On choices: reflections from two beautiful books

From time to time, social media erupts with debates about "right" choices and "wrong" choices. The subjects of the choices revolve around marriage, children, and lately, the working hours of a PhD student. I have often found these discussions leading to an angry (almost vitriolic) exchange of opinions. Somehow, this theme touches people in a rather raw way at the most vulnerable spots in their minds and hearts. This makes it nearly impossible to have a reasonable discourse on these forums.

In complete contrast, two books that I read recently presented thoughtful perspectives on the theme of choice, and helped me to reflect (without unnecessary noise and anxieties) on how we make and own our choices.

The two books, "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards and "The Real Deal: Lessons, Learnings and Laughter for Girl Scientists" by Karishma Kaushik belong to wildly different genres. The first book, based in Kentucky and Pennsylvania, is a fictional narrative spanning three decades from the 1960s to the 1980s. The second is the memoir of a contemporary Indian scientist who has experienced the scientific ecosystem in India and USA, and who has contributed to science in multiple ways: as a medical doctor, researcher, educator, science communicator, and as a leader of a national science programme.

"The Memory Keeper's Daughter" is based on a premise reminiscent of Bollywood movies from that era: Dr. Henry, who helps his wife deliver twins at his clinic, realizes that the second-born child shows signs of Down syndrome. While his wife is unconscious, he hands over the baby to the nurse, Caroline Gill, with instructions to take the child to a nearby institution. The wife, on regaining consciousness, is told that her baby is dead and has been cremated. Caroline, on entering the premises of this institution, is so revulsed by the atmosphere that she makes an instant decision to adopt the child. As the wife mourns the demise of her daughter, Caroline relocates with the baby to a different state (after informing the doctor), and starts a new life. So far, this is a dramatic (and if one may say so, hard to believe) story. But soon after, the book evolves into a reflective account of the individual journeys of the protagonists: how they face the consequences of the sudden choices made by them over the years, and how people close to them are affected without even being aware of what had transpired in the first place. 

We see Dr. Henry living under the pressure of his choice, and gradually becoming distant from the rest of his family because he cannot communicate with them. While there is an effort on the part of the author to explain to the reader why he made the choice he did, there is an undercurrent of regret, guilt and missed opportunities, an undercurrent that he is consistently aware of. With respect to the relationship with his family, "the lie had grown up between them like a rock, forcing them to grow oddly too, like trees twisting around a boulder." [1] He finds solace in photography and finds recognition as a photographer, hosting art shows all over the world. However, he is painfully aware that photo after photo, he has been trying to "make an image powerful enough to obscure the moment when he turned and handed his daughter to Caroline Gill." [2]

Caroline, on the other hand, patiently raises the child, building a supportive community consisting of her understanding employer, a loving partner and other parents raising children with Down syndrome. She fights the education board of Pennsylvania to get her daughter (and other children like her) a place in the formal education system, witnesses the milestones in her growth and makes arrangements for the time when she would no longer be around to take care of her daughter. What keeps her moving forward is her acceptance that while this was not the life she had imagined or dreamed of, it was "her life, built with care and attention, and it was good." [3]

Based on how the lives of both the protagonists play out, we learn the difference between being imprisoned by a choice versus being nurtured by your choice (and, in turn, nurturing your choice through resilience, love, and community). Dr. Kaushik's "The Real Deal", while belonging to a completely different genre, has plenty to offer with respect to the "nurture/nurturing" aspect of choices. The book, is, of course, about much more. The first half of the book is an account of her experience, struggles, learnings and reflections as a scientist donning multiple hats, while balancing her career and family, especially motherhood. The second half is an exposition of larger issues surrounding science in India, including factors which prevent women scientists from growing into their full potential. Some comprehensive reviews have been written on the book; see, for example, this excellent review by Aditi Jain. 

