Talk about feeling good!

At its most literal, sadbhavna translates to ‘good feelings’. Now who wouldn’t want Indian citizens to have good feelings for each other, across the tragic, screaming borders of caste, language, religion, sex? And if a democratically-elected representative wants to fast for a few days in the hope of fostering fine fellow-feeling etcetera amongst the electorate, there is nothing wrong with that.

But the thing is, good feelings can only come to those who are feeling good about themselves and the people they must deal with. I can believe, for instance, that Narendra Modi is feeling good. Good things have happened to him. He’s been CM for nearly a decade now. Everybody tells him that he’s good at administration (which might not be the same as being a good person or citizen or leader, but that’s another story).

However, there are other Indian citizens who are not feeling so good.

For instance, the Basumatarys from Kokrajhar in Assam. There are allegations that the deaf-mute wife was gang-raped by SSB (Sashastra Seema Bal) soldiers in front of her husband. That was earlier this month. A police complaint was filed, but I haven’t heard of any fresh reports on whether the armed forces are doing the needful: making arrests, trying the accused, punishing them. The victim — and the village, and in fact, all of Assam — wants to see some kind of justice getting served. But until that happens, it would be stupid to expect them to feel ‘sadbhavna’ vis a vis the SSB.

Also, for instance, the people of Karcha village in Chhattisgarh. They can’t be feeling too good after the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl... State home minister Nankiram Kanwar of the BJP shamed himself by asking why the dead child was out at night in the first place (...) It is hard to feel good about such ministers. Indian women will find it hard to forgive the BJP for not making him step down for this shameful attempt to protect alleged rapist-murderers by blaming dead children.

Read full piece here

Hail and Farewell

Since her murder, there have been allegations that evidence was tampered with. There is talk of exhuming Shehla’s body. There is talk of powerful BJP leaders being involved. Senior BJP leaders have also not said anything about the case, nor asked BJP-affiliated politicians to step down until their names are cleared in connection with Shehla Masood’s murder. They are instead taking out a ‘rath yatra’ to stop corruption.

One of the last few things Shehla did was fast — in solidarity with Anna Hazare. But despite his ‘victory’, when faced with the murder of a real person doing real things to combat corruption in her own state, Team Anna has been woefully quiet. Hazare himself is busy making statements about how Sonia Gandhi should be like Indira Gandhi. Perhaps he slept through the Emergency. In any case, nobody is fasting to bring the government of Madhya Pradesh to its knees, forcing it to investigate all instances of corruption that Shehla had pointed towards. Nobody is gheraoing the homes of BJP MLAs.

And I’m thinking, how quickly they fade — our little stars of truth that come tearing through our thick smog of violence and corruption. How quickly they fall, burn out, disappear into the dark night. She has been dead for less than a month but Shehla Masood is already fading from public discourse. The media hasn’t taken her investigations into corruption any further.

Some of her activist friends are trying to keep her work alive. Shehla had been working with a group of students to create a sort of ‘RTI leaks’ — a web resource for all information collected through any RTI application filed across India. It sounds like a very good idea and I hope the website lives and grows, for all our sakes.

Which reminds me of another poem where the lines went something like: They died that we might live — Hail and farewell! — to those who, nobly striving, nobly fell…like kings they died.

Read full piece here

Self-loathing and the Middle class

I patiently waited in line. Five minutes, then ten, then fifteen. Finally one auto trundled up, and was promptly hijacked by people right at the back of the queue. We all sighed, shuffled, mumbled. The same thing happened again, then again.

Finally, one gent stopped a freshly hijacked auto by planting himself firmly in front of it. He asked the hijackers to vacate the auto and wait in queue like everyone else. The hijackers were a family including an elderly gent, and some women. The gent began to plead that they should be allowed to go first because, “We have ladies with us.”

This argument didn’t go down well. Angry little murmurs went up: “What, we’re not ladies?” and “We also have ladies with us.”

The old gent began to shout. His next argument was: “If I die right now, who’s responsible?” In other words, he was possibly hypertensive, and if we made him get off, he might suffer a heart attack.

He shouted louder at the protesting man who was trying to enforce the queue system. This younger gent then trained his guns upon the auto driver. “Make them get off.”

