To the ‘big’ aunty wearing tights, here’s a bigger Bravo!

I was preparing for medical entrance exams in Class 12. My chemistry tutor ran batches of 25 which began at 6 am till way past dusk, in his house. He was very good! Till that morning when he looked at me, smirked, looked away at the others and said ‘Those girls who wear tight jeans never clear these exams. I can write it down for you.’ I was 16. Everyone laughed uproariously. I never went to him again. I did get a call from a medical college in Pune. 

He wasn’t that good, after all!

****

A few months back I read about Amy Pence-Brown, a nearly 40-year-old woman, who stripped down to a bikini in the middle of a busy market, blindfolded. She invited strangers to draw hearts on her body in an effort to promote self-love; to promote acceptance of our bodies for what they are. Supportive comments poured in! 

dailymail.co.uk

I quote from John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, a gift from a man and a most valuable one. 

‘According to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome, the social presence of a woman is different in kind from that of a man. A man’s presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies. If the promise is large and credible his presence is striking…suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. His presence may be fabricated…but the pretence is always towards a power which he exercises on others. 

By contrast, a woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself...manifest in her gestures, voice, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste – indeed there is nothing she can do which does not contribute to her presence.

To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. This has been at the cost of women’s self being split in two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself…from earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually.

She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life… Thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.’

Berger wrote this back in 1977. Such were the times, the expectations from women and thus of women. Appropriate it to today’s situation. Are you too thinking such are the times, still? At least partially?

Let’s go back to Amy who began this piece for us. When she exposed every popularly-defined 'ugly, fat and ungainly' part of her body what all did she do? She erased that split within! The ‘mother’ fought away her own image of herself, through years of conditioning, to free her three children from the burden of dominant beauty discourses. And the ‘fat feminist’ reclaimed her body!

And now come back to where you are sitting and reading this. What are you wearing right now? And why?

I’m inviting you to self-talk because it is something I once used to do standing before a wardrobe which always ‘played safe’ and knocked away any ‘experiment with clothes’ or ‘lust for the latest fashion’ that tried to get in. Because, will it suit me? In school there was little scope. In college the fantasies of wearing the most different dresses materialised in the changing room, and never walked out. Even after I hit 20, maybe especially then, since the world is suddenly visible to your adult eyes, a lot of clothes, accessories, make-up and hair-dos were secretly admired on others and dreamt about later. From two pony-tails in school I had graduated to one pony-tail in college, with the latest rubber band holding it, no more.  

I was very conscious of myself, and not just because of beauty magazines, advertisements, movies and social media feeding me their standards but also those people-to-people comments politely lecturing me on ‘what is okay for you’. So you know what a battle it must have been to wear my first ever halter-neck without worrying that my bust line is a shame! But when I walked out for the first time baring my back to the world, I slowly started arriving at a point of comfort with how I look in what I wear and where. It is then that realization seeped in – all these years of growing up, the ‘will it suit me?’ was more about ‘will it suit others’ idea of me?’ 

I was trying to please, to appeal to another’s sensibility. And it wasn’t even me who was doing that!  

A woman’s self-esteem is constantly crushed. Going back to Berger, girls often grow up in an ‘allotted and confined space’ and even as women face ‘tutelage’ from surprising quarters. The pressures to be dainty, pretty, shapely, combed, graceful, ironed wrap us in layers of self-judging, mummifying what we truly want to be. Colouring our image of ourselves in others’ tinted glasses. Because on our shoulders hang expectations, of others from us and those we women tend to have of ourselves as a result of constant conditioning. 

So the ‘big’ aunty in tights, walking gaily down the chic mall or the neighborhood market, and who still in a very evolved world generates snickers, may have run an obstacle course to get herself to buy her first pair, and climbed a mountain of belief to wear it! Against her family, her husband, her kids, her magazine, her friends’ sense of aesthetics, and who knows what else to reach the finish line of confidence. A true heroine, if you ask me. One who has succeeded in leaving beauty myths behind even if to don the latest fashion (for why should a tank top be the privilege of a few?) One who has accepted her body, as your ‘warts’ but her all! And one who burns the measuring tape you take to her thighs (like that despicable newspaper printing candid bum shots or a Right winger’s view on jeans) with an enviable self-assurance!

A lot is gained when we reclaim our bodies – its bulges, its scars, its pores, its patches - one step at a time. Because what we also reclaim is our Presence; social, emotional and even political presence in the world, in its truest sense. Just like Amy owned hers, in her black bikini. 

Nakedness was created in the mind of the beholder, in the Garden of Eden. And it continues to be today, in all its forms. Says Berger – 

‘She is not naked as she is.

She is naked as the spectator sees her.’

Think about it.

[Entirely my opinion, the importance of which like any other is as much in its rejection as in its acceptance.] 

The fault in our laughs, on Karvachauth

Let me begin this post by a status update Sfurti Sinha shared on the morning of the Karvachauth fast. 

‘Whether I am fasting or not - NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. Whether my husband is fasting or not - NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. My life is mine, not yours. You are not in my marriage. Freedom and equality in true sense means choosing whatever I want to do, whatever makes sense to me. There is a fine line between having an opinion and sounding judgemental. Your opinions should be the basis your life, they shouldn't sound like a judgement on others.’

On a day when she had much else to take care of, Sfurti was ‘driven’ to vent publicly thus. If I wasn’t around in the same place last year, I would not have understood why. But I was. So in a way, I have been meaning to write this post since a year now. I waited because I wanted to see if rituals other than Karvachauth garnered loud amused laughter too. Not that I noticed any and certainly not equal in magnitude to the humour that surrounds a woman observing a fast for her husband. 

Here is me now, thinking aloud.

Humour is important. We have all read its various forms in different genres of different media. For instance, Theatre has used ‘uncomfortable laughter’ in the audience as a way to hold a mirror to their lives – political, social and even marital. Slapstick comedy shows a man slipping on a banana peel with similar intent; it could be you up there. Scatological references make us laugh because shit and spit is best seen on the other’s person. On television, we see stand-up humour including in its funny tentacles commentary on the government, the news channels and the entertainment industry.