I have read the first half of the book so far. It speaks straight to the heart on the theme of choices, both in the professional and the personal context. We read the story of a woman who actively makes choices based on her interests and strengths, and works hard to meet the challenges that the choices entail. There are honest accounts of vulnerable moments when she feels she may have hit a wall. For example, she describes the time when she did not hear back from grad schools in her first attempt to apply for a PhD: as a medical doctor with an MD from one of India's most prominent medical institutions, she wondered if her career was over before it started. Through discussions with her spouse, she found a way around this impasse and went on to pursue a PhD. Mr. K encouraged her to volunteer her time at a laboratory in the University of California system, close to where they lived. This would not only give her an experience of the American research ecosystem, but also add strength to her application the next time over. For someone keen on doing a PhD, this was a resourceful and productive way to deal with the situation at hand. As we read the book, we come to learn about several situations beyond her control where a less resourceful person would have given up or descended into cynicism. The book does not shy away from recounting the challenges in pursuing a science career. These include insufficient professional support for young mothers doing a PhD, inadequate resources at state universities, mind-numbing bureaucracy, and incoherent hiring policies at several institutions. But, the undercurrent in this book is that of optimism, openness to opportunities (even when one does not have everything figured out from the word go), and high-agency behaviour.

While reading "The Real Deal", I also got a chance to reflect on another valuable component of "choice-making": learning to make a choice from the point of view of strength rather than a point of view of weakness. We must learn to develop an accurate understanding of our skills, preparation and strengths (professional and otherwise), and keep these at the center of our choices. I observed the protagonist practicing this at many places, and this is among the features that I loved most about the book. She weighed her options and made choices based not only on what an opportunity was offering to her, but also on what she was going to offer to the opportunity. An adequate conviction in our "strong points" gives us the emotional flexibility to consider all angles in our choice, and to be true to our priorities and goals. Choosing and acting from a position of weakness, sadly, does not gain us any brownie points. Instead, it makes us ignore important factors in a choice. It also enables other people to cross boundaries and make unreasonable demands on our time and energy.

Sometimes, our circumstances dictate a certain choice. Sometimes, the choice makes itself. That is, even as we are noting the pros and cons of different options, an event beyond our control leaves us only with one option. Responding to such choices is an exercise in character-building: one tries to find the best way forward while not letting the feeling of victimhood take over our response. On the other hand, in some situations in life, we find ourselves at the crossroads of multiple possibilities, with the freedom to choose the path that suits us best. This is also an exercise in character-building. We learn to balance different parameters of a choice, including our professional training, personal preferences, and family commitments (not necessarily in this order). We learn to discuss, with an open mind, the choice with multiple stakeholders who will be affected by the choice. We learn to seek support for our choices from the right people, and also provide support to them in their choices. We learn to let go of the frustration when a choice does not work out, fully accepting our agency in that choice and also acknowledging that not everything pans out as we thought it would.

I am really glad I redirected my energies from scrolling on social media to reading both these books while reflecting on what goes into making a choice and owning it. Reading these books gave me an opportunity to observe choices from the perspective of those making it. In social media discourse, people judge and question the choices of others on the basis of their own personal needs and desires. But reading well-written books helps us develop the maturity and nuance to view situations from the point of view of people making their own choices. This, in turn, can often generate valuable lessons for ourselves. Can we practice the self-discipline and humility to not burden protagonists with our own voices when reading or hearing about their choices and lives?

[1] Page 258-259, "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards, Penguin Books, First Edition, 2005.

[2] Page 274, "The Memory Keeper's Daughter".

[3] Page 253-254, "The Memory Keeper's Daughter".

It takes a village ...

 “Young, very enthusiastic, naïve, slightly tense students arrived when it was pouring [rain] in 2006 ….  It was a tough task as a warden for me to think about their well being, to think about their welfare.  At the same time, the students had lots of expectations, lots of aspirations.  We had to meet their demands, their expectations, their standards.”

This is how my colleague Dr. Ramakrishna G. Bhat describes the incoming students of the very first batch at IISER Pune.

Students are the heart of our campus.  The image of the proverbial ``ivory tower” professor, fashionably buried in their own work with little time or concern for students is largely down-voted by faculty at IISER Pune.  It is a different matter that students can be a handful, meeting their expectations (especially non-academic!) can be a rough ride and we don’t always succeed, but then, who wants easy?

