Reading Postures
specifically designed for women
I could never claim that I knew how to read since my childhood. By “how”, I do not mean the lexical items, nor even the pragmatics. It was about how to “sit” and read. My father used to come home every evening at seven and ask me if I had memorised the multiplication tables. A disappointing shrug from me made him furious and he would direct my shuddering limbs and legs to sit in the right way. His index finger will point towards the ground and my body would just drop to the ground, minding a straight posture. Then, he would point towards my legs and ask me to sit in Padmasana, folding my legs. After five years or so, there emerged a space where I could ask questions and then this was the first question I decided to ask:
“How does it matter if I study on my bed, lying down and reading the book just like that?”
He again got furious. Looking sharply at my mother, who had complained that I was not sitting in a Padmasana position to study for my exams, my father said,
“Your mind has been spoilt, god knows why and how! You do not realise why posture is important.”
“But then papa, you always read a book before sleeping. And you have even narrated stories to me like that. So…?”
“That is for pleasure. That kind of reading is different from learning.”
With this kind of constant friction, I always managed to find my way. I made the idea of these postures humorous so that my parents would laugh at it and forget about it. Then the next day again daily newspapers would be found in my washroom. And there would be moments shifting from
“You have made this whole house impure.”
to
“Can anyone argue with you, Nishpriha? Let us eat dinner now.”
I read everywhere. I read in the kitchen while cutting mangoes and while eating them. I read while sitting at train doors, and by putting my scribbled notes on co-passengers’ shoulders. I read sitting on pavements, waiting for buses, or waiting for nothing. I read while dressing up, keeping the notes on bed, I read while stitching my loose shirts. I read with my legs playing with water ripples, I read while dreaming about the rivers. I read in love, I read in despair. In all moods, at all places, finding a place to rest the pages and my eyes on them. However, this does not qualify me as a “voracious” reader. I forced myself to read, to read at odd places. So that my body remembers, so that my hands and legs forget the memory of reading in a particular way…may be “the way”.
What I read was never important to me. Or to say, why I read. I read about “personal problems” in magazines, I read random newspaper bits given with roasted peanuts. I read notice boards in schools and institutions, I read hotel menus written on blackboards on streets. I read about the doctors — all kinds, their addresses in the village and their secret phone numbers. I read the covers of the books that people used to read in Metro trains by bending down (pretending to sleep). Amidst all this, I did not know whether I was reading to learn or learning to read.
Whether I like reading or not, or how I read — was not important for entering into a PhD program. What was important was that I had to read. And by this time, I had actually started enjoying reading.
Interestingly, my first visit to the library was fascinating. Cushioned chairs, centrally air conditioned, beautiful soft pastel colours, a posh looking coffee shop with a lot of posters telling me why I should have coffee, cabins for secluded study, more number of guards than students to safeguard reading (perhaps?), well tiled (every hour cleaned) floors, carpeted rooms. It looked like an airport lounge but not in a disappointing way. What better place to indulge in the pleasure of reading! Given the amount of readings that I had/have to do, I decided to take the pile of books in the library. But right before entering the serene place, I was stopped. I could not take my bag in because there is a threat of theft of books? Maybe. I submitted my bag but asked the librarian to change this rule for the reading cabins because it had my lip balm, shawl, pencils and wallet, things I need. He looked at me and asked:
“Do you not submit bags before you enter a shop in the mall? How do you manage there?”
“But a library is not a mall, no?”
I went ahead and picked up a Foucault. I needed a lot of time to understand Foucault. With just one book on my lap and a notebook, I started reading. Somehow, and I blame Foucault for this, my legs started moving up onto the chair. It had been three hours since my legs had been in a “proper” position but now, they gave up (quite literally it seems). Suddenly, a guard came in and asked me to put them down. It hurt to sit like that so I asked him why I couldn’t sit like that. He said,
“It is not allowed here.”
“But who said that?”
“No, it is not allowed here to sit like that.”
On further probing, he brought some other guard who told me the same thing.
“It is not allowed here, this is from the authority.”
This loop kept on going, just like Kafka’s Trial. But I was not going to give in and so I was taken to the “security head”. He was a medium tall guy, with hair parted at the side, wearing a blue shirt with a mark of Swastika engraved on the left sleeve. He was sitting on a chair with a table in front of him and I was made to stand with other guards. He told me politely,
“But madam, you say…do you think this is the proper way of studying? Of reading books? Of knowledge? How can one learn like that?”
“But I have been doing this for ages! And I think it is not that bad. I can only read like this. My legs hurt now.”
He looked at my face, for some marks of sincerity. Probably he believed me. But the guards were standing with me, as if asking him to say something to me, to tell me that it is not allowed. Guessing that, he asked them to leave or assigned them some work. Then he leaned forward and asked me,
“Madam, tell me one thing.”
And his face got really serious. He leaned further, as if indicating some sort of a secret.
“Madam, when you were reading, were your both legs up?”
“Yes, why?”
“Had it been just one, I could have done something.”
It was difficult for me to read in a flamingo posture. After requesting for a separate space, there was one room given to us. The Sociology room. It was all going fine.
Until one day when I decided to watch the movie Annayum Rasoolam with a friend to familiarise myself with Kochi. I had to leave for fieldwork in Kochi and I thought there wasn’t a better way than this. Because there were no chairs in the room, I decided to lie down and watch. Suddenly, another guard came into the room,
“Please do not roll on the floor like this. It is not allowed here.”
“But I am not rolling. I am lying down, watching a movie for my work!”
“Does it look nice that you are lying down like this? This is a university.”
Because I started asking him the “why”, he left that place.
Next day, I was urgently called.
“This guard has complained against you. You disturbed a lot of students.”
“But we were watching a movie and he has no business telling me what my body posture should be like.”
“Do you think it is appropriate to lie like that in a university?”
I did not know what to say. Neither do I remember those jokes that I used to say when my father asked me to sit in Padmasana.
Believe me, I am actually writing this with a straight spine, laptop on a table, legs down and of course, with my right hand. All the right things.
No, no, I am not lying on my bed. My laptop is not on my stomach. And some biscuits are not lying on the floor.