The auto driver, keenly aware of his precarious position, stared into the night, silent. The elderly gent, sensing victory, asked the driver to drive away. The younger gent, sensing defeat, shouted some more at the driver, began to abuse him. He said, “It’s really the (insert strong language) driver’s fault. Why do these guys allow it?”

I’m glad the driver drove away then. I sensed the younger gent was tempted to hit him. And there was a likelihood that others would join in.

And then I remembered why I mistrust the middle class.

Read full piece here

Truth and reconciliation in the context of corruption

Last week a writer-friend, Vivek Tandon, called me to discuss what should actually be done to combat corruption. He thinks we need a ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ commission — something along the lines of what they did in South Africa after they finally got rid of apartheid. In the corruption context, this would mean people being given a chance to confess their corrupt acts and redeem themselves.

They would return their ill-begotten money (whatever remained of it), perhaps pay fines, but would not be jailed for corruption-related crimes dating back to… Well, the state would fix a cut-off date, and no further acts of corruption would be tolerated.

I’m not yet sure about the workability of such a commission... Still, I like the idea of Truth and Reconciliation. It assumes that corrupt people are human; that they want to return the morsels they have wrongfully stolen from the mouths of malnourished kids; that millions of bribe-takers lie awake at night, longing to confess but afraid of being sent to jail. Can’t fault the idea for a lack of optimism.

Corruption is often unforgiveable, especially in poor nations, but Tandon argues that corruption is an intrinsic part of the culture we grew up with. We are taught to use ‘contacts’ to ‘get work done’. That’s how we get confirmed train tickets, or driving license we don’t deserve, or construction contracts, or environmental clearances. We are taught that only idiots pay taxes. Just like millions of us spit, spit, spit everywhere, undeterred by the law or exhortations in the name of public health. People do it not just because they get away with it but also because they have always done it, and seen others do it.

Read the full piece here.

Readings in Mumbai

Now that the new book is out, we shall be doing a series of readings across various book-stores (and perhaps at some institutions too). This space will be updated as and when new events are finalized. Please do come. Physical invitations are not necessary, so anyone interested in the Good Indian Girl (and why would't you be?), come along for a chat.

One:  Kitabkhana
[Address: Ground Floor, Somaiya Bhavan, 45/47, MG Road, Fort, Mumbai]
Time: 6 pm
Day: September 3 (Saturday), 2011.

Snapshots from the city of waves

I headed towards the autos queued outside the domestic airport and carried my bags to the front of the line. As I got into the first auto, a white-uniformed fellow with an I-am-a-somebody demeanor leaned in, blocking the exit. He said: “Hundred rupees… If you get a pre-paid slip, you will have to pay a hundred and fifty.”

I snapped something about using the meter, and then tried to alight. White Uniform stepped back, saying, “Okay, okay. Meter…”

Later, I asked the driver how much I owed him. He tried to overcharge by 10 rupees.

I looked at the meter and took a deep breath. One part of me was saying: Forget it. The other part said: “Don’t add to a culture of financial misdemeanor.”

So I pointed to the meter. He stared at me sullenly and said, “I waited in line at the airport a long time.” I retorted, “So I pay because you have to line up?”

I wanted to say other things — about how you have a better chance of being treated with respect if you act like you deserve it; how cheating becomes a way of life; how this is a vicious circle of blame and powerlessness; how I too wait in line for autos but do not charge a premium for it. But I didn’t say any of this.

Two days later, the road was blocked by another Anna-people rally. Tricolour flags etcetera.

I was in an auto and the driver was twisting this way and that, peering at the junction. He mumbled, “Now are these Anna-people headed right or left?”

I had to smile. Big question, that one. Are they headed right, or left?

I asked the white-haired driver what he thinks about Anna Hazare. He shrugged.

Full piece here

To read, perchance to have fun:

It is the result of the joint labours (and loves) of myself and Smriti Ravindra. It is ready for scrutiny, and judgement, or whatever else you might bestow upon it. Ladies and gentlemen, presenting The Bad Boy's Guide to the Good Indian Girl aka The Good Indian Girl's Guide to Living, Loving and Having Fun. The book can be preordered (heavily discounted) on Flipkart.

Look, laugh, nod, think

Here's a short video put together in the context of the book. If you have responses, or comments, they are most welcome here, or over at the Zubaan blog. If you want to respond at length, come up with your own note/ essay/ video/ musing-in-some-new-format and we will link to it.

