A child for our times

Julia Roberts, the famous Hollywood actress with the million-dollar smile, had a twin wish. And in November 2004, God, with a little help from men in white coats, answered her prayer. It is rumoured that Ms Roberts decided that she wanted a boy and a girl when she went in for the in vitro fertilization and became a first-time mom at age 38. Phinnaeus Walter Moder and Hazel Patricia Moder are the living proofs of a wish fulfillment. Other couples, albeit less famous, too are making a pilgrimage to the Mecca in the US for having a child of their preferred sex. (Indian couples, more likely than not, would be wanting a male). Can ‘designer babies’ be far? From that particular shade of eye colour to the blondness of hair to the sex of the baby, with bagsful of money on this end, the rainbow is available at the other.

Parents don’t just want the best for their child but they want the best child that they could get, ethics apart.

In India, this quest is taking a route to the ancient roots. People are ‘rediscovering’ and ‘relearning’ about garbha sanskar. The age-old tradition of ‘garbha sanskar’ is finding new converts, among them doctors and would-be-parents. Many Indian doctors and organisations are digging out dusty Ayurveda tomes and offering designer babies through garbah sanskar. What’s more, this is a prescription without intrusive medical intervention.

Sanskar is a word that is as old as the Indian civilization itself, a complex term meaning good and moral values, manners and etiquettes all rolled into one, imparted by the parents, the elders. Simply put then, garbha sanskar, one of the sanskars, is the pre-natal training of the foetus in the womb via interaction. Its practitioners explain it is the conditioning of the unborn child’s brain with positive energy and educational inputs to which it is extremely receptive.

But the big question: Can a baby really learn when it is yet to be born? Is this an old wives’ tale or science fiction? Skeptics would call it unscientific and a fad. But revolutionary research in biology in the West now has irrefutable proof, which supports garbha sanskar and it may yet get the ‘found true in US’ (or the West) tag!

For believers like Dr Mangala Ghisad, a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist in Nagpur, whether you name it modern science or ancient knowledge, it is kosher.

The tall doctor with a reassuring voice says, “It is one of our sanskars that we ought to impart to our kids. Period.” Her passion is obvious from the fact that she counsels all her mothers-to-be and also holds free training classes at her clinic.

“I was convinced about it three or four years ago at a camp organized by Manashakti in Lonavla, the hill station near Mumbai. In our rush-hour lifestyle, we’ve lost the importance of living in the moment. And the worst affected are our kids who are exposed to too much of violence, stress and competition. They suffer from its physical and psychological effects.”

“Garbha sanskar shows the parents’ decision to do things differently. Better bonding, health and IQ are bonuses. I decided to experiment at my clinic in Nagpur and do my bit for the society”, she states.

Interestingly, the ancient Indian science of Ayurveda, which is an important medical practice in the country, explicitly elaborates the process of garbha sanskar. As Dr S L Khalale, a senior Ayurveda practitioner and professor at an Ayurvedic college at Nagpur, informs us: “Ayurveda describes the overall management of pregnancy under Garbhini Vyakaran, which includes rules concerning diet, mental and physical activities, behavioural norms (in common parlance ahar, vihar, achar and vichar) and instructions for the parents on reading material, subjects of discussion, music and mantras, meditation, autosuggestion, self-hypnosis, and visualization.”

“You would be astonished at the holistic nature of Ayurveda for establishing a dialogue with the foetus,” says Dr Khalale, who has spent good amount of time studying the literature available. He is known for his diagnostic skills, and is a master at formulation of Ayurvedic medicine.

Though there is no comprehensive data available on the garbha-sanskar users, doctors and experts confirm the increasing numbers, though all do not follow it in its entirety. The interest it is generating among the would-be mothers and fathers is spreading mainly in the cities.

So what does garbha sanskar actually entail? An activity concerned with onerous task of molding a child, so that he/she becomes not only healthy and brilliant but also a conscientious citizen, the process itself is cost effective and relatively simple.

Purists say the process of garbha sanskar starts much before conception. It should begin with the wish and loving thoughts of having a child. ‘Pregnancy should be by choice and not by chance,’ extols Ayurveda’s supraja janan theory, literally meaning birth of a good citizen.