Ramakrishna Bhat was the first faculty member to join IISER Pune after the director, Professor K.N. Ganesh.  On joining, he was allotted the enormous task of setting up a hostel for the incoming 2006 batch.  This (temporary) hostel was to be created in a 30-year old abandoned building near NCL.  It was renovated at a feverish pace in about 15 days [1] and the first batch of our MS students walked into their residence in August 2006.  Ramakrishna and Professor G. Ambika (currently, dean of graduate studies) wholeheartedly threw themselves into the job of making these students feel at home.  They both stayed in the hostel for the first three and a half years. Be it holding tutorials in the dining hall (drawing chemical chain reactions on the menu board), handling frantic midnight requests to investigate stolen buckets or even waking up sleepy students for morning exams, they have done it all. 

Everything was all set to get even more chaotic with the admission of the 2007 and 2008 batches.  Sutirth Dey and Shouvik Datta joined the team of wardens and were responsible for the 2007 and 2008 batches respectively.  In order to accommodate the growing community of students, the institute was left with no option but to hire bungalows or apartments in the Baner and Pashan areas.  2008 was particularly tricky.   When Shouvik joined the Physics group in July 2008, he also took charge of the 2008 batch.  One of his earliest experiences was a crisis created by a last minute cancelation of living arrangements that had been planned for students.  A frenzied search yielded a bungalow (owned by Nana Patekar no less!) on Sus Road and some apartments in a building on the Baner Pashan Link Road.  Just a day or so before the students arrived, Shouvik went to check out these dwellings and found himself arranging beds in one of them along with the director! 

More colourful experiences were to follow. On Day 1, Shouvik had to go to all the buildings where students were staying and hire autorickshaws to get them to the dining hall located at NCL.  Gradually, he got used to regular phone calls at 1 am from security guards at these apartment complexes regarding noisy students.  Sometimes, he would personally have to visit to get stubborn students to climb off water tanks on the terrace (didn’t I say that our students are a handful?)  Another regular problem he would have to handle was when the other residents of these buildings would get annoyed and turn off water connections to the student apartments [2]. 

Soon, the chaos subsided.  A serious problem was about commuting between their apartments, academic buildings and dining hall.  This was resolved by hiring/purchasing an adequate number of buses.  The IISER bus network has served the community very well.  In an institute where the hostel(s), dining hall, classrooms and labs were far apart, these buses served as a lifeline.  They also provided a safe and convenient commute to our students if they wished to spend an evening in Pune main city. Until we became a fully residential campus, almost at any time of the day, two kinds of buses would be seen regularly on Dr. Homi Bhabha Road: buses from the National Defence Academy and from IISER.

Even after the most important logistical issues were taken care of, the “lighter” complaints were treated with utmost seriousness.  Once, when students complained that the chapatis in the dining hall were not as soft and round as what they had at home, the wardens held an emergency meeting with the purchase section to order roti makers!

In those years, a lot of energy also had to be expended towards “parenting the parents,” that is, allaying the apprehensions and fears of parents.  Their children were walking into uncharted territory: until 2011, it was not clear what they would be able to do with an IISER education.  Moreover, they had to drop their children off at buildings scattered all over Baner instead of a proper hostel.  In those days, the director and other leaders would regularly have long meetings with parents to assure them that their children were in safe hands.  Occasionally, there would be comical situations with the “don’t-you-know-who-I- am-my-kid-will-not-stay-here-one-more-minute” parents, but even they were tackled with tact and grace. 

Taking care of students is no joke.  On one hand, one has to implement hostel rules and oversee discipline issues.  On the other hand, one needs to be friends with them and guide them.  In the early years, the job got compounded because very few people had to take care of a large number of issues.  Two or three wardens would oversee a lot of things including hostel life, meals, transport, sports, recreation, discipline, health and mental wellbeing of students.  Loss of personal space, occasional frustration and overwhelm come with this territory.  Our leadership and the wardens took it in their stride, bade goodbye to personal egos and did their best.  It also helped that the administration was friendly, supportive and ready to work well beyond office hours [3].