While humour in the various arts was named and came with a larger purpose, the picture in the tweeting-updating social media is often like a mock-epic of what was once classic. ‘Art for art’s sake’ is no crime, but then really, what may be the point? Except wondering at the end of a virally-sharing day - whose line was it anyway?

On Karvachauth day, it doesn’t take much to realize that loose laughter is not just directed at the patriarchal ritual of fasting for a husband. The butts of the jokes become the women following it. Those laughing? The women who do not believe in it, of course. While what’s between the husband and the wife stays where it is supposed to, between them, everything else associated with Karvachauth occupies centre stage and space in the minds of those who have half-baked ideas about the ritual and none whatsoever about the fasting woman’s idea of it.

Thinking …

Is poking fun the best way to ‘guide’ a woman out of a deep-rooted patriarchal discourse? Isn’t it as unfair a ‘peer pressure’ as was given to her by those who made her embrace those traditions in the first place? How does our lackadaisical ‘promotion’ of an antithetical thought-process towards a redundant tradition differ in lack-of-substance from the stoical one of far Right. Are we, in our fun and games, creating but a poorer alternative even if at the other end of the spectrum? It is for this reason that I liked #FastForHer movement. It did nothing to do away with the day. But for now, it got men into the fray. A constructive step towards re-examining the necessity of it all by being a part of it. From inside the circle. A much better, more understanding way, to reverse trends. More sensitive too. 

Because …

We are not providing that line-towing woman sensible alternatives to a symbolism codified over generations, one she has believed in and which provides her with comfort. A kitty of jokes may get us a few giggling followers, but nothing more. The shell we want to break is built on three very thick layers – obedience, belief and comfort. If we are so desperate to break it, we'll need to know more about it.

But, why do we laugh?

Are we, in the larger scheme of things, trying to show her sense or poke fun at what we see as obsoleteness that she surrounds herself with? A bid of one-upmanship and modernity, maybe.  At the same time, furthering lines of difference based on our ideas of modern and ancient, tradition and revolution. Disservice is what we are doing, by making her feel outdated, conscious, stuck and worst of all outcast in lobbies which don’t fast. When the idea of feminism grew this mocking army amidst all the painstakingly-built theories and practice I know not, but I wish we remember what the movement we so glibly use essentially stood for. One word – Choice, as Sfurti’s status above signifies. 

Interestingly …

The tray that a woman carries for her Karvachauth puja holds a few symbols of matrimony. Most of those objects are found in most women’s dressing drawers that you and I anyway may use as a matter of routine, or during festive times. The difference is, she wants to spend a day with them while you may freely reserve the biggest bindis for your designer saris or Durga Puja times. (Yes, you may include that idea of a parlour visit in this, which for so many is one of the greatest social outlets in a year). To not eat is not so much of a suffering as it is made out to be, that too by those who are eating their three meals anyway. Concern doesn’t mock. It helps. But first, it has to try to understand what is wrong to understand the ‘victim’ of it all.

Did you who jest know … 

We don’t have to dress up as brides on Karvachauth. We don’t need to use sieves to look at the moon. Henna is not compulsory and neither is touching the husband's feet. I blame popular media for propagating limited understanding of this tradition. Which does mean, more groundwork needs to be done before the laughing party decides to become a mouthpiece carrying the cause of fasting women on its shoulders.

Manjulika did this for her mother-in-law.

Tanya created 'American Karvas'.

I think … 

Humour cannot alone help cut through years of nurture. Not even shake the idea of obedience to elders and fear of Gods; especially for rituals created around husbands’ well-being, because they are based on a relationship. It also will never stand ground against the idea of Choice, which women like me make when we decide to fast or not fast. If we are to liberate minds, we need to show them how our freedoms are worthy of emulation. In all the mindless cackling, the voices of sanity who seek to deliver women from coerced and oppressive rituals get drowned and lost. 

We need to question traditions to see how they affect gender narratives and we need to reinvent some of them to better suit the changing times, or do away with those which we no longer agree with. How we do it is the point, and the key to it is in each one of our hands or in our homes.  Read these lines shared by Hrishikesh Bawa:

“Fasting does not lead to anything … Love and respect for each other is more important," said a woman’s mother-in-law to her. I think a hero is not just the guerilla rebel. Sometimes, she is the one who is a part of the system too. Likewise, the one who impulsively jumps out of the ancient window might just have been a hasty fool.

This was probably my last year of observing this fast. My husband’s tank of patience with it is full. I no longer have to give company to my mother-in-law – in deed or in spirit – by not eating with her and enjoying the evening katha too. Next time, I will probably go to the other side of the fence, well aware of what made me follow the Karvachauth ritual and promising myself not to forget it. Perhaps, that will help me remain sensitive towards those who wish to do as they please.

Because you know as well as I do how private choices get played with on public trampolines all in the name of jest.

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Community Service - Your entire community — however you define that; your hometown, your neighborhood, your family, your colleagues — is guaranteed to read your blog tomorrow. Write the post you’d like them all to see.]

It's a beautiful life

There was a fly sitting on her eye. She knew that. She could feel that. It’s a beautiful life … She did not know how to make it go away, as it tickled her slightly swollen eyelid looking for something between those lashes and making tiny footprints with the kohl that had formed wild black streams near her nose. It was moving around, that tiny fly, confident as if knowing the hands that could smash it away would not do it because they were stuck above her head, feeling the wet straw between the numb fingers. Wet. The cow must have urinated again. How many times do cows urinate? Is this the third time since I got here? Fourth? Is that the Sun outside? It’s a beautiful life … Something is crawling up my thigh … or is it flowing down? 

Her eyes remained motionless as she lay there, as if in deep sleep, while her mind played images ridden with white noise like an antenna on a stormy night which could not handle the gusts. Cannot handle any more, how tired I feel … that … that man … was just a child … murderer … no matter how hard she tried her hands still disobeyed and refused to crawl to that patch between her legs and under her. What was warm a few hours ago was fast becoming dry. And brittle. 

Then, she urinated. 

It burned like acid through her very being. The fly flew away. A drop of hot tear had disturbed its peace. The cow looked on, still confused after a whole night.

