A support through the virtual codes

I remember a time when along with my wife and first daughter, we were living in a far-off city. I had stubbornly moved my family to this location due to the severe familial interference in my internal family policies by members on both sides, mine as well as my wife’s. Looking back the focus point from which all this emanated could be traced to one single person, on my side of the family. However that is not the issue here.

It was quite difficult to get my wife to stand by me, for she was indoctrinated in the theme of being married to a family and not to an individual as such. For, the codes of matriarchal joint-family system were deeply encoded in everyone on her side.

In the new place also familial troubles persisted through remote control through the phone. It was to lead to terrible financial debacles, which in turn led to physical looks depreciation in me. It was at this time a particular female came into our life. She took an admiration for me, for my talents in English writings and also the total difference in social attitudes that I seemed to extrude. However, here itself it must be admitted that this seeming difference is not something innate in me, but what I sort of adopt. If I refuse to adopt these attitudes, I am just another person like others.

This female who was close to my wife also, was the only person in my life who I have seen elevate my indicant codes when others, especially the lower menial class tried to depreciate it. It may be mentioned here that I always had not much of a problem, even in when I was financially very weak to deal with dignity with the upper classes. However, the lower menial class couldn’t generally understand how I could claim to a higher indicant word code, when I looked quite poor. For them, every evaluation is based on very tangible items like expensive dress, affluent looks, possession of car, good house and such things. Anyone who can’t measure up to this evaluation standards, they would pull to their levels. It is an equality that is repulsive, one which doesn’t want. For, it is an equality established through lower indicant word codes. [Like the equality that the blacks of South Africa would willingly and possibly forcibly give the white folks there]

Now coming back to the lady, she would immediately use the words Saab, UNN etc. about me to them quite forcefully. I must admit that it really requires a lot of mental stamina to promote and introduce a person thus to the lower menial class, when the person himself looks quite unfit for that level, in terms of finance, dress and appearance.

I do remember another instance in the same city. I was at that time living near to a not-in-service IAS officer’s house. I was on quite friendly terms with him and used to discuss an immensity of subjects. For, he was an uncommonly well-read person. Now, the problem was the he had a few persons around him to attend to his odd jobs. They couldn’t understand how I could be quite friendly with the IAS officer, and did also address him with his name with a Mr. prefixed. It must have appeared that I was acting quite absurdly and being absolutely impertinent, with no concern for social propriety. Actually this problem has haunted me even when I lived in quite rich conditions also. Most of my thought processes, reading subjects and even discussion topics would be quite removed from that of the local people in the immediate vicinity. Moreover, I usually had a wider canvas of perspective, compared to the local logic of most others.  

The lower intellectual class of persons do not usually have much to compare and evaluate another person from an intellectual point of view. For example, the variety of subjects and themes that I had discussed with the IAS officer are almost all of them, quite beyond the purview of his serving class of persons. In fact, most of the themes were quite removed from anything that they would have even thought about.

I do remember in a novel by a famous Malayalam novel, the lower castes females mentioning about the farting. In that, they fart. So does the queen. At that level, they can find an equalisation. And at that level they can find some common theme to discuss and evaluate and even make snide remarks about the queen. However, above that level of equalisation, the queen is nowhere near their right or intellectual standard of evaluation.

That is the way the lower-intellectual-stature persons try to twine another person with whom there is no other way of finding equality. By finding some level at which point the other man has a foot in the dirt.

Now coming back to the lady. She was a native-Malayalam speaker. To a lot of Malayalee officials, her standard communication code was the usage of Saar. I couldn’t bring myself to do this with equanimity. In fact, the only time that I did use this under duress was when I was doing a manufacturing business. This was because for the first time in my life, I was under the constant control of low-class officialdom. They could create much havoc on business by denying official papers and making me run in circles to get a thing which should have been given to me on a very first round interaction. To extract the Saar and other connected servitude from me, they all had statutory books of rules, by which they could punish me heavily for seeming transgressions.

She used to address me as Saar also. Now, the situation was that there was a government ‘officer’ also in this communication network. (Let me call him Mr. N) Mr. N was a Saar to her. She was a Ningal to him. I was a Saar to her. She was a Ningal to me. However since I maintained my communication with Mr. N in English, there was no hierarchy issue between us.

However, I was quite distressed to be a Saar to the lady. So I insisted that she should address me as Ningal. So that between us the common word for You was Ningal. Now, when this happened, there comes a very powerful destabilisation of the three-cornered link. Mr. N remained a Saar to her, while I was brought down to Ningal. I went down. Along with this coming down, there was the incessant issue of me being pulled down by my wife’s family members. My wife stood by them, in the name of loyalty to various connected family members.

Once, destabilising effect came upon on the three-cornered link, everything started going haywire. Mr. N’s stature vis-a-vis mine went up. I went down. This issue became more complicated as other persons also appeared in the scene. Actually Mr. N was not a bad person. However, when persons change location in the indicant word codes, there shall be powerful dislocation of direction component of communication.

I should admit that I had to react to communication tones that had the power to derail personal links in an inimical manner. So, the total outcome of trying to change a communication code was to change the whole personal relation setup. I do feel bad about the outcome. Wherein a person who did show exemplary support couldn’t be repaid in a similar manner. With gratitude.