In short pregnancy should be planned. For, even the thoughts of the parents, especially the mother, it is believed, are potent in shaping the progeny. The literature available on the subject says that the couple should undergo what is described as a cleansing period for approximately three months. It calls for an abstinence from non-vegetarian and spicy food and alcoholic beverages, this – as steps towards making the parents’ body and mind healthier leading to healthy gametes. Yoga and being in good company (satsang), of people or music, too is highly recommended. Once the baby is conceived, mother’s diet and exercise are stressed upon, apart from the ambience around her. Listening to good music, reading good books but avoiding things related to violence and harshness is advised.

Explains a sprightly seventy-five year old grandma of two, Kusum Ghodhe, “In our time the pregnant women were given certain do and don’t and we followed them. They were usually linked with God. We were not aware that it was part of garbha sanskar. Obviously there was a science behind these things. The younger generation pooh-poohs all this as ritualistic,” she laments. “But rituals too have certain reasons. Reasons of ancient wisdom, which modern science is able to prove only now.”

Scientists and experts recommend music therapy, the more known part of garbha sankar, after the fourth month when the baby develops its ears and sensory capacities. Talking to the baby in the womb is also highly recommended. Music is believed to calm the baby as well as help in spatial and motor development.

The former Vice Chancellor of the Mumbai University and an award-winning paediatric surgeon, Dr Snehalata Deshmukh, prescribes a daily dose of music to the pregnant women coming to her for consultations, besides diet and exercises. Dr Deshmukh one of the few obstetricians who recommend music therapy does not claim any medical breakthroughs. “I am just rediscovering old concepts,” she insists. “I read about it in the samhitas (text of the Vedas) written by Wagbhat—an 18th century research scholar—and decided to research it myself,” said Dr Deshmukh. In the seven years of her research—she has counseled more than 350 mothers—Dr Deshmukh found that two Indian classical music ragas, Yaman and Kedar, are most favoured by the unborn babies.

“We have evidence that the child responds positively to classical music, especially instrumental music such as the santoor and sitar. It has been observed that children whose mothers listened to music when they were pregnant not jut recognised the music but also mellowed whenever it was played to them,” says Dr Deshmukh.

This is in keeping with international findings.

A programme by the BBC titled ‘Child of Our Time’ is studying 20 millennium babies for 20 years to find whether we are born or made. In its sixth year, it has found incredible results that show that the baby learns a lot in the womb and the environment plays an important role in its learning. Dr Alexandra Lamont, a researcher, a musician and a lecturer in the Psychology of Music at Keele University, who worked with these millennium babies, concluded that most of the babies in the experiment subconsciously remembered things they were only exposed to in the womb - or during their first year of life. And these forgotten childhood experiences can have a tangible, physical effect decades later.

No discussion on garbha sanskar can be complete without Abhimanyu. He is believed to be the most illustrious and ancient mention of garbha sanskar or its effectiveness.

As the lore goes, on the 13th day of the great battle of Mahabharata, Abhimanyu entered the chakravyuh, fought valiantly and unable to get out of the strategic arrangement of the enemy warriors, was killed. But the question was why could he not come out and more importantly how did he enter the chakravyuh, when it was common knowledge, as the tale goes, that only Arjuna and Krishna were proficient in the art chakravyuh?

According to the epic of Mahabharata, Abhimanyu’s uncle Krishna had narrated the technique of chakravyuh to Subhadra, his sister while she was carrying Abhimanyu. However she fell asleep when he came to the part of exiting the chakravyuh. That is how a 16-year-old Abhimanyu became immortal and poster boy for garbha sanskar.

