The Aged In India: Myth and Despotic Mother-In-Laws

Outside the confines of these living quarters, however, Bullu Ram (untouchables have no surnames) is still shunned by the upper classes. He is even segregated from their temples and must attend one of his own caste. But in his home, his daughter-in-law, a diminutive figure in trousers and tunic, shows obeisance by veiling her head in his presence.

Our visit caused much excitement and produced a round of cokes, chili-spiced rice krispies, filtered cigarettes and gaping neighbors rooted to the doorway. For Bullu Ram, it was a prestigious afternoon. He puffed contentedly on the black, cigar-like bidi, and spoke self-consciously about his four children and 15 grandchildren.

Although the retirement age is 58, menial trades have no cutoff date. Bullu Ram earns 10 dollars a month cleaning out state housing units. About two per cent of the salary is deducted for health insurance; another 10 per cent for the civil service provident fund (a retirement policy eventually paid off in a lump sum).

(Per capita income in India is 70 dollars a year; an unskilled laborer earns about 70 cents a day. That would barely feed one person; many more eat every third day. Delhi is called the “invisible city,” because most of the four million inhabitants are without housing. At night they sleep in the streets and at dawn the dark, sleeping forms resemble an invasion of locusts.)

Despite his small income, Bull Ram professes no worries. “I don’t know the price of food,” he says, “I don’t have to bother. My family takes complete care of me. After work, I come home and have my food and tea and bed. That is how they show their respect to me.”

His son is a telephone company electrician and handyman. Prize possessions in the nine-by-twelve room are a neon light and radio he put together himself plus a sewing machine. Beautifully embroidered cloths cover the one bed; the suitcases used for clothing storage, and the wall shelves holding glassware and bric-a-brac.

In a special corner of the kitchen reposes Bulla Ram’s one hobby – a hukka or water pipe. “It takes so long to get it started,” he grins, “but I prefer it to cigarettes in the evening. And then my neighbors come over and we smoke it and have tea.”

“What do we talk about? Oh. ‘how are you’, ‘I have a new grandson’ – things like that.”

So far, the two families visited could represent the norm anywhere of widowed parents staying with their children. For India, this is a new style of small or nuclear family. It is a by-product of industrialization, the gradual migration to larger cities, and a chronic housing shortage.

However, 80 per cent of the population still resides in the villages. And it pursues the tradition of the joint family – a commune with perhaps dozens of family members living (and sometimes quarreling) under one roof. As the sons marry, they bring their brides home, and, in the few wealthier houses, more bedrooms are added on. More likely, possessions are stored in a locked cupboard (one per family) and individuals sleep dormitory-fashion under the stars.

As head of the joint family, papa holds all the purse strings and makes all the decisions. Only he can determine who works the land or goes to school, and who may attend festivities. Whether on a farm or in a family-owned factory, each individual has a particular job, and finances are pooled and shared equally.

Inequalities are most likely suffered by new brides. If not humble or subservient enough (most start off making cow-dung patties used for fuel), the mother-in-law can become oppressive. The plot thickens if an embittered spinster sister decides to join forces.

Mama dictates what the girl wears and when, what she may purchase (including baby items), and when she may leave the house. The young husband may suggest an afternoon stroll, but mama can deny permission. If she is bored, she will demand the girl’s company for herself.

In Bombay, I met two married businessmen, aged 47 and 53. They live with their 75-year-old mother, a widow, who is still boss. If one wants to buy a new suit, mama decides first if there is enough money.

Naturally the system gives enormous power and security to the aged. It also solves the problem of the sick, disabled and widowed. There is a place for everyone. But it functions only if there are male heirs to build the family unit.

Girls don’t count. They are costly to marry off. And once they leave home, ties are broken and they belong to a new set of parents. If you are cursed with girl babies, you keep trying for a boy. Particularly since a son is essential for the funeral ceremony. It is he who cracks the dead parent’s skull so the spirit may escape the body.

Children are one’s old age insurance. One Indian calls them “lottery tickets” – the more one conceives, the better the return. Those who survive, till the soil as children, and tend the aged as adults.