There were whispers around the house which her pregnant mind had not comprehended. To her, all that mattered was the reason to celebrate. For the first time in her year old marriage, if someone was to remove her ghunghat and look at her face, they would have beheld happiness personified like never before. Hope too, but happiness more. Where once a will power of steel was required to make unheard taunts about her family, her sisters, her father, her mother, her clothes, her thin frame, her 12th pass certificate, her oily food, her wasteful habit of buying bangles, not minding her pallu, her … now nothing was required. Once, it was as if she was made to stand barefoot on a hot tava, and still expected to not jump. But now, with head bent and eyes looking at her chipped toes in respect of everyone but herself, she just shut her ears when venom was poured into them. She now had something to look forward to. To keep her expectant mind cocooned. Beyond this noise. 

Whenever people disturbed her thoughts about the future that was fast approaching, she would let her finger brush against the gold-plated earrings which then chimed a giggly-girly tune. A tune that would make a few waves around her ears dancing like a dervish before entering her being making her whole body ring with happiness. A reminder to self, or maybe a secret signal shared with what was to come? Nervous with excitement she would clutch her stomach, look for a vacant spot behind the mud house and just close her eyes, feigning giddiness. To feel one with herself, all parts of herself. It’s a beautiful life. It’s just so beautiful… and her 19 year old mind would cook up a tune singing this line on a loop. As if it was a tiny girl sitting on a swing with the ribbons on her two plaits flying carefree in the wind.

That night she had woken up when she felt something was pressing down on her stomach. Or was it pressing from within? It was him, her husband, on top of her. We shouldn’t … it’s not right … please … it’s risky, it doesn’t feel right … please and in that moment she had realized her hands were tied. And he was tying up her legs too, right at the thighs. Bewildered beyond belief she had tried to scream but her calls for help only fell on invisible ears acting abettors. A black tape sealed her lips together to make her swallow her own disbelief. It made mute the gold-plated earrings too. As if her secret signal had been found. The prick of the injection was the last feeling she remembered. Not even the sounds and smells of the cow shed woke her up for that one hour. She remained on the floor. Alone. Like a bundle of clothes one tosses out for they have no more use for it. 

It is then that she woke up, and died a million times over. 

The labour had been induced. The girl was coming. But, it was not meant to. Not today, nor ever. It was pushing against her insides desperate to be freed and here she was, helpless to let it come to spread her legs to even scream. It must be a mistake … he should know … help … but all that the cow heard was muffled sounds it understood not. 

Her back burned and radiated shocks of pain towards her front, tightening those claws by the minute as if asking for deliverance for itself from committing this evil deed. Her wrists bled and the rope dug deeper into her thighs as her legs ached to open wide. To let out, let go, let be, be free. Nothing worked, as she writhed like a worm that has been stepped upon. She lay praying she would explode. Hoping her belly would burst open and make the baby come out. Alive. Alive, please… please. By now she had swallowed her vomit three times. The pain didn’t let her faint, waiting to reach that threshold which even Gods must shudder to think about. Where are you, dear God? Help me, please, help, hel … and then she had passed out, imagining the last sound that she heard to be a baby's cry.

My belly has burst … my … my baby is free. Free. It’s a beautiful life. How many times do cows urinate? … Is that the Sun outside? It’s a beautiful life … Something is crawling up my thigh … or is it flowing down? 

It’s a beautiful life … my … my baby is free.

The fly was back, this time on the gold-plated earring lying murdered below the tape.

The Homecoming

Through her kohl-lined eyes she saw the white Volvo bus leave for Roorkee from between the greasy window rails of her own bus, which was still waiting to fill up. A small bag with her belongings was all she carried, tucked between her cracked feet adorned by a silver payal and the unseen dirt under her seat. It was hot, so hot that she looked at the AC Volvo with a parched gaze. Her eyes burned. 

‘Why don’t I take one of those white buses to Roorkee this time?’ she had half-implored her husband of some months. ‘You know, it’s quite hot and even the doctor says I should travel comfortable since it’s the initial few weeks and ...’ She stopped as he knotted his brow and looked at her. As if he did not understand. He thought her mad for asking for money worth an AC bus ride. ‘What a queen I have married. Spoilt totally. She thinks her father bought me, doesn't she?’ thought he, but only said ‘This Rs. 120 should be enough for a UP Roadways bus ticket to Roorkee.’ He also gave her a coin for Rs. 10. ‘Take a rickshaw from the bus stop to your parents’ house. 10 men will look you up if you walk to Chawri bazaar looking all dressed up as if you’re going to run away with another man.’ And then he had left. 

She had bitten her lower lip then, and now as she remembered the parting remark. Embarrassed. Slowly licking the maroon lip-stick which she had worn. Specially worn. It had only stood for happiness. A celebration that she was going home to be with her parents. A new sari draped, matching bangles, bindi in place and sindoor so deep so neat so red as if it was disciplined to stand at attention on her forehead. She over-did it, perhaps, her … happiness, thought she sitting on seat number 5B. The white Volvo with cool interiors had long left, leaving behind nothing but a cloud of dry mud. And a raging thirst, for cool air and cold water. 

‘Campa, campa, campaa’ sang the nasal voice of a young boy with chilled soft drinks, clanging to be picked and delivered from the crowd in the aluminium bucket. She looked at the shirtless boy first and then at his hands. Maybe I can buy myself a Campa? Looks so cold. I do have Rs. 10 with me. I could just quickly walk home. What will he know … But before she could make up her mind, temptation had left. Been pushed out of the bus by the conductor for it was time for the bus to leave. The boy had come to her slow-moving window for he had read the indecision in her mind and the decisive thirst in her eyes. And she in his, for her Rs. 10. A gust of wind devoid of any mercy blew. She was made to turn her face away!
    

