Dear Jasmine #1

"If you’re not able to be unkind to a flower, how can you do it to yourself?"

Artwork by Manimanjari Sengupta

Question #1

It’s always a question about love? Isn’t it? This one is not different. I spend my weekends sitting with a therapist imagining that she thought she’s helping heal a wise philosopher. I don’t know if I’m that wise, in reality. 

I’ve grown up in a home that was as beautiful as it was scary to be a part of. Like a movie. My father hit me, told me that I looked retarded (as if mental faculties reflect a person’s beauty), and that I was the source of all unhappiness in that home. He has graduated to saying that I should die these days. Somehow, somewhere I quietly try to saw off the bond between us, like a prisoner making headway with her escape plans. I don’t speak of my mother, she’s so strong and weak at the same time. 

The struggle is to not believe my father’s words deep down. I’m afraid of becoming like him, even becoming strong and weak at the same time. But this question is about love. How do I not scare away someone with my past? What if I fail to treat them as they deserve? Will I be able to accept the love if it is reciprocated? What if my anger never heals? What if I am an ugly person? How and when do I tell someone about my past? I dare not ask my therapist. These are just thoughts that don’t hold a physical nature. My only consolation.

— Ru from Nowhere 

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Answer #1: The Violence in Our Words

Dear Ru from Nowhere,

Yes, it is always a question about love. If I let you peek into the ‘Dear Jasmine’ inbox, you will see that you are absolutely right. It is about love. It is what has ‘Cornball' asking me if she should hold on to or give up on someone. It is what keeps ‘Bluebeing’ wondering how can someone who loved her forget about it “in the snap of a finger”? It is what 'Stuck in Gurgaon’ is wrestling with and asking me if something is wrong with her to still love someone who is not a part of her life anymore. Incidentally ‘Crushed in Calcutta is also asking me the same question as ‘Stuck in Gurgaon’ but in a different context. It is what makes ‘In Love In India’ ask how he can trust in the unknown and commit to a long-distance relationship with a girl who makes him feel all warm and toasty. How could it not be about love, Ru from Nowhere? It is what keeps us all going in the furnace of this world. Love is us reaching for the promised heaven of happiness. People always say the most wonderful things about being in love and being loved until they don’t, and once again they do. Love is a circle and not a straight line as we have been made to believe. It is the circle that encompasses all of us. So yes, it always is about love. 

I am sorry your father hit you, was insensitive to the features he has passed down to you and has verbalised his untamed anger by saying that you should die. He owes you an honest, heart-to-God apology, maybe more than one. I can’t predict if he ever will, so I apologise to you and I am deeply sorry this is a burden you have to carry with you every single day. You should not have to do this. Our deeply entrenched patriarchy has forced girls and women to bear the weight of the unresolved trauma of men. Girl after girl, woman after woman has to make concessions in her space and life so that a man who wasn’t allowed to explore his emotions fully can express his anger openly. For centuries, boys have been denied the social acceptance to be comfortable with the spectrum of human emotions such that they grow up to be men who can fluently speak the language of non-verbal, verbal, and physical violence. Think about it, isn’t it sad that men get to express themselves only in two or three acceptable ways while women can express their feelings in myriad ways in exchange for the label of being ‘dramatic’. Who is luckier in this department, you think? For decades, desi daughters have become the vessels that have to carry the violence of desi fathers. You, Ru from Nowhere, are one of a tribe and I want you to know that you’re not alone. However, that doesn’t make it better, does it? So let’s talk about what does.

