance, the need for the middle-class boast of success abroad—exert a contrary pull on these expectations, a crisis is created in those who have internalised these ideals and feel the need to measure up to them. Thus for many men, every day is a struggle not just to ‘make it big’ away from home, but also to reconcile their spatially removed ambitions with the felt need to care for their parents. Indeed, this whole issue of providing and caring for aging parents is deeply gendered. Men will earn the big bucks and, with their wives, look after their parents’ needs, preferably by living with them. But what of women’s parents? Of-course, they don’t need to be cared for at all. Since the day their daughters were born, they have ‘naturally’ resigned themselves to an aged life spent looking forward to occasional visits by married daughters, and perhaps even son-in-laws, if they are lucky.
In a globalizing world, the lives of an increasing number of people are migratory. Now, more than ever before, people are uprooted from their original social milieu with only a dim possibility of return. The anxiety of ‘homelessness’ has thus emerged as a troubling discontentment of modern life. Loneliness is, therefore, a weighty burden not only of aging parents but also of the long-distance runner. Added to this, are the emotional pressures of adapting ones modes of life to a changed context that may be hostile to them. The external mobility of modern life requires a corresponding mobility at the level of consciousness. This assumes great implications for questions of self-identity, ones that are never easy to negotiate. Does one let go of a style of being, a manner of speaking, because the new circumstance seems to be inimical to them, or does one fight to gain acceptance for them? The choice and the process are seldom easy.
Even as I reasoned these arguments intellectually, at a personal level, I found myself troubled by the contrary expectations of living close to and providing for my aging parents, and pursuing a fabulous career abroad. I carried these thoughts with me to Bombay and, finding myself unduly perplexed by them, called up a 72-year-old friend whom I had left behind in Kolkata. What can people in such situations do to make things better? After listening quietly to me, he told me what his dad used to say: ‘For your family sacrifice the self, for your neighbour sacrifice your family, for society your neighbour, for the country, society, for the world your country. And for your soul, sacrifice the world.’
I tried learning but made little progress; Cultural Studies has made previously easy concepts like ‘family’, ‘sacrifice’, ‘self’ and ‘selfishness’ seem fishy. But soon my mind wandered off... to the blue of the elderly gentleman’s shirt, the curvature of page numbers in the book in front of me, no winter in Bombay, classes, the next day… and for the time being, I forgot my worries.
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1. Posted on 21.May.10 From: siddhartha banerjee
an amazing piece of work and the work has been masterfully written to bring out many underlying values and emotions
2. Posted on 20.May.10 From: lynne
This is a really moving piece.Soulful writing.And the context is all too familiar :-) :-( And it resonates at several levels, in terms of so many relationships and contexts.
And i couldnt agree with Erica more about the nature of this schizophrenic society...
3. Posted on 20.May.10 From: Erica Taraprevala
very true and well articulated.... we are a schizophrenic society, and as individuals dont stop to think about the multiple and conflicting pulls that and pushes that create situations like the one described in your article. Youngsters are only part of the story.