The conductor slammed shut the creaky door and the bus began to pull out of Meerut Bus Depot. The journey has begun, maybe I should just drink a sip of water now? She pulled out the old dented Bisleri bottle she carried from home. She put it to her lips, dry terrain what was once glowing maroon, and swallowed just enough to wet her mouth. She grimaced. The water was already warm. Still, she had to save it for later. God knows how cruelly the hot wind blows over sugar cane fields, and through leafless poplars. The dust from pot-holes and the mirages of water on the road ahead merge to become genies, asking you to come take a dip. Luring you, falsely. It is then that she will need more water to drink. Her stomach rumbled empty. 

‘Maybe I should not fast today, maaji’ she had mustered enough courage to ask her mother-in-law that morning. ‘I have to travel far and alone, and I feel so tired already. Plus, I’m 6 weeks …’ and she could not say another word. For maaji was muttering apologies to a certain God to excuse this girl’s innocent crime already. Looking disturbed and shocked and sorry, only for the God, all at the same time. ‘You should know better than to skip a holy Monday fast and break the sequence, bahu. It is for the son you could be carrying.’ She wanted to add ‘Shame on you. Seems like your mother had not a single significant thing to teach you’ but kept it for another day. 

By the time she reached Roorkee Bus Depot, the weather the thoughts the hunger, all had taken their toll. One at a time. Raping her of comfort – within and without. Her stomach was cramping and the bumpy ride had not helped matters at all. Neither had the stares of the man sitting diagonally ahead of her. She had strained her eyes away and out of the window most part of the journey, forcing her face into the hot winds, braving the burning skin. Holding the bag tight between her feet and her hands joined, as if praying for the journey to end. Soon. Now, back stiff and feet swollen, she waited her turn to step down.

She knew exactly where the rickshaw stand was. For 21 years she had come to this bus depot with her family to enjoy Prince Chaat Wala’s famous chaat-tikki, often when the two sisters passed their exams. But just as she was walking towards a rickshaw to take her home, she spotted a new stationary store next to Guru Nanak Juice Corner. She stood staring at the glass façade, with pretty posters of princesses and calendars with Goddesses calling one forth. 

Yes. She went in and spent the Rs. 10 her husband had given so she did not walk home in full view of strange men. Instead, she bought a tiny diary for her sister who was going to be married soon. So tiny, it fit on her out-stretched hand. She wanted it that way.

Home was as home is. The welcome. The sudden outburst of feelings that only some relations feel. The questions the food the rest and how is damaadji? They liked her sari, her payal, oh you look so dressed up so pretty! She liked her sister’s sagai outfit, her mother’s new idli maker and how terrible I feel for I left the bag of gifts I carried for you from Meerut in the bus! The ‘doesn’t matter’ and ‘you are our daughter’ that followed. And then, the unspoken in their minds, thoughts oft brushed off as only hunches, coming from seeing but not saying anything. For what if they were wrong? Wrong to think their daughter was badly kept? Or even worse, unhappy? 

Much later, in a quiet corner of her home, she gave the diary to her younger sister when they were alone. To note down every little unhappy thought or thing that will come her married way. To write out on its pages chapters she never signed up for. Write it. As loud as she wishes. Just … take it out.

Her sister cried. For she now saw what she had actually not seen. In her sister's life. Or around the bend where marriage waited looking all showy like a fairy-tale. It was a passing on, of something the elder sister had not the courage to do. Never could. To document. To write. To voice. The pain.

The diary was small, but it came with a big prayer. That it may never be full enough, and always big enough to collect within its folds all the troubles her sister was to face.

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Never – Tell us about a thing you’ll never write about]

Circle of Life

She had no idea what she was doing on the yellow bench, staring at the patterns the union of rust and old paint made on it. She had been married in the biggest house around this park, but she had never been here. Office and work and parties and shopping and spa and movies and office and work. That busy thing we call Life. To think that for 10 years she parked her Honda Accord right behind the stone wall this rickety bench rested upon. And on which she rested today. Alone. With some papers by her side. With her hand holding them down on the bench. What was she doing here? Shouldn’t I be in office? Damn, it’s 3:00 pm and Linux Tech comes calling in 30 minutes for handing over Eastern Region’s project to me and ... and this is what I have been waiting for, working for all my …

The wheels of the pram screeched on the jogger’s path every time it turned around the oval’s bends. They did now too, just at the yellow bench. The baby giggled, the dribble running down the chin doubled, as did the loud delight at the turns. The mother did not seem to notice. She pushed the pram along, looking straight at a point only she could see. A face devoid of expressions, but thoughts sprinting into each other at full speed. Somewhere else. Certainly not here, where the two pig-tails on the pram were dancing with glee. The baby let her mother be, as if she understood. But who can ... can anyone understand, help? This ... guilt, this feeling of nothingness. Just burps and nappies and sleepless nights. This worry I am too tired to admit as real ... bone fatigued. These chapters I had not signed up for my entire …  

She straightened up on her bench at the noise, where wheels met pavement to turn a different direction. The grinning jingling monkey hanging on the pram pulled her out from the abyss of her thoughts. Her Linux meeting was tucked in a drawer. She noticed then, the pram, the baby, the mother. And then she stared with an expression her face had never before seen. The papers felt the pressure ease, but only slightly. What a darling baby! Oh look at that hair those curls the twinkle in her eyes. How happy she is. How old must she be? A few months, maybe a year? I love how she claps her hands when the pram turns ... as if she is flying. They are called bundles of joy ... Oh! What a lucky mother … and her nails dug into the bench. Green with jealousy. Now yellow with old paint. She looked away at a barren tree. The papers still struggling to breathe under all that weight.

She swerved the pram with one hand and adjusted her dupatta. Took a long breath. Her mother used to say it helps whenever you feel cornered by customs or people even. Breathe, and keep that scream from coming. Keep it in. Will I ever wear my ghunghroos and dance ... Oh! I must be mad. God’s gift of a child in my pram and such ungrateful thoughts. Evil ... Her swollen feet seemed to agree with the noises in her head. Sent a shot of pain rocketing up into her thoughts, where it remained. Pulsating. Where it would remain for every waking hour of her being it seemed. What would I do to just feel free! Lie down on this grass with not a lullaby to breathe or story to tell. No night becoming day becoming night. Just dance ... hear applause. No responsibility, none depending on me. Like ... like that woman on the bench. Sitting free without a care in the world enjoying the sun the calm. If only in her place I could be … and it sprung within her. Jealousy. She averted her gaze skywards at the lonely cloud drifting aimlessly. The hand clutched the pram tighter. It picked up speed.