You don’t say whether you live with your parents or not and you don’t mention explicitly your mother’s role in this family situation. So, I will make some assumptions and please forgive me if I have made the wrong ones. You do mention that you are seeing a therapist, which tells me that either you have a job or you’re able to sustain yourself financially in some way. This is always a great sign because money, as evil as it can be, is a powerful tool. Every woman should have money in her arsenal. Should I also assume that somehow your mother is also at the receiving end of your father’s rage? Is that why you call her “strong and weak at the same time”? I want to apologise to her as well. She must have had a long, hard, and beautiful life. No one probably ever apologised to her for the deeply unequal world she had to inhabit. Hug her for me, will you? She deserves that her daughter and all the desi daughters will try to do what women before us started out to do — build beautiful homes for themselves which are full of love, grow flowers in re-usable containers, put a bottle of kindness on the night-stand, and cook one’s favourite traditional recipe, simmering on the stove to the sound of her own joy filling up the space. 

While we aspire to this ideal, let’s talk about some tactical things you can do in the situation you’ve described and the points I have assumed. When we started out this column, one thing I had decided was we will be unable to bear witness to our community (read: you) if we don’t keep in mind the societal factors that influence our lives. So, what I’m about to say comes from that understanding Ru from Nowhere. I am shooting in the dark but I am also not. I’m sure you must have considered moving out of your house if you have the financial and social prowess to do so. I don’t kid myself by thinking I have been the first person to think of this. I say this because I also have ‘I Don’t Care’ in my inbox who wants to move out of her “toxic family” because her father is extremely protective of her, but she’s unable to do so at the moment. ‘A Tired Pandemic Student’ is also considering moving out but she is on tenterhooks about talking to her “controlling parents” about it. For daughters to move out of desi homes, a lot of things have to check out. You have to have the courage and defiance to stand your ground in front of your family or they have to be progressive. You have to have the financial means to support it or you must come from wealth. You have to navigate the single-woman-living-alone tag, which is bearable, I might add, but still exists from people who are not your family but are society’s self-appointed guardians. You have to show you’re safe on your own, and this is something you have no control over because the world is not safe for women. If you’re able to check these boxes and move out, Ru from Nowhere, it would do you a world of good. It will allow you space to navigate your rage and disappointment. It will give you an environment to heal away from where the bruises are suffered. If you’re not, then you have to do what is hard but necessary — speak a language at home that is usually foreign but much needed. Speak the language of setting boundaries, of intolerance to violence of any kind, and of kindness. Mix defiance and boundary building in the right proportion, add a bit of kindness to it, and say the golden word ‘No’. 

No, you will not insult me as a person.

No, you will not talk to me like that.

No, you will not criticise my appearance. 

No, you will not treat me as less of a human. 

No, you will not hit me. 

No, you will not harm our family.

No! Apologise to me. 

‘No' usually stuns people in their tracks. Most people, even our mothers and friends and partners don’t understand this simple word. No. Your father might even tell you: I will, so what are you going to do about it?

What are you going to do about the defiance to your defiance, Ru from Nowhere? You’re simply going to say, ‘No’. Firm, unwavering, and kind. 

Teach your father how to interact with you and how not to interact with you. Initially, it will be hard and could get ugly. But if that beautiful home you also mentioned in your letter is anything to go by, there seems to be an idea that it was built by reasonable people. Just the way you have come to believe things about you that your father has said to you, get him to believe the things you say about him. Not that he’s unkind and has an evil tongue when he can’t help it. But that he is capable of change, capable of heeding to the boundary his daughter has set for him, and capable of un-learning the notions he has about being the patriarch of your home. Maybe, in this process, your mother will also find refuge in you, she will learn from you the vocabulary that she never had, and it may ease her heart a little. I can’t say for sure, but if anyone apart from you also needs an ally in your family, it is her. If none of this works, then you’ll have to set harsher boundaries and fully saw off the relationship, as you said. Why do we need to consider that outcome just yet? 

I know this is a lot of emotional work. It sounds exhausting, no? Especially since we are all tired as a generation with everything that has already happened to us. But it is also brave. It is also our only hope — to show courage when we cannot. Meanwhile, forget every single negative thing your father has said to you. I am giving it to you in writing — they are all false. I am 100% sure of this, deep-down in my own bones I know that whatever mean thing he has said to you is a lie. Do not attach your self-worth to your father’s opinion of you. Too many women do that, they carry this phantom opinion into their romantic relationships, and they live their lives trying to shake away what their fathers (or mothers) thought of them. Aren’t you scared of it, too? Isn’t why this is a question about love? But what is love if not a reflection of who we are and how we pour ourselves into our relationships? Love is not outside of us, it is what we create.