This is the reason why family planning has an uphill fight in India. It is also a matter of virility. An employee who was persuaded while drunk to have a vasectomy cried to his superior that he would lose face in the village. They would wonder why the continuous pregnancies had stopped.

About 53,000 babies are born daily. By the year 2000, the population is expected to double to one billion. Cities like Bombay with 5.5 million are already babels of beggars and homeless urchins. Of families so poor they sleep under a cart or keep house in iron sewer pipes, which must reach 150 degrees under the merciless sun. And where do you put grandma?

As a grandpa, Mukand Sal Sachdeva, 68, thinks pensions are the answer. At least for “deserted parents” such as himself who have had only daughters and now no one to provide for them. In his case, money is hardly a problem. He owns two grocery stores which cater mainly to embassy-type whims for whiskies, canned butter and Iranian caviar. But he complains that taxes take 90 per cent of everything over 6,000 dollars.

We sat over lunch prepared by Mrs. Sachdeva, a handsome, tall, plump woman with smooth skin and gray hair. She wore a plain, white cotton sari and diamonds worth at least six carats on one finger and in her ear lobes.

Stainless-steel bowls clattered on the large, square wooden table, and I had my first lesson in eating with fingers. There were lentil and pumpkin curries and deep-fried pancakes to spoon them with. Also fried potatoes, rice pilaf, mango and lime chutneys, and yogurt. Most dishes were spiced with hot chilies, and when my eyes and nose began to water in reaction, Mrs. Sachdeva felt complimented on her cooking.

The house was large and empty, and still. Where four girls and their friends once scampered, there were now only wedding-portrait reminders. Sachdeva winced perceptibly as he recalled dowries, catered banquets for 1,000 guests, and sari presents for women in the groom’s family – all multiplied by four.

A rich bride anticipates a trousseau of some four dozen saris (gold brocade ones cost over 600 dollars each), and at least five diamond-pearl-ruby studded necklace and earring sets.

The dowry varies from 100 to 7,500 dollars. That represents a year’s wages for some – or a lifetime of debt. As a result, parents rarely accumulate savings and when aged are totally dependent on their offspring for support. If they should die before the obligation is repaid, the burden falls upon the oldest son. It is then his duty as well to provide dowries for any remaining unmarried sisters. Some are forced to hold down three jobs in order to pay all the bills, and often must postpone their own nuptials.

As new family head, he also has the burden of supporting lazy or less talented brothers and guiding them in a parent-child relationship. His wife becomes “mama” to sister-in-laws.

For the children, the big-family system provides a ready-made pool of babysitters and cousins to play with. Couples are carefree to leave for study or diplomatic service abroad, or extended holidays, because their children are cared for. Invariably, those free to travel are the primogenital and his wife.

Disadvantages of the system are obvious to westerners: It encourages parasites, discourages individual initiative and prolongs child-like dependency. As conductor Pierre Boulez once so aptly said, “You can still love your mother, but you must learn to feed yourself.” There is no privacy or solitude and the bickering, backbiting and jealousies are legend. The top wage earner has some clout, but a namby-pamby’s wife is subjected to so many indignities, she is a candidate for suicide.

Despite the vagaries of joint family living and its numerous detractors (mostly the young, educated), it continues to survive because old and young need each other. It provides social security against the outside world, one which begins just outside one’s village.

The venturesome find an immediate change in language, food and customs. It is easier to stay at home and let the family find you a job. For some with university degrees, that may take years. Since property and dowry are essential for a good marriage, one is again dependent on papa. Those who try to break out of the mold and rush into love marriages rather than those arranged by the family, fear disinheritance. Then one belongs nowhere. For an Indian, alone-ness is anathema.

The more money or property in a family, the more likely members stay together – even the would be mavericks.

Tucked in among the pink palaces of Jaipur, the Gobindram Ramchand family does a brisk business in jewels. It also owns a foundry, which turns out thousands of brass elephants, and camels for U.S. export.