And then the wind blew. As if it was eavesdropping. Peeping inside their minds. Colluding with an unseen pattern, the wind blew strong, then stronger.

The baby’s joy knew no bounds. It soared like a polythene on a string, as did her joyful shouts all around. In the meantime, one woman’s dupatta with stains of milk and baby oil protested and was set free, even as the hands tried holding on to it. The other’s papers blew away with the wind, no longer wanting to be clutched, leaving the yellow bench behind. There was confusion in the air. Hair and papers and clothes and pig tails all going wild. Together. The wind kept blowing as if it had a purpose to. And then it slowed down, just a bit. The baby’s mother helped collect the papers spread across the lawn. The woman on the bench unravelled the soiled dupatta from her legs. They walked up to each other to hand over what was not their own. And then to sense what was theirs, together.

The tears. 

They had both been crying. One because she had a child and the other because she perhaps never could. That’s what the papers said, those medical reports. She had just found out and had driven home. Straight. To this bench where she had never been before. 

The wind was gone. Left a quiet behind, intentionally. Also left behind a lawn peppered with leaves. Mostly dry and wilting but some fresh and green too. Like hope, no not jealousy! Or say, like finding a friend to share a yellow bench with, no matter how rickety the bench or how unknown the friend.

To share a circle of life, and understand the patterns drawn within it too. 

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Green-eyed – Tell us about the last time you were really, truly jealous of someone. Did you act on it? Did it hurt your relationship?]

The Salon

The same telephone call. The same words. 

Late, meeting, you eat. Her mind veiled the ears from listening any more … or caring? The ‘bye’ by him was spoken to the wind, for the receiver was already half-way down to where it usually stood. Undisturbed. A lethargic movement of her hand and the quietest click. Like a tear which falls unnoticed. That soft that insignificant. Equally sad.

She sat with her hands in her lap for a few seconds that seemed to stretch like a movie in slow motion, thumb playing with the 23-year-old ring on a certain finger. As if looking for something around it. As if it itched. The fingers on the other hand tapped in rhythm with the clock. Tapped on the thigh thinking, with deathly stillness. As if looking for ways to part the velvet curtains and jump out … no no, only fly out and return later. To something new, or maybe to a new self? 

A new self.

She slapped her thighs with new-found energy and got up, with a decision made so impulsively that it took her red and white bangles by surprise. Made the red bindi on her forehead hang precariously, so frowned-with-determination the brow seemed. Salon. Let me go to the salon. 

She started getting ready. In the mirror she saw a face adorned the same way since she was 23, as she combed her frizzy hair nervously to re-do the bun. Those magazine girls from the expanse of her free time in the confines of her 4 walls came rushing to her mind – lips painted red, eyes smoked grey, those arms and legs gleaming with sheen and hair so stylish, she wanted to pick up the scissors and cut off her tail instantly. Sinfully. With every thought, her heart beat faster, as if she was going to run away. Forever. But she was simply going to go to the salon, right? Two blocks away. Oh how she wanted to ever since it opened, but how the feet and mind refused to take her there. Kept her lust in check. Like a schoomarm’s conditioned birch rod. And ... He says I don’t need to be touched up, so pretty I am. That no foreign hand need rob me of Simplicity, the true jewel a woman can wear. She who belongs at home.

Is it? 

With every stroke of the brush, she noticed herself anew. The shadows under the eyes had got darker. The cheeks seem to sag and in place of the lips she saw a mouth tightly shut. For after all, not all thoughts found freedom in breath. Actually, most did not. How much can you talk to the ladle in the kitchen, or the vacuum cleaner? Or even to the flowers, no matter how fresh the arrangement? Once, she caught herself talking to the sparrow which often came to perch itself on her kitchen window. A few words, but she checked herself in time. Am I mad talking to a bird? She had turned the television real loud that day, drowning out the ‘What do I do? What can I do?’ spoken to the bird long back, but lingering in the air around still. Heavy with guilt. 

Am I going mad?

Her pulse kept pace with the fastness of her hands. The last knot was tightened with a tenacity which shook both the earrings. Like a quake with its epicenter inside her body, somewhere. She will go to the salon today. She will. Let him come home later to a surprise. Will he like it? Will he get angry? With one sweep of her hands settling the dupatta in place, she swept those questions away. Her feet moved like a little girl’s on her prom night. Free, somewhat, and following the voice in the gut. Dancing free style to visions of another face in the mirror. A new face she wanted to see. Perhaps, the face of a voice?

The bag could hardly breathe, she held the straps that tight. It almost fell off in protest, or was it her shaking hands? She turned the door knob and the door acquiesced. Oh, I should leave a note! But what will I say? But what if he worries? But .. and in she turned to scribble her impulsively made decision on a post-it. If only she had just left … without caring. The phone rang. ‘On my way’ and ‘the meeting got cancelled. Keep the dinner ready’.

The door closed on her face … with the quietest click. Like a tear which falls unnoticed. That soft that insignificant. Equally sad.

She woke up from her Awakening. Threw the dupatta on the dining chair, got the stove burning. Drowned the rice in a bowl and ripped the eggplant to roast. The juicy red of tomatoes flowed on the chopping board. The sound of the knife shadowed the sound of those pretty giggling girls from her magazines’ folds. The jingle of small freedom could not compete with the cooker’s siren.

She wiped the sweat her forehead was oozing, as she watched the pots and pans, the smoke and the gurgles, the waste. In the bin. What was I thinking? Salon? At this age? After all these years? Plus, what is the point? He says I don’t need to be touched up, so pretty I am. That no foreign hand need rob me of Simplicity, the true jewel a woman can wear. She who belongs at home. Is it? 

Of course it is!

----

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts aimed at posting at least once a day, based on the prompts provided. The prompt for today was - Decisions, Decisions - How are you more likely to make an important decision — by reasoning through it, or by going with your gut?]

