What Sixties!
The pic attached to this post, popped up in my news feed, and I thought it’s time I used it. I have been reading and seeing in movies versions and facets of these, and marveled at the same. Sixties! Seventies! A revolutionary time in many places around the world. And what was I doing? I was a child in the sixties, a tween and teen in the seventies, into the eighties. Hadn't heard anything about any of these, let alone do anything remotely close to any of it. Got raked with the eyes of angry, judgmental nuns, got disciplined by mom, and other relatives, still managed to giggle with friends. That's all. Even though we lived in a small town in God's own country,, now I know it could very well have been the hicks. It was not Mumbai or Calcutta , not even Kochi. Back then, I may have seen an odd hippie sauntering through our parts, but even that is rare. It could have been a pic in a magazine that I saw, or a caricature in one of our movies. The other hippie I knew of was Appi Hippie in Bobanum Moliyum. Anyway, if I saw one, I dont remmeber what my thoughts were. Someone from another planet? Jesus Christ in disguise? A travelling monk or saadhu? A beggar? Maybe for my friends and I all foreigners were hippies?
At some point, maybe in college, they symbolized freedom, although nothing I could aspire to, in my wildest dreams, being a good girl among all the other good girls in a "respectable" part of the planet. After coming to the US, I heard talk about the wild sixties, and how people lived an extreme sort of life, with many falling into addictions of all kinds, and some not surviving the times. While others reformed and lead normal lives.
Now that post and the way those experiences have been described, is the upbeat version. Now let us look at one of the other sides of that. An example would be the story of the boy in the book I am reading right now. (Yes -- now you are in for it. I need to tell stories, sometimes mine, sometimes others' )
Child of a drug addict, alcoholic mother, who had him when she was sixteen. The boy's father died before he was born. His mother gets a new boyfriend. Soon the boy is introduced to the foster parent system You know where this is going. The name of the book is Demon Copperhead, if any of you want to read it. O liver Twist seems to be nestling in the lap of luxury compared to this liitle guy. For someone like me, from another country, another culture, one could get an education in the foster system, social workers. All created in the best interests of the families and chikdren, but often flawed in its implementation, ended io hurting who it set about protecting in the first place. Even though broken families were not as prevalent or public, as here, where I come from, it doesn't mean everyone was deliriously happy all the time, or that no parent messed up their child. And it is not that we do not have our own addicts and abusers, the only fact being the way such matters were dealt with. And that was mainly by containing it all within the walls of one's own home, cloaked in respectability. Mostly we are adepts at sweeping unsavory things under the rug, by just not talking about them, let alone showing. Extreme cases were subject to ridicule, punishment, pity etc and of course handled by religious institutions. (Social media is bursting some of those bubbles now, I know.)
That is why certain parts of the movie, Slumdog Millionaire was a shock to me , and a matter of embarrassment. It was so far removed from my own little corner. I kept thinking, Why? why show it? they will think all of India is like this! I know, what does it matter! Obviously, It is India too, and there are people in my part of world too who could identify with that kid from the slum. I understand . Coincidentally, there is a character in this book, an Indian untouchable, who grew up in a slum, and naturally, this white American "hillbilly" boy can identify with him.
And even though the book at times, reads like a case study or case work from the files of a social worker, I still find myself rooting for the guy. wanting to know and caring about what happens to young Damon. The old magic of words, strung like pearls on a gold wire, flowing like a babbling brook, raging like the ocean, telling stories, connecting cultures. That luminous net of imagination. I am ready to fall into it again. Surrender my disbelief for greater rewards - most importantly, of awareness.
Bonus, for sure, I can identify with this young person, on a human level, but more than that, in one aspect of his character__ the wanting more. Which as we all know, can lead to great happiness and its great opposite. This is a story, but there is no doubt that it is based on reality. By the way, I am not surprised at why not many in this country, and these days, even in my old country, will find it easy to relate to my stories. My books will remain unread!