Confessions of a telly addict

Empty vessels make noise. That may be so but they also wield the remote control. After wielding the remote, I confess I have become a TV junkie, a telly addict. I have tried remaining sober but when you put a reformed alcoholic into a bar, he is bound to go back to the bottle. So having been house bound and home alone for many a month after recurring health problems, I’ve taken to the bottle like fish to water. Oops! I mean to the Television set. Looking around, I find that I am not alone. Now I can safely say that Marconi’s (the TV inventor who died ignomously) brood will always have one permanent member: me.
Every morning when I get up, my hands itch to reach the remote. I resist the temptation. Just. Even a chair-warmer, idler has certain daily chores that cannot be ignored. But at the earliest, my TV set is on. Each day there are times, which cannot be missed. Just like a devout who cannot miss his prayer times, these serials cannot be missed. To do this, schedules have to be cleverly manoeuvred. If I have to go out I ensure that I return home in time for my serial. As soon as the lock is opened I go straight to the TV. I often try to manipulate visits by relative and guests. Unscheduled drop-ins are really a pain. If I can hustle them off so as to get back to my precious programmes, it is indeed a triumph for the inveterate telly watcher.
I so love the ‘idiot box’, as some would say derisively, that I often keep surfing even if there is hardly anything worth watching. (Which is often. But then I am not a fair weather fan, am I?). 1, 2, 3, 4….56, 57 and back. Those are the channels. This much practice out doors would have surely put me in the leagues of Rathore at the recent Olympics. All I need to fear now is a tennis wrist like Sachin’s tennis elbow.
There is always some fare dished out by all those creative people in the Television industry. Animal Planet, National Geographic, Discovery, some news channels are even improving my IQ for a measly Rs 200 per month. Of course even I, a confessed addict, would not stoop so low as to watch the ‘Saas-Bahu’ serials or the ‘K’ serials. But it is a losing battle. Between prime time slots on all major channels and a whole re-run channel dedicated to Madame Ekta, you hardly have a choice. So in that respect I am very, very picky. After all one addicted to McDowell’s will take a glass of ‘tharra’ only on the sly or if you run out of money as a result of your devotion to your addiction. .
So what does future hold for me, and others like me after continued and consistent substance abuse, you might muse. Will I face wasting of my body, mind, and soul? Will I become a recluse, social outcast or worse still a danger to society and myself? Well some channels (yes TV channels) inform me that my brain cells are being damaged; my body is losing muscle power and predisposing me for spinal problems and obesity. In kids of tender ages it is making them more restless and decreasing their powers of memory. On the social front, it is making kids and adults more prone to violence, lowering tolerance and increasing consumerism.
I do have the option of starting a support group for recovering addicts or even a club for TV lovers. Which one, I am undecided but now it is time for me to go check the 9 pm programmes: ‘Astitva’ till the re-run of the ‘Sex and the City’ in about two hours.

End of a wedding-dream

At 31, Ganga, a dirt-poor, farmer’s daughter is looking at spinsterhood for life. This slim, dusky girl in pigtails from a nondescript village in central India region of Vidarbha is the unlikely victim of a phenomenon that she scarcely understands. Ganga, a lower-caste Dalit, never aspired to much, but marriage was a thing she took for granted. Inevitably though, she has become a piece of the tragedy unfolding in the countryside and her small dream of marriage lies shattered. Her sacrifice of marital bliss now seems small when others are staring at death and a fate worse than death.

In villages like Ashti, where Ganga lives, girls are married by 20-22 years of age. While her father, Shyamrao Khatale was alive, Ganga thought it was just a matter of time and waited patiently for her turn as her two elder sisters were married off. But all that changed, when her father died in October 2005. He had been sick for a long time, and with no money for medicines, he simply passed away, lying in the small, three-room, mud hut with a low thatched roof.

“My father married off both my sisters. That was no small feat since he had to take more loans. He had previous unpaid loans for farming.” In the face of repeated crop failures, the only means of income, loans had become a way of life. He tilled cotton on four acres of un-irrigated land. And like most in his area, he had sown Bt cottonseeds, the genetically modified variety, in the hope of bumper produce and less pest menace. But these inputs were costlier and he needed a loan to tide over the expenses. The loans from private moneylenders were not cheap at 60-120 per cent interest rate. With the banks and cooperative bodies turning their backs on the farmers, the rural credit system in these parts collapsed a decade ago. Loan sharks flourished, extracting their pound of flesh.