Laurie, I share your ‘short-cut’ and your feminism

Laurie,

I love your hair. And what you just did to it. I don’t mean just the cut. No. 

You made chopped crop a powerful symbol of women’s sexuality and an even more powerful one of female choice. I read your article about why patriarchy fears the scissors and I had to write this. I address you and I quote you, even though you may never read this, but only because you spoke my mind and I could not have done it any better. Only because in your mind I see the woman inside mine. And on your head the “boy cut” that I enjoy. 

I too see the ‘wickedness’ attached to short-haired girls, in the various media that you mention. That we are ‘crazy’ for ‘destroying femininity’ that we were tutored so hard to enjoy. 'Dudette' is the latest word to enter my lexicon. Feeding stereotypes further, I see board-room women in movies and serials with wedge blunts, not buns. Westerns to complete the picture. And ‘ambition’ portrayed as ‘ego’. A head fast woman in the man’s world calling the shots with hair the length of a tea saucer which she refuses to place before the beau, perhaps. Subtle stereotyping which finds a place in my grocer’s head somewhere, when he stares me down with incomprehension writ large on his face – my dress, my lack of matrimonial symbols and then my hair. No sweet talk lest I take out my hidden guns, he seems to be whispering to himself. And another whisper which goes – ‘Oh God! Why don’t women want to look their age? Why don’t women want to look married?’ 

You call it ‘logical’ Tuthmosis' ‘basis for declaring short-haired women “damaged”. I sure know that usage was intentional, and you too smile as I do. While he thinks no sane woman would ever want to do anything that decreases her capacity to please men, he lost the plot exactly when he said that. Prove himself insane, yet “attracted” enough to us short cropped ones to rant in rage. Or maybe just sitting frustrated that his idea of patriarchy was smashed to irrelevant smithereens soon as the scissors touched our hair? More than this, I refuse to dedicate my personal space to him, though I thank him for giving birth to this, in a way.

But now I tread a different path, as I read your personal experience of trying newer lengths of hair and the temptation of a razor looming large. Our experiences differ because we inhabit different milieus. While you garnered lesser number of ‘cat-calls and whispered slurs’ as you cut your hair, I experienced the opposite. Not just looks of incomprehension from grocery shop owners silently labelling me as ‘fast’ but the smooch sounds on roads and sexual passes increased. Because where I come from – while long hair makes you a sexually and socially attractive married woman, a pixie makes you exactly that – a pixie. Naughty, available and one challenging the carefully treasured and taught idea of female sexuality, gift wrapped in patriarchy. My short crop symbolized a rebellion here, perhaps because of the difference in magnitude of what we call feudal, or patriarchal in our two contexts. And here where I stay, you crush female rebellion. Cat-call it till it hides in the bathroom to cry. Cowers for cover, and pledges to conform – like an animal tamed to jump the rings in the circus or an urban educated woman who is “total strangers coming up to tell me how much prettier I’d be if I only grew it out.”  

But then I get my kick. Oh yes, I visit my salon every month. Spend that money I earn - on hair or face, feet or hands. Not for what you call ‘performance of femininity’ that some women are ‘prepared to work at’ but for what you mention before that. Yes, I ‘negotiate femininity’ because it is mine to mould, entirely. From mid-back length of hair I enjoyed before I got married to now, when I don’t even need to run the comb – the journey had been a short and sweet one. I negotiate, but I know fully well that so many like me cannot, even as so many can. I will wear my bindi when I so desire, if it suits my mood or dress. No bangles on my hands to announce to the world I have a married man at home. And no vermillion to mark in red that I love my husband. I exercise my choice. If I had made a bun on my head, that too would have been my choice.

And no cat-call can drown out the voice of my free will. 

My feminism begins and nurtures itself in my free will. The act of choosing, and living my choice. From cooking to children to cleaning to hair cuts to careering. Just like yours does – be it in reading a book undisturbed in the train or wanting “to take the razor to it right then and there.” 

As for men “who treat women and girls as human beings rather than a walking assemblage of “signs of fertility” – believe me, they are out there” oh I believe you. I have been with one for 7 years now. And never before I have been made to examine my own ‘politics of compromise’ as by the man I married. While here I was sitting vowing to follow as he lead since compromise is ‘sweet surrender’ when all is painted in the colour of love, he went ahead and convinced my long hair behind my back – go chop yourself. Be who you are, even as you happily be my wife. For symbols which feed social ideas of femininity or a matrimonial signage saying ‘Hands off! She’s mine!’ he knew I could handle them with my mind - without those wifely fineries. 

And for this reason, I include men in my feminism. As partners for change and not those across the enemy lines. I have an example at home, as much as an exception he may be. Or belonging to that category we dearly call 'few good men'!

There is no better way to thaw that ice berg of patriarchy than to use the sparks that chose not to be codified by it. 

I sit in India, knowing fully well that no Goddess will ever appear on an Indian calendar with a pixie cut across her head. No halo will shine bright behind a bald feminine pate. Not any time soon, most certainly. While I sit and wonder looking at them painted in bright red and golden if they had a choice at all in being reduced to Goddesses sitting muted on a pedestal, I send a silent prayer to whatever force that listens, that nothing makes me feel more blessed than the power of choice I exercise.

Thank you for writing what you wrote. In each other's thoughts, women find company for their's. In each other's idea of feminism, support for their own.

The 3rd Girl

Not all of us are conceived in the hope of a boy. But I was. Most certainly I was.

I felt it as I came into her room. The hushed sense of disappointment. I hear it now too, but in whispers. Makes me feel a little unwanted, and even after 19 years of my life. I’m not complaining, though. It’s just how things are, I have grown up to realise. When the first born is hoped to be a boy, and at least the second, the third girl is thrice removed from all things welcome – a reality we live in. I live in. Perhaps you too?

I love her. My mother.

I sit and try to imagine.

I try to imagine the expression on my mother’s face when the nurse must have announced to her – It’s a girl. Or maybe – It’s another girl. ‘Another’ becomes ‘just another’ after a row of 2 others. They say so, but I hope it’s not true.

My mother. Was she disappointed? ...