This reminds me of an incident a few years ago: I was at a different institute then and had never visited IISER Pune.  One day, I wrote a somewhat helpless, somewhat miffed post about my wardenship duties there, whether I was any good at it and whether this job was of any use whatsoever.  A student from the 2007 batch at IISER Pune (who had graduated by the time my blog post appeared) wrote back a gentle rebuke and mentioned how hard his warden, Sutirth Dey, had worked for these students and how much of a lasting impact he had made on them!

As of today, our student hostels tower over the IISER campus.  When guardians arrive to drop off their freshmen wards, they encounter an elaborately built residential area with two tall buildings right next to a dining hall, a medical clinic with an ambulance on standby, a helpful hostel administration and decent security arrangements, not to mention a unified campus.  After students check in, they head towards our auditorium in the academic area for a welcome meeting with the dean of graduate studies, COSA (Committee of Student Activities: a team of seven faculty members who take care of student issues outside of the classroom), the dining committee members and our team of counselors.  We take great pride in conveying to these freshmen (and their parents) that there is a proper system to take care of every aspect of their life on campus.  The task of running this system is shared by a large number of people.  It is a reasonably decentralized, efficient system that gets better each year [4].  There are separate teams of people to look after different requirements so that no one person gets overwhelmed.  But, it took a lot of sweat and tears to raise this village that now raises the child!

On their part, the students have done every bit to deserve this and more [5].  There will be a future post on how proud they have made us.  Meanwhile, you may enjoy this blog with some awesome IISER alumni stories.




[1] The story of how the IISERs were visualized and started in a couple of months is a fascinating story (with enough thriller effect) narrated in this video by the planners themselves.  Important decisions were taken just days before the first session started and this meant that a lot of things were done at the last moment. 

[2] The tolerance of “housing societies” of Pune is world-famous. 

[3] After having visited or stayed at multiple institutes in India and after interacting with colleagues at many others, I realize that this is something to be truly grateful for!

[4] and many people in the admin office still work beyond office hours!

[5] though they are still a handful :)

Thoughts on parenting

Last Sunday, the world celebrated Mother's Day.  People shared pictures of their moms or their children on FB profiles.  My phone got overwhelmed by messages from online retail websites, enticing me to surprise my mother with gifts, air trips, spa appointments and what not.

I have a slightly uncomfortable relationship with this event.  I had not heard about it until the summer of 2000.  My mother was undergoing her chemotherapy treatment.  I had just finished exams and we were watching a movie together on a Sunday afternoon.  Suddenly, there was an advertisement on TV which announced that it was Mother's Day and the right opportunity to express your love for your mother.  We both continued to stare at the screen and wondered where this came from.  I could not bring myself to wish her because I had never heard of it before.  Sadly, that was my last opportunity to wish her.

For the last couple of days, I have been thinking about her and more generally, the parent child relationship. 

Parenting is a difficult job.  Every stage is a test of character.  It requires extreme amounts of self discipline to balance child care with one's professional and other commitments.  A lot of maturity goes into creating a nourishing atmosphere in which the child grows and the parents absorb all the difficulties.  When my mother's cancer was diagnosed earlier that year, her first concern was that the routines of her children should not be disrupted.  She even asked the doctor if the surgery can be postponed until after our exams.  The good doctor refused, but I still can't imagine how she was willing to put up with all the pain for 3 more months just so that the schedules of her children wouldn't be disturbed.  

Professor Sanghi's recent blog post describes yet another parenting challenge: that of placing the well being of the child above one's own ambitions/expectations.  His post mentions students in the IIT system who would dare not share their fears, anxieties, troubles with their parents for fear of adverse reaction.  It also mentions difficult situations for the institute when a counselor recommends that a student suffering from an illness, particularly depression needs family care and affection, but the parents would rather not have their ward back for fear of delayed graduation and what "people" would think.

These parents have done the best for their children, provided them the necessary education, resources and opportunities to enable them to get into IITs or other higher educational institutes. They care enough to frequently call faculty and keep track of their ward's academic progress: yet, at some point, the same parents are unable to give the ward the emotional support that s/he needs.  A parent of a student known to me once said, "my son must give me adequate returns on my investment in him." At what stage exactly did love turn into a financial investment?

Indeed, parenting is not for the fickle and feeble!