The lathmaar school of management

People, you see, have problems. And even if the problems are not of the state’s making, the people still expect the state to intervene.And when it comes to corruption, they are truly furious and justified in their fury because they confront corruption mostly via state-controlled agencies. So they are mistrustful of the government when it claims that it will tackle corruption on its own.

The mishandling of the Ramdev situation in Delhi is still fresh in their minds, and threats that Anna Hazare would be treated the same way have just caused a massive, public upchucking.

That’s how these protests appear to me — an outpouring of disgust. Friends have been calling from other cities to say that their staid, smug middle class neighbours are marching in support of Anna Hazare. They are probably upset about food inflation. Or insane real estate prices. They are not really supporting Hazare’s version of the Lokpal Bill. They can’t, because they haven’t read the draft nor thought about its repercussions.

I have, and I disagree with it. Police and judicial reforms are far, far more pressing. Yet, people support Hazare because they need a rallying point. They need to express their disgust. But how does the government deal with public disgust? By flexing its judicial and administrative muscles! By throwing a colonial-era law book at their faces!

Read full piece here.

Seeding sovereignty

Wiktionary defines sovereignty as the state of making laws and controlling resources without the coercion of other nations. In other words, we are sovereign only if we use collective resources to our own advantage. So, here’s a question. Does food qualify as a resource?

Yes? What about traditional knowledge? Yes? Do I hear you say that it is imperative that India holds on to her strengths in the food department?

But food comes from seeds. And seeds… Well, there’s a seed floating around nowadays that is not ours. We don’t own the knowledge and fertility that’s embedded in that seed. Foreign corporations do and they won’t allow us to save a fraction of the crop for using as seed next year. In fact, corporations like Monsanto sell expensive seed with built-in ‘terminator’ technologies, so that the crop is useless for re-sowing. Does that spell ‘justice, liberty, equality’ to you?

...

So farmer groups, under the banner of the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), decided to celebrate Quit India Day (August 9) by asking Monsanto to get out. They want the state to stop GM crop trials and work out a system of seed self-reliance instead. They’re denouncing the ‘bio-piracy’ that blocks access to seeds through ‘collaborative research’.

You may or may not agree with the ‘Quit India’ call, but remember that seeds can be contaminated, or destroyed. Crops can fail again, and again. Famines can happen. Terrible famines have happened during colonial times and one reason was that farmers couldn’t choose what to grow.

Read full piece here.

Do you accept it?

BSY posed for photographs — holding one edge of the resignation letter while the Governor held the other — smiling confidently for the cameras. He insisted he would be back in the CM’s chair within six months. There was a lot of bluster andshowbaazi. Looking at the photos, it seemed as if he was resigning in protest.There was no sign of shame, no sign that the CM had to be shoved out after allegations of massive corruption and nearly weeks of wrangling with his own party bosses.

This last week, some citizens certainly have realized how much they loved BSY, and how acutely they would feel his loss. These would be people who gained from illegal mining and are now scrambling to squeeze out the last few thousands of crores, while they still can. Whilst power was brokered in Bengaluru, they snuck out iron ore by the train-load despite a Supreme Court order banning all mining and transportation of iron ore in Bellary.

Reportedly, 49 lorries were caught transporting ore from BMC (a firm rumoured to be tied to the Reddys). District authorities in Bellary also seized 7,448 tonnes of iron ore in two rakes (each rake has 58 wagons). Another 1,000 tonnes was seized at JSW Steel Ltd, coming from Mysore Minerals.

Meanwhile, in Bengaluru, I was wondering whether it was safe to step outside if the new CM was someone BSY couldn’t trust to shove back into oblivion after six months. What would happen to those of us who were out having lunch, buying veggies, travelling in buses?

Read full piece here

Why the greens miss Jairam Ramesh

Over the last couple of years, I’d often see press releases from environmental groups or an angry letter on a mailing list lashing out at Ramesh. He may have promised to rethink the Renuka dam, or allowed more construction on the Narmada. Whatever he did, Ramesh was making his presence felt, and a lot of people are wondering if Jayanthi Natarajan will follow suit.