The expensive seed inputs from big companies failed to deliver on promises of high yield and pest resistance. Other times the seeds sold in an unregulated market were spurious and the crop was a dud. Periods of inclement weather threatened to tip the scale. Caught in the web, the noose was further tightened with the slashing of the prices by the government in the face of freely imported cotton.

“This is not just our story. It is now happening all over the village and even the entire region,” explains Ganga in a small voice. The situation is worse than Ganga could ever imagine, with at least one suicide every 24 hours. Now widows too are taking the death route. How bleak the situation really is, is brought home by the fact that daughters, in the wistful hope of sparing their beleaguered fathers the dowry burden, are thinking of extreme measures. Two young girls in different villages have already ended their lives, both alluding to family tensions over marriage in their suicide notes. Death seemed to offer the only solution.

“I don’t know what I should do. My mother is old and insane with grief. My younger brother, Prabhakar committed suicide last year in debt and distress. My two elder brothers have their families to run which they can hardly manage since they too have lost their mental health.”

The situation is desperate, but it is evident and very courageous that Ganga wants to make it work and not give up. Yet. “Of course I would like to be married to a nice boy and have a small family. Who doesn’t?” she says with a fleeting twinkle. “But at this moment my family needs me more. I have to help my mother and shoulder responsibilities.”

With her eyes bright with unshed tears, she says: “I saw my father’s daily struggle. He tried everything but failed. He was a proud man, he did not like owing money nor that they (the moneylenders) had started visiting us almost everyday for repayment. It was too much to bear.”

“She wishes that she had an education. Then she could have had a job in the city and taken all of us with her,” murmurs her sister-in-law from the corner.

“Yes”, concurs Ganga, “if I had a job then maybe I could have helped pay all the loans.” Explains her brother Prahlad, “We have relatives and neighbours who want to help us but simply can’t. They too do not have any money to spare.”

“We did get some compensation money from the government after my brother committed suicide. The cash part of it was soon gone to the creditors. We get Rs 450 per month on which we make do. Rules won’t allow us to touch the fixed deposit of Rs 70,000.” What would she do if she got that money? Thinking for a few moments, Ganga is bewildered and says, “ I don’t know.” Her face mirrors the conflict. Having lived on so little for so long, so much money is overwhelming. On the other hand, in face of so many needs and the ever present shadow of moneylenders, the money is dismally little.

Ganga has reconciled herself to the fact of being a spinster and accepted that she would continue farming. She sighs as she realizes she and her family have but one option: work the soil in the hope that coming crops would be good enough to repay all the loans. But her task seems as hopeless now as it seemed to her father and brother, for nothing has changed. Ganga and her family may work hard but how can she succeed when the thing called ‘The Market’ and its working is beyond her control? Things were taken out of her hands since the time a clutch of nations decided that the developing world needed ‘liberalisation.’ So when India and countries like her started progressively to toe the lines of World Trade Organisation and the World Bank, Ganga and her father were put on a road to doom, according to farmers’ leader and agriculture analyst Vijay Jawandhia.

Import duty on cotton was reduced to a mere 10% - and may be reduced further, says Jawandhia. So output prices for cotton farmers, like Ganga’s father, went down sharply.

Unfortunately that was just a part of the story. The opening of the economy in 1991 scripted the end of traditional farming methods. Big multinational companies sneaked in at the same time with healthy support of the government itself. Cotton growers were encouraged to take up their genetically modified seeds. These were costly to say the least (Rs 1700-2200 for 400 gram packets as compared to Rs 50 to Rs 400 for traditional varieties) but failed miserably on all fronts. And they reaped a tragedy of indebtedness that is still devouring farmers at an alarming rate. Among them, Shyamrao Khatale and now his daughter Ganga, whose bitter inheritance is indebtedness at best and further suicides at the worst.

With no accountability or regulation, the companies continue to sell seeds of death and despair. With no voice, people like Ganga continue to be the victims of a tale where life seems worse than death. “I have left it all to the Almighty,” shrugs Ganga when asked of her future. Can her faith bring her out unscathed or will she fall to the vicious cycle as well? As of now, there are no answers for Ganga, only some hard questions.