Four sons run the business, but father Gobindram, 74, wearing a black pillbox cap and white dhoti, or maxi loincloth, still keeps the books. He also rules over six families squeezed boarding-house fashion into tiers of rooms above the main store. “Downstairs we make the decisions,” says eldest son, Ahuja. “But we always consult father on family matters such as the marriage of my son.”

Ahuja is about to become a grandfather, making four generations under one roof. But their affluence is not visible.

Rickety stairs lead up to dismal quarters. Each family is allotted two rooms, which are constantly padlocked. (You can tell if a woman is married in India by the ring of household keys tucked into her sari slip or tied to the veil corner.) The rooms barely accommodate a double bed and a wardrobe or two. Parents sleep in one, the children (up to five) in the other.

There is no community dining room or living room. The bathroom is a cubicle with a hole in the floor and a shower spout in the ceiling. In India, sinks are rare and bathtubs considered unclean.

Ahuja’s one concession to modernity was to construct separate closet-size kitchens for each family. He explains it was “to satisfy individual tastes and because women are the source of arguments and thus are left to themselves.”

The oldest part of the dwelling, where Ahuja was born, is empty except for a tangle of springs and mattresses. In the clearing of one room, however, a widow, 80, wearing white rags, sleeps on the floor. “She is alone, but considered a sister and can remain,” says Ahuja. The distinction is one of caste rather than bloodline.

At his beckoning, the new daughter-in-law, head appropriately covered, approaches with cokes. She touches his feet in esteem as do his sons and younger brothers. Particular deference, of course, goes to the patriarch, 74, and his wife. Mrs. Ramchand was draped in the common white garb of aged women, and sported seven one-fourth carat diamonds in each ear. Not so common. Gobindram turned vegetarian last year after his son died in a motorcycle accident. It is a sin,” he reasons, “to kill children of other animals.”

The son’s widow, 35, has been absorbed by the family along with her five children. “No, of course, she would not return to her parents,” says Ahuja. “If she did, her brother would not feel the same responsibility towards them that we do. My father pays for the children and the oldest son, 17, will be educated by the family and placed in the business. He is loved as part of our brother.”

Without being prodded, he adds, “It is unthinkable that she would remarry. She can serve only one God and, therefore, only one husband.”

The reverence toward males is instilled in a girl from childhood. She is taught to defer to her brothers and her father, later to her husband and in-laws.

Once a year on Karwa Chauth or Father’s Day, wives observe the occasion by fasting 16 hours and praying continuously for their husband’s health and longevity. Mahabil Chand, 60, a retired government economist, accepts the sacrifice as natural.

“She is economically dependent on me,” he says. “Her father schooled her until she was 12 and at 14 we were engaged, and then I took over the responsibility. So, of course she prays that I will continue to be able to look after her.”

A married son shares the newly built house in the fashionable residential area of Hauz Khas Enclosure in New Delhi. (Two daughters are students in Washington, D.C.) The family sat watching television, but a refrigerator positioned in the living room competed for my attention.

Chand’s son wore the traditional at-home outfit for males: Billowy, white cotton pajama bottoms with a matching over blouse. (The aged often complain that children affront them by wearing western pants and shirt in their presence.) The women wore the special red, green and gold brocade saris for this one celebration.

Around 10 p.m., the moon came out, signaling the time for prayer. The family altar, located in the corner of a guest room, resembles a small, old-fashioned gas lamp with one section cut out. Statues and pictures of the deities repose inside, behind burning sticks of jasmine incense.

The women knelt and symbolically offered stacks of flatbread and sweetmeats to the gods, then threw rice at them. Finally, they ascended to the flat rooftop to cast rice and water in the direction of the moon. That concluded the rite and the fast. It was time for dinner.

Sudha Arun, 28, of Bombay, deplores the deficiency of formal education, which has forced women into subservient roles. At best, she says, aged upper class women have learned the cultural arts of singing, dancing and playing the veena, a string instrument. Mrs. Arun, by contrast, is a graduate chemist; also the wife of a publisher and mother of two pre-schoolers.

