what this space means to me.

I was dying into silence when a friend of mine (when I called) inspired me to write this by commenting on the boring content in this space. What can this space mean? This is not a gathering of people who have same ideas and backgrounds. When they start speaking there ought to be a common platform. And at this stage it is not there and I believe this is the right way to start with. I wrote my ideas without caring for the feelings of people involved and am silent now because I need to know what ought to be discussed here by observing the current. Once Prasad also asked at the end of his write up whether those things are to be talked about in this space. We don't know. This is a prior stage of this blog where the speakers and readers form and give form to this. So how can we speak of that?

OK-- this gives me a chance to put forward this idea which might have been there in many minds but didn't came here. So the silent members, if they are silent just because of this lack of clarity about platform can occupy the space.

Another thing is that I didn't fear this space is dying out. Because this is where the casualities meet, excuse me for this expression. But for people who have selected their own path and have not got any guide in any form, parenting is a similar experience. I would try to explain it further. There are people who became parents accidentally. There are people who wanted to be parents but realised after that this period is more complicated than what they imagined. There are people who knew it is going to make life different and yet wanted to take up that difference not knowing whether it will be positive or negative. There are people who thought it's going to be very very tough and it really didn't trun out to be so and hence wonder what it was that the past generation used to say:

I have heard my mother saying many times that she wanted "traditional" kind of children, that she could never love her children, that she has sacrificed her life, she has lived for them-- so many contradictory statements which really made me curious. Earlier I used to mix up things and would think she is loveless, she is wrong. Once I listened to her conversation with my friend (who is elder to me and younger to her and hence shares both sides). That friend told her she could never love her children because she herself was a victim of her own mothers sentiments and wanted her to marry and have children when she herself wanted to do a Ph.d. But I knew she is loving and I have seen her caring so much about her children. I heard my mother saying she had the same phase.

I have heard Sudeep's mother saying Sudeep and Subid are like heartbeats to her. And I have witnessed the kind of cruel sentimental blackmailing she does to them and to those who are part of their lives. There were so many complicated and contradictory statements from these mother figures that I really wanted to explore this thing called parenthood. And I know my exprience of being a mother does not in itself give me any insight to the situation. My friend whom I called today to hear the abovesaid comment about blog also said that he doesn't want to be in such a pathetic condition by begetting children. I want to ask him how is this becoming any less than being an activist in a world knowing this is not going to change the whole world and is not going to bring things into an order.

These are all explorations and we are not in any ideal state whether we are parents or not. I myself prefered parenting to doing Ph.D in IITB. And hence had experienced a strange pleasure while moving around the campus with my huge belly, resigning my post as a Ph.D student. I really wanted to scream at certain period and tell the academic world, "look, if there is going to be any lack for the world of an academic work, the academic stucture itself is responsible for that, and here's another way of living and learning.." So many such statements came to my mind before I reached another academic space again thinking of doing research and balancing my motherhood and research experiences. I would talk of it in another post since this has become long.