When Kautook is (Not) Warranted.

            I was eight or nine years old when a poem of mine won a prize in an ‘Aunty Wendy’s’ competition in the Illustrated Weekly of India, a defunct magazine. I pointed out my name amongst the winners to my family. Reaction from aunts and others: ‘good, good, have you finished your homework/ had your lunch/ washed your hands?’ In families like ours, praise and compliments, like sugar and oil, were (still are, amongst health-conscious cousins) rationed.

If someone amongst us did exceptionally well (how rare that was) at academics, the news was drily passed on to neighbours and relatives whose response (“Aanand zhaala” or “abhinandan”) was equally brief and momentary. That was my environment. Since I didn’t fall amongst the praiseworthy few, I’m saying this from recall of my observations. If some child did well, in kabbadi or singing or doing cartwheels, anything extra-curricular, nice words were even more scarce.

If someone called a child clever or even gave a mild ‘shabash’ to a juvenile within our home, a vigilant elder sibling would promptly, publicly disclose a couple of embarrassing traits to tether the child’s ego down to terra firma. This trait spilled over to school. Our teachers complimented only the brightest. Duffers and dunderheads were told ‘(your) parents aren’t paying fees for (you) to warm (your) seats’. Straight talk was in.

Praise, like the rod, was used, but sparingly.

The only indication that the adults were pleased about something was that some favourite food was cooked: like fried white-pomfret slices in my case.

Families like mine encouraged not with words. They paid fees, they walked or bussed you to examination venues, stayed up nights when you had to complete projects, sacrificed goodies if cash was needed for the same aforesaid project, chewed their nails to their knuckles on result days.

When I first began to write, two decades before computers saved shelf space, I asked Sri Husband for a ‘scrap’-book to paste and store my precious cuttings in. Coming from an equally ‘kautook-kanjoos’ clan, his reaction was: ‘Just because some magazine couldn’t find anyone else’s stories to publish, you want a scrap-book for the stuff printed with your name in it? One big envelope, that’s all you’ll get.’

But quietly, the scrapbooks were bought.

He dug into his meagre savings to buy me a camera. And any book I needed. Encouragement came, but not through words.

Since we were brought up to down the positives, in adulthood, I and others of my ilk find it difficult to utter a simple ‘thank you’ when complimented. The response to ‘nice shoes’ or ‘pretty purse’ is “it’s nothing”. Even when congratulated for getting a job, some people I know say: ‘It’s nothing.’ The meaningless utterance is because of conditioning, quite an Indian trait.

If someone is asked before an exam whether s/he is prepared for it, the usual reply is: “not really” or “hope so”. A confident ‘yes’ is seldom blurted out.

If one is asked how one has fared after an exam, if one has done well, one says: ‘ok’. If you say you’ve done brilliantly and expect to score very high marks, you will invite strange looks. Even marketing professionals of the old school, who were capable of selling sand in Rajasthan, were shy of circulating their own biodata. Self-praise was whispered to friends. It was friends who blew the trumpet.

Once, for an NRI relative, I cooked something that he liked. He said it was good and I said: ‘Am glad you liked it. It doesn’t always turn out this way. Next time it might not be like this.’ Or words to that effect. He asked me whether I wanted to say that I was usually better, that this time wasn’t good enough, or whether it was an accident that it had turned out well and that usually my dishes didn’t turn out well. I had no answer. I had parroted something that most of us say -- ‘I’m not that good’ -- even when we are feeling good from inside.

The exception to this rule of ‘kautook’-hold-back seems to be in the arranged-marriage arena where the scene is the opposite: one has to invent, highlight and project all the good points of the girl/ boy to be ‘shown’ and hide the negatives. The ‘candidate’ is fairer, better at work, has fantastic prospects, and is more talented than competitors. Am beginning to wonder whether marriage, therefore, is the only arena where ‘kautook’ plays a bigger role than merit.

Feedback: sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in