It doesn’t matter what your parents think of you. (Unless, of course, you’re a power-hungry, egomaniac in a position of power oppressing others, then yes, it matters.) I know they are the ones closest to us biologically, but it only matters what one person thinks of you. That person is you. There’s a reason it is called self-worth. Only your ‘self’ can weigh your worth. You, Ru from Nowhere, are a beautiful woman. You have the capacity to see your family’s beauty and its turmoil and accept these two opposite truths simultaneously. You have shown the highest form of self-care by seeking to heal your mental health by a professional. You have survived the meanness of your father’s words and have already chosen to not be like him. You have actively decided that despite all of this you will not give any darkness inside you to the person you will love. Tell me, how can you not admire a woman as level-headed and tender as that? 

I will be direct with you, Ru from Nowhere, to all the questions you have asked:

Ru from Nowhere: How do I not scare away someone with my past?

Jasmine: The person who will love you for you, will not be afraid of the shadows you carry.

Ru from Nowhere: What if I fail to treat them as they deserve?

Jasmine: You won’t fail. If you do, you will get up and try again. 

Ru from Nowhere: Will I be able to accept the love if it is reciprocated?

Jasmine: Yes, you will be able to. It will enchant your life.  

Ru from Nowhere: What if my anger never heals?

Jasmine: Your anger will heal. You will heal. Your life will heal.  

Ru from Nowhere: What if I am an ugly person?

Jasmine: You are not. 

Ru from Nowhere: How and when do I tell someone about my past?

Jasmine: When you feel safe with them, the words will come. 

Here’s what I want you to do: Look up the seasonal local plants in your area of Nowhere and go buy some flowering seeds. Google how to grow them, and plant them appropriately. Then, tend to this seed and grow a sapling, and then, grow a flower. This is extremely hard in practice than it is in writing. You will probably fail a few times and it will exasperate you if you’ve not done this before, but keep at it. If it doesn’t work, buy a flowering plant from a nursery in Nowhere. Heck, do both things who is to stop you? Give the flower a name. Call it Neelam or Shabbo or Josie. Whatever you like. Every time you feel you’re an ugly person, go to the flower and say to it whatever negative words you say to yourself. It’s ridiculous, I know, but what’s the point of being alive if we are not ridiculous now and then? Every time you find your father’s negative words in your head, or your own negative commentary inspired by his unsatisfactory parenting, go to the flower and say it aloud to the flower. Say to Neelam or Shabbo or Josie that she’s ugly, she’s not worthy of love, or that she should die. Chances are you won’t be able to keep doing this to the flower. But I encourage you to try it so you can know the own depths of your darkness (we all have it in us). Chances are that you will come to love Neelam or Shabbo or Josie and you will want to protect her. Chances are that you will worry about her being okay and want the best (manure) for it. Chances are you will want a butterfly to visit her and love her just like you do. 

Then, ask yourself, if you’re not able to be unkind to a flower, how can you do it to yourself, Ru from Nowhere? How can you not love yourself?

Yours,
Jasmine

P.S. This is a fortnightly column by an anonymous writer. If any of you want to send in questions, please send them to Jasmine here.

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About the artist:

Manimanjari Sengupta is a Kolkata-based self taught artist who took to art in her twenties to make sense of her own identity and sexuality. She abandoned a career in law and chose writing and painting as her primary means of expression. Through her work she seeks to raise questions around female desire and sexuality, women’s participation in public spaces, women’s relationship to their own bodies, and how our perception of ourselves is coloured by internalised patriarchy. She works as an Illustrator with Indian Express online by day, and focuses on exploring feminist ways of being and seeing in her independent art practice on her own time.