Her in-laws live with them as does a divorced brother-in-law. Although brought up in a joint family of 48 persons, Mrs. Arun is critical of its viability in contemporary times. “My mother-in-law,” she says, “was 16 when she married and uneducated. She had to kowtow to her mother-in-law and now that she has her turn, she wants me to do the same. She is miffed when I don’t consult her on things.”

“Well,” she continues, “I have my own will and rationale. Why should I live her way? At her age, she had no other outlook or alternative.”

Mrs. Arun, chic in a modern-print beige sari and mod eyeglasses, beamed at the compliment on her contemporary living room decor. “I would prefer to have my own home,” she says, “to live alone with my husband and children, and decorate as I like. If I buy something, mother-in-law says, ‘You know we can’t afford it’. It’s the same with clothing. She buys it all.”

“Also I must cater to my father-in-law and be here for his one o’clock lunch.” (Only after he finishes, may she have hers, usually with the mother-in-law). “Fortunately she hasn’t balked at my going out with my husband. Others will say, ‘You know father needs someone to serve him his tea at four o’clock’.

Mrs. Arun said she couldn’t return to her job because the mother-in-law wanted to retire from household duties. So she spends the day directing a cook, two servants, chauffeuring the children to nursery school, cooking complex vegetarian dinners, and politely listening to the in-laws.

“I could have insisted on living apart,” she says, “But my in-laws hang so upon my husband. So I accepted them. I did it because I love my husband.”

“So do I,” says Anita Dhall, a swinging hostess in Madras, who wears both jeans and saris slung low on the hip. “But I had to get out after two years of living with my in-laws in Chandigarh. Do this, do that. I just couldn’t get used to it. Perhaps it’s because I had an English stepmother. There was no privacy. Another brother had to go through our bedroom to get to the bathroom. If we felt nasty, we simply locked him out.”

Mrs. Dhall and her husband are transplanted Punjabis. That is a cultural group from the north, and West Pakistan, which adapts well to foreign parts of India and elsewhere in the world. The southerners, in contrast, are more orthodox and conservative and frown upon western style dress and party giving.

The Dhalls enjoy their independent merrymaking, but observe certain family obligations. At least twice a year, they return to his family to spend their holidays. “I find,” says Mrs. Dhall, “that I love them more since we live apart.”

Raj Vig cannot accept the notion of the dis-jointed family and regrets its demise in the large cities. With almost stoic pride, she talked of their being “a duty with every right. If only the young would compromise a bit and learn some discipline,” she says. “But rich girls only want to play.”

Mrs. Vig, a matron of 45, with a son in graduate studies at Ohio University, has survived 25 years of mother-in-law-ism. She seems to feel it is good training. “My father was a widower and he worried about my happiness. So I would never, ever let on that I was the least bit disappointed,” she says smugly. She adds that she is now number one daughter-in-law – “which, after all, means something,” she adds proudly.

She does recommend that mother in laws prepare for their abdication. That they turn to hobbies for diversion rather than caged daughter-in-laws. Perhaps they could do charitable work for the poor, she says. But that concept is foreign to most Indian thinking.

“Hindus do not possess the social consciousness of westerners,” explains The Illustrated Weekly of India.” [They] have not built hospitals or schools. The devout might object: ‘Is not prayer enough? Can man do more than God?’

“When they see a neighbor suffer, their compassion is aroused, but they do nothing to mitigate his suffering. [They say] it is the fruit of karma.” [Karma translates retribution to expiate sins of a previous incarnation.]

“Is there any point in man interfering with the scheme of things?”

The Parsis say “yes.” They are a tiny religious minority of 105,000 centered in Bombay. They are Zoroastrians, originally from Iran, and provide for their own through a special fund. There are no beggars among Parsis, certainly a rarity among Indian communities. On any street, anywhere in the country, one is besieged by Memsib-muttering persons. Many are sponsored by a mendicant’s Mafia.

The Parsis limit the number of their offspring, educate them, and, in Bombay, own many of the businesses. Perhaps their most famous native son is Zubin Mehta, conductor of the Los Angeles Phil, harmonic.