What distinguishes a visible minister from an invisible one is that the former takes decisions that matter. Some turn out to be stupid decisions. Sometimes, they run contrary to the plans of the political party leadership. But a good minister must take contrary decisions and make frank statements. And the public must believe that the minister likes to use his brains. Even if his thinking is not in alignment with our own hopes and fears. But at least, let him apply himself to the task at hand, enforce rules, ask questions.

Ramesh seemed to have applied himself, as far as he was allowed to. But I’m not mourning his transfer to Rural Development. Visible ministers are desperately needed in every ministry. Already, after accepting his new portfolio, Ramesh has stressed the need to revisit land acquisition laws. Perhaps, he will once again find himself on the wrong side of POSCO.

Read full piece here

For the love of my ancestors:

I can’t remember the last time I noticed film credits roll in Devnagri. In fact, I too have switched to the Roman script when writing in Hindustani. And perhaps it’s better this way. Perhaps it doesn’t matter because all civilisations move from one script to another, one dialect to another. That’s how Urdu got made, a language that came striding in from the battlefield into bazaars, used first by rough-tongued soldiers and then by ferociously refined writers.


But film writers no longer write in Urdu. Film posters no longer advertise themselves in Urdu. Credits certainly do not roll in either Devnagri or Nastalik.


But what of audiences who have not made a smooth transition to Romanised Hindustani? Is there an automatic assumption that these people are illiterate — and therefore cannot read the credits anyway — or that they are uninterested in films?

Watching Paromita Vohra’s Partners in Crime, the English title also appearing in Nastalik, I was briefly distracted by thoughts of my grandmother. I remember watching films with her, late at night on TV. She wasn’t illiterate. But if she sat down to watch one now, she wouldn’t be able to read a single word on the screen — not even the title.

Read full piece here

Street smart questions

"When motor vehicles bring in the risk of death, why are pedestrians given most of the responsibility of preventing it?"


That and some very pertinent points raised by Karthik in his new post where he writes:


The term “jaywalking” was introduced at this time, and pedestrians who cross mid-block were caricatured as being unsophistacted and boorish... It occurs to me that such propaganda bears remarkable similarity to the notion of the “white man’s burden” that European colonizers used to justify their tyranny.  The caricatures of jaywalking pedestrians correspond to early European prejudices about oriental people. In the meanwhile, streets that were used for several millennia by pedestrians and other street people (street vendors, for instance) were effectively invaded by automobiles. Rules advantageous to the colonizers were then enforced as a way of “civilizing” the “uncivilized”.


Read it here. 

Living like life matters

The tears come when the kachra-wala rings the bell. It is the son of the lady who usually comes. A boy in his late teens, hair plastered down, he says the usual morning word — “Kachra!”

For the first time ever, I speak to him. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

For the first time, he smiles at me. There’s three feet of water outside our building. The rain hasn’t stopped. And this impossible city has just suffered a fresh round of terror. 

All night, I have been stubbornly, wearily silent. I snapped at my mother when she called after hearing about the blasts. I didn’t want to say a word at the time — not on Twitter, not on Facebook, not on blogs. Anything I said would seem platitudinous, insignificant. This is not a time for words. It is a time for… for what?

The question is on television, on twitter, on people’s minds. This can’t keep happening; why can’t it be stopped? Why can’t we… But what do we do?

Someone suggests: Hit back, like the USA. But the first image that floats into my mind then is that of a distraught father carrying the body of a little child.

Hit back at whom? Whose children? Bomb which bazaar so that we might have the satisfaction of saying: We killed as we were killed.

Read full article here.

Respect comes as respect goes

What do you want, Mumbai? Who do you want as your neighbour, or tenant? You want ‘good’ people, yes? By good, you mean ‘respectable’, non-violent (not publicly violent anyway), quiet people (who don’t complain when you turn noisy during festivals). You want kids who work towards being accepted rather than causing mayhem. Yes?

And you want some do-gooders, yes? The old lady who plants trees. A retired uncle who ensures waterproofing of the terrace happens on time. A doctor whose doorbell you can ring at midnight. A collegian who tutors ‘weak’ students.

What you don’t want is a do-gooder who helps the most vulnerable of us all. Say, a neighbourhood ‘doctor’ who treats slum-dwellers at his home-clinic. What you certainly don’t want are girls like Trina Talukdar and Robin Chaurasiya.

Read full article here.

