While the recent developments around the world beggar belief and send shivers down my spine, alongside dread, there also exists an overwhelming sense of wonder as spring bursts forth around me
All around me are daffodils and tulips that were planted in winter and are slowly blossoming among the vineyards. It’s time for garden work… for the setting of vegetables, salads and strawberries. Representation pic/iStock
That has to be a joke!’ I find myself saying to my partner every now and then when he shares updates with me about what’s unfolding in the world. I am usually sitting on either our armchair or the sofa breastfeeding our newborn. When he registers the look of disbelief on my face, he brings his phone towards my line of sight, so I can see for myself that nothing he is reporting is fiction. Indeed, a decision to bomb Yemen was made and executed over a messaging app. Indeed, we know about this because a journalist was mistakenly added to the group. I felt horror at the thought of the level of racism that makes something like this possible, the degree of inconsideration held towards lives that are ‘other’, that exist beyond the spectrum of white supremacy. Last evening, my partner showed me footage of a Turkish student being abducted by people in black hoodies. A PhD student. It sent shockwaves down my spine. I felt the way I did when I heard the news about Hamdan Ballal, the director of the Oscar-winning film No Other Land being attacked by settlers and the news about Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat being killed in an Israeli attack in northern Gaza.
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Just these snippets of news are enough to demonstrate the intersection of the military-industrial complex with white supremacy and patriarchy. Some hours ago, while I was probably battling with sleep deprivation, Donald Trump crowned himself the ‘Fertilisation President’. I am still struggling to make sense of this, especially within the context of a country that thinks of itself as the leader of the ‘free world’ but has been steadily infringing on women’s rights to their bodies in the name of pro-life activism, hurdling access to abortion at the risk of women’s health and wellbeing. The horror of it all feels compounded because I am so freshly postpartum, my milk stains all my clothes. I spend several hours in the day feeding my infant so he will stay alive. To parent a child is to sustain life, to invest in the nurturing of the planet at large in order that it remains hospitable to this new life. As I scrolled through all the congratulatory messages I received from friends and acquaintances on Instagram, I found myself chatting with a friend from college who lives in Mumbai who confessed that her child, now a two-year-old toddler, has had a cough ever since they were four months old. The levels of pollution where they live are so intense, they themselves suffer from respiratory allergies. This was in sync with what a mother friend living in Delhi told me. Where I live now, no doctor would ever prescribe cough syrup for a child under five. When I last visited Mumbai last January, my first-born developed terrible bronchitis. It came as no surprise that the doctor recommended a cough syrup. In between bureaucratic work, I decided to escape to Goa and the cleaner air (when we weren’t stuck in North Goa traffic) helped alleviate his symptoms.
Naturally, as a mother, I have deep anxiety about the state of world affairs. I often have to repress the feeling of guilt about not being able to do enough activism to lobby for change. There is this maternal bubble that I have so skilfully built around my domestic life that is constantly under threat of bursting because I am not powerful enough to make it immune to the weight of world politics. This anxiety lives alongside the sense of wonder and amazement I feel as spring bursts forth, preparing the apple trees to flower, strengthening the ecstasy of the cherry trees. All around me are daffodils and tulips that were planted in winter that are slowly blossoming among the vineyards. The magnolias are lush with pink-hued blooms that appear stunning against the wide blue spring sky. It’s time for garden work… for the setting of vegetables, salads and strawberries. My toddler revels in watering the plants. I have to explain to him that for no fault of his own, water is a scarce resource. I am still trying to find ways to help him understand what ‘waste’ means.
Being a second-time brown immigrant mother in a ‘first-world’ country is no cakewalk. One measures one’s privileges against the guilt of having left one’s ‘motherland’. My support system is limited, but on the other hand, I don’t have to wrestle with desi auntie-splainers who believe they know better, who are quick to infantilise new mothers and make them distrust their instincts. I don’t have to worry about people judging the fairness of my children’s skin in comparison with my own and telling me how lucky they are to have an Italian father. Most importantly, I don’t need to feel conscious when I need to do something as basic as breastfeeding my newborn. For the moment, once again, not having my maternal body exposed to sexualisation or shame for this basic act of nourishment feels like the biggest privilege.
Deliberating on the life and times of every woman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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