[To read more, please click here]

78 cards, and a box full of hope

When I was asked to write about an inspiring woman entrepreneur that I know personally, I climbed the highest mountain in my milieu and with my binoculars starting looking for the women with ringing registers on the very clouds around. I saw one who was busy with her book shelves in a shop that was opened 20 years ago, at the spur of the moment, and which now had grown to garner a dedicated following, much to the envy of some of the best names in book-selling around. A cloud away, there is a grandmother supervising an army of 60 seamstresses for various brands, who threw her walking stick away and learnt to sign the cheque book even as she entered the sunset of her life. But then, an epiphanic moment later, I realized I was actually on the lookout for the Story Untold - a more down-to-earth, home-grown and inspiring one not by the magnitude of the enterprise but by the magnitude of conviction, calibre and confidence that went into its inception and then its execution.   

Ameet Gulati belongs to a famous business family of Ludhiana, married to one of the most inspiring officers the Indian Revenue Service has seen. An MBA by education, Ameet worked for HDFC even as she went about being her father’s right-hand-(wo)man in his business enterprise. As she juggled the many hats of a successful business advisor, mother and wife, even a perfect hostess and the best of friends anyone can hope for, her head kept missing that one hat she always wanted to try wearing. And she went ahead and got that too! 

Today, among the various feathers that she has collected, Ameet is also a recognized name as a Tarot Reader and a Numerologist. 

I have seen and admired the spectacular sparks of inspiration that come flying out this woman’s persona. You have not, not as yet. So, in my attempt to connect you to her, I thought I will let her do the talking. I sent her a few questions that came to my mind, and this is what she has to tell us all:

Q: Why Tarot reading, Ameet? And why now, when both your hands are so deeply busy with home and business?

A: Tarot reading because it always interested me as an enigmatic window to a world I wanted to enter and explore. Yes, you can call it love-at-first-sight the moment I came to know about this practice and started reading books about it, often on the sly. Even Astrology cannot give you an objective ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as an answer to your query like Tarot can. And now, because there is no time like Now! Let me also tell you something. The best way to hold the most number of things is to open your arms and embrace what you can call challenges in a big tight bear-hug. No woman has just 2 hands, Sakshi. Do you? We can have as many hands as the things we like to do, want to do and set our minds and hearts to do.

Q: It is a very unconventional idea of a profession, considering you were dabbling with numbers but the non-Numerology kind. Did you have any misgivings as to how it will be received by your family – immediate and extended? How did you plan to convince them?

A:  I had a major dose of misgiving, to be honest. I knew no unconditional acceptance will come my way for this profession from both sides of my family. That is why, when I started my classes I took only my husband into confidence, who stood by me throughout. My doubts were not unfounded. When I became a qualified Tarot reader ready to practice and broke the news at the dinner table, the hushed silence could have made a pin drop sound like a bomb. I had to do a lot of convincing – that it is not a parallel religion, nor superstition. No, it is not black magic most certainly. Coming from a business background, where numbers often do the talking, eye brows were raised about how much money will it fetch me anyway? And I tell you, while the numbers coming in have started to impress them, the idea of seeing me comfortably surrounded by my cards still does not. 

Q: What did you need to change about yourself, or maybe strengthen about yourself as a person in order to embrace an alien practice? Do you get depressed listening to people’s stories?

A: You know, when you willingly walk into a domain known and understood by such few people, ready to be tagged as something as rare as a Tarot reader, you strengthen yourself against all kinds of pre-conceived judgements too. I’ll be lying if I say I was totally confident that I will be able to do justice to my interest. But then, a few clients down I realized the power of healing, of helping, of showing hope and ways of reducing a stranger’s troubles. No, it is not depressing at all, Sakshi. If anything, it makes you count your blessings and say a silent prayer of gratitude.

Q: You have travelled different cities, got exposed to reputed exhibitions like Wedding Asia and helped innumerable people see direction. How has this profession helped you to grow, as a person?

A:  I often sit back and think to myself the same thing. How, once upon a time, addressing my father’s business associates used to make me shake with the responsibility. How, just a runny nose on my child would make the mother in me go ‘Why me?’ No more. To see a stranger respond with such immense faith in you, and then get healed of all problems because of your advise is something that fills you to the brim with confidence. I feel very positive spiritually, and have learnt to empathise with people totally unconnected to me. I also feel I am a more understanding person overall since when I began my sessions.   

Q: Feel free to preen, Ameet.

A: No feathers to flaunt, really. Ok, let’s see! One per cent of my clients are those who enter a session for the fun of it – out of sheer curiosity maybe, or to question my work in return. However, when they come back one fine day feeling that the predictions came true and the prescriptive advice helped, you tick another believer into the list and pat yourself for it. However, on a more serious note, Tarot is all about relationships. It deals with emotional issues which usually keep human bonds on tenterhooks. That is when every successful session and every happy client becomes a standing ovation, a self-affirmation of my faith in my practice, my cards and most importantly the trust generated between two completely unconnected people and 78 cards in between. Spreading positivity and getting results are the feathers, really! And it is amazing how they help to make your own daily life so much better. 

She has no wares to sell and no training sessions to carry out. All she has is her ever-solidifying belief in the practice of tarot reading and numerology, and her faith in her own self to help heal and solve.  I could not think of a better example to present when I heard the words “nurturing independence in the backyard”. Ameet has nurtured for herself another way of being independent. She has also nurtured in her family and friends independence from pre-conceived notions, and shown how learning something is the key to understanding and respecting it - no matter how alien the subject - in an unbiased manner. But most importantly, she has, and continues to, nurture in troubled minds hope of resolving the most irreparable relationship issues and problems that beset them. And that freedom of mind is what I call the real independence of being. 

Post-script - Ameet was unsure about being featured, saying 'entrepreneur' is a very big word for her. But as her friend, I too have found ways around this woman's mind. I even got her to pose for me. Emotional blackmail works. She can be contacted at hopesnhealings@gmail.com.