Very mad (and a tiny bit maddening)

The blurb describes Ibne Safi’s Jasusi Duniya series as an “intricately demented world of larger-than-life villains, mad genius detectives and beautiful femme fatales”.

For once, the blurb does not exaggerate. Safi is one of the most popular Urdu writers of the 20th century and Blaft has done newer non-Urdu reading generations a huge favour by publishing at least a few of his translated works. Born Asrar Ahmad in undivided India, ‘Ibne Safi’ moved to Pakistan in the 1950s but continued to cater to readers on both sides of the border.
He sets his novels in a cosmopolitan city by the sea, which could as easily have been Bombay as Karachi. Here, there are plenty of bars and cafes, dancing halls and lavish house parties, picnicking families, plenty of nightlife. And some very unpretty lowlife as well.



His main detective, Colonel Faridi, is a mildly eccentric aristocrat but Hameed deserves his own star in the literary detective’s sidekick hall of fame. Here’s a police officer who not only lives with his boss, but also dresses his pet goat in neck-ties and hats. Sample this delicious bit from Smokewater: “Hameed’s billy goat, had he been human, would have committed suicide. Or, instead, he might have assumed the role of an Urdu critic, and pronounced a sentence of death on the ghazal that was now being read to him”. When he is admonished for such antics by his boss, Hameed retorts, “I have not the slightest interest in dignity… the bacteria of dignity is even more dangerous than the bacilli of phthisis.”

This combination of eccentricity, social critique, and the odd philosophical nugget is what makes Ibne Safi’s books so likeable.

In other respects, Safi sticks to the usual standards for pulp. The central detective (Faridi) is mysterious, uninterested in women and always a step ahead of the criminal forces he’s tackling — quite like Sherlock Holmes. The femme fatales are reserved for the eccentric non-genius Hameed, although his attitude to women is painfully real — he wants to flirt with them but he gets bored easily. The good girls are disoriented and exasperated by him. The bad girls pose serious threats to his life. Faridi always rescues him, of course.

Despite the stereotypes, Hameed is such an oddball that a turn of events is hard to predict. For instance, he wants to dance with a female colleague in a ballroom, but not in aid of an investigation. He just wants to escape from thoughts of crime. Hameed’s perpetual disgruntlement lends a dash of comic melancholy that is rarely seen in detective fiction. He sometimes seems to be carrying the burden of the writer’s soul.

But this is a writer who treats us to strange criminals like Dr. Dread and Finch (both make an appearance in all four books). Finch is a former circus performer while Dr. Dread is an international assassin who specialises in bizarre poisons — stuff that makes a respectable girl swear loudly in public and take off her clothes. But Faridi too has access to weaponry that 007 might covet, such as “a stun grenade, with the added capability of settling off a blinding flash and raising the ambient temperature dramatically within seconds”. This forces criminals to strip while rendering them incapable of violence.

Sex and gore are palpable elements of crime fiction but Safi doesn’t rub the reader’s face in it. A new generation of readers will also find it impossible not to read more into Faridi and Hameed’s complex relationship. But this awareness only lends an extra touch of pathos to the overall absurdity.


All in all, these books are a fun read. The translator Shamsur Rahman Faruqi has retained the humour and the cultural dressing that would have lent the original novels their tang and bite. The occasional snarky paragraph about the frailties of women will annoy some readers but fans of pulp have to be made of stone to resist Safi. 


This review was published in Forbes (India).

Cheater-c**k

A friend's friend was cheated and threatened by a man who married her. He and his family disappeared when it seemed like their game was up. But he's still out there (on various marriage websites) cheating women, using them, milking their parents for all they can afford to spend at the wedding and afterwards.

The girl has bravely set up a blog, put up his photos from the wedding, and is trying to bring him to book. She also needs to track him down so that her divorce can be finalised and she can begin life afresh. Here's an extract from the blog:


"Her parents travelled to Bangalore to meet the boy’s parents and all seemed well... Before the engagement, in Decenber 2008 the girl’s parents asked the boy’s side to produce some certificates to be able to verify the claims made, but these were apparently locked away safely and were therefore not shown. They did not press for fear of offending the boy’s family.


During and after the wedding, in Jan 2009 the girl and her parents observed many small things like the heavy drinking habits of the boy & his family, going back on their word on marriage arrangements & delaying the marriage registration, the boy disclosing later his numerous affairs and also that his salary was actually less than half of what it was originally quoted etc.


the girl was supposed to join the family overseas only later, and on a student visa not on a spouse visa! During this time she was expected to live with the boy & his family without a registered marriage, without disclosing that they were married (apparently for visa requirements) and her family was expected to fork out an additional 24 lakh rupees as fees for the educational course that she was supposed to be joining!!! 


Humiliated, cheated, the girl knew something was wrong and asked her father in law who was still in India to send her to her husband on a spouse visa instead of the roundabout way that they were proposing as that would entail lying, an immoral humiliating living condition and an additional, totally unnecessary financial burden on her father. Her father in law then got abusive, threatening and violent."


For details, visit the blog. If you have any information, contact this girl. Or else, just contact the Bangalore police (080-22942552). 

http://chitranshicase.blogspot.com/

Brazen Feminist's take on Slutwalk Delhi

It’s not as easy as choosing between a pink lehenga and blue jeans with climate control factored in. What-to-wear is a finely calibrated decision. I think of whether to take an auto or a cab, train or bus. I think of where I’m headed, at what station to get off, at what time.

And despite all this, even if my legs and arms are fully-covered, even if no cleavage or belly is on display, I’m afraid. Even this great bustling insomniac city will not let me be.

Nobody has accused me of dressing ‘slutty’. But every day of my adult life, I have had to protect myself from the aftermath of random strangers on the street attacking, abusing or threatening me. Note: I am not saying I protect myself from attacks. What I’m protecting myself from is the aftermath. From people who will say that my clothes were provocative, that the time of the night and my being alone was an invitation to assault.

So yes, I get the sentiment that makes a bunch of women in Canada declare: Yeah, we’re slutty, so what? So what if we sleep around? So what if we wear tiny skirts and high heels? So what if men look at us and want us? Is the police force trying to tell us that rape is alright? Are you saying we deserve to be hurt?
And yet, when I heard that someone was organising a Slutwalk in Delhi, a part of me went sort of quiet...

On the other hand, if boundaries are to be pushed, someone has to take some risks. Jasmeen Patheja, founder of the Blank Noise Project (a group I’ve been part of since 2006) points out that Slutwalks are a kind of performance. There is an element of fiction here. And it is a fiction that sells. The media is lapping up the story of provocatively-dressed women demanding their right to provoke. Cameras focus on women wearing bras (clearly, feminists with arsonist tendencies are ancient history) so that ‘skimpy clothes’ are not just the first thing we see. They’re the only thing.
... Meanwhile, the fiction has whipped up a storm even before the fact has materialised. Celebrity columnist Shobhaa De has dissed the proposed event for being an ‘attention-seeking protest … neither workable, nor desirable.’ Seema Goswami drew up a damnable analogy. She compares a woman who attracts attention to a house that’s unlocked and therefore likely to get burgled.

All of which is making me pricklier and pricklier.

I now find myself wanting to get into arguments about ‘workability’. Is the only workable solution finding a rich man who provides us with a glass bubble to commute in and bodyguards to fend off assaults? As for seeking attention, that’s the bloody point!

Anger and pain are at the heart of every movement, but when we march, we must sometimes wear the boots of provocation. Slutwalk is designed to provoke. 

Read the full piece here: http://business.in.com//article/recliner/sluts-walking-in-the-rape-capital/26532/1

what you don't know can hurt you

It’s been so long since I saw television that I’m stunned at the sight of a young man being insulted on national television. I’m squirming on behalf of this aspiring Roadies contestant, angry at the ‘judges’ who are calling him stupid to his face.

But the next minute, the young man loses my sympathy when he says that he agrees with the ‘Ayodhya verdict’, though he doesn’t know what the verdict is. He doesn’t know what the Ayodhya issue is. He thinks Ayodhya is where a ‘war’ happened and confuses it with the big one in Kurukshetra (which features in the Mahabharata). This strapping young man also doesn’t know who the president of India is, but assumes she is male.

By the time the video clip ends, the interview panel is falling about laughing. They are calling him ‘cute’. How else do we deal with the fact that young, school-educated, urban Indians don’t know a thing about themselves or the forces that are shaping their nation? They’re so ignorant, they’re like children.

Read the whole piece here