[Written for the Indiblogeshwaris Ladies Independence Special Contest in association with http://womenentrepreneursinindia.com/]

To The Woman in the Mirror

Cochin, 2008

I saw you sitting with your back towards me in a busy eatery. I was on the table diagonally behind you. I saw your face in the ornate mirror in front of us, part of the decor. We both sat facing the same mirror. I saw your face, only when you removed your dupatta from it with your hands, to try and eat your dosa, then the noodles and then the Pepsi. For the rest of the time, I saw your lowered eyes listening to your husband and your head nodding, all under the green veil. Every time you heard him approach with a new delicacy for you, you moved your head away, pulled your veil down and froze, in that moment.

I know he was your husband, and you still froze. You refused to look at him, or show yourself to him. The mehendi on your hands and feet had faded. It had been a few weeks of marriage, I’m guessing. And you still froze when you heard his voice and looked away into nothingness when he spoke. Can it be a mark of respect, that emotion best conveyed eye-to-eye person-to-person when it shines from within? No, I think not! Was it fright, then? I can’t say! Or was it something in between the two, that not just me but you too fail to understand as you follow, or are made to?

I sat there wearing a tucked in tee with many Buddha faces and skinny jeans, enjoying my mouthfuls of food and easy banter with the two men in my life – my son and my husband. But every time the man in your life approached you with a new dish, I compulsively looked up from mine. At that brisk movement of your hand with 200 bangles quickly veiling your lovely face! I would look at the draped green head and shoulders in the mirror in front of me and wonder – why? It’s not pity I felt, no, but a lot of incomprehension. I thought veils were to protect women from strangers’ gaze. But yours was only to keep it hidden from your own man, and removed when you were alone in the middle of stranger men.

And then suddenly in such a moment of no-husband, you caught me looking straight into your eyes, which had caught mine in the shared mirror – staring rudely. And I caught the look of incomprehension in them too. For me and my kind! For my eyes which were stuck on everything to do with you. Or was it for my cropped hair, my clothes, my uncovered head or for how freely I had ruffled my husband’s hair? How he and I looked at each other and smiled every time our son burped? How we were man and wife! No veil, no secrecy, no external signs of matrimony and no added respectful reflexes? Sitting together, sharing food, drinks, laughter, looks, liberty, moments, memories, smiles and equality! 

I ask you - Are those things you don’t understand, or are those things you don’t want to understand? Or are those things you were never allowed to understand? You are perfect – for what they reared you to be. I can see that! I can see that in every movement of yours and every stop, in your laden hands and shuffling feet, your voice that is a whisper’s whisper and your eyes that hardly ever see. 

I wish I could know who you are. I wish I could spend that evening talking to you. I wish I could ask you if you ever swallowed your thoughts, your opinions, your ideas about yourself and replaced them with someone’s else’s, for someone else. I wanted to ask you if it was You and Your Face sitting under that veil that day, and every passing day, or was it someone else born out of 3 odd decades of bending backwards for the "given" and the taught?

A little bit of me in you, and a tiny bit of you in me. And a shared mirror!  

I felt very guilty. For the contrast that I saw, between your situation in life and mine. And then I breathed a silent thankful sigh, for the situation that is mine, only. As I write this, I pray to the power that made me free to make you free too. Soon, and not in another life, but in this one itself! 

And I just want to tell you, that I Respect You – not just the face I saw in the mirror but the stronger one hiding within you too. 

Oh Chetan Bhagat! Read what you write.

Don’t get me wrong. I do like you, Chetan Bhagat. Not just your peppered hair kept neatly trimmed, features that make your age seem a guessing game and all your book cover designs. I haven’t read any, though. I was going to when you spake thus in an interview: ‘Shakespeare was the Ekta Kapoor of his times.’ And then I did not pick my copy of your many best-sellers. I will, after I get that indigestible comparison out of my head, as well as what follows here.

I love Facebook, and I can see you do too. But your love affair with it is far more supreme than mine can ever be, for you, dear Chetan, are the Giver while me just a humble receiver. You write advice, in a scientific point-to-point format on topics galore, and then make posters of them to be liked and shared. And you give advice to women, mostly, which is nothing new in Indian society if you ask me. I collected enough evidence, and then enough courage to write this – a point-by-point critique of what you do in your hardly free time.

       

Ladies first!

Here’s a part of you trying to “attempt the unthinkable” in your own words, and advising us women, followed by what I think:

1. You once said: “Don’t get competitive with other women. Desire to judge other women needs to end. Why be so hard on each other? Can you let each other breathe?” And in another piece you wrote – “Don’t ever think you are without power. Give it back to that mother-in-law. She doesn’t like you? That’s her problem.” Your self-contradiction aside, while I agree with the first part, the second stems from a complete lack of experience of wearing a daughter-in-law’s shoes. Asking us to give it back to our mothers-in-law is asking us to not just judge rather harshly, but also reject after the judgement is sealed. Rather misleading advice for a society where every home lives in a context and by rules which just might be too complex to brush off with a guerilla out-fit and a rebel’s hat one fine day. This behaviour being more fuel for the fire of the “drama of relationships” you want our kind to exit, any further advice for those who may have got inspired?

2. Then, one day – “The faking needs to end. A common female trait is the relatively quick adaptation to feed male egos. What's the point of collectively harping on equality, when as individuals you are happy to lapse into being clueless eye flutterers, just to keep men happy?” My husband will envy you your female company. They seem to know how to keep you feeling happy. However, most women reading this advice are perhaps doing no such thing – no faking, no fluttering and certainly not without a clue. Don’t call it a ‘common’ trait (we’re not so easy to shoe-box!). Call it an assumption and what a man perhaps likes to believe? What’s next, that we wax our legs and pluck our eyebrows for you? Breaking news – we don’t! And to let you in on a secret, clueless I’m certainly not about my wish-list that’s to follow when I’ll flutter my eyes today as soon as my husband comes home from work. 

3. You say – “Do not ever feel stressed about having a dual responsibility of family and work. It is difficult but not impossible.” I agree! Especially since you have a solution for that stress too – “If your boss doesn’t value you, tell him that, or quit.” And “next time your husband tells you you are not a good enough wife, mother, daughter-in-law, you can tell him to take a hike.” There, stress busted. It’s a different matter that these are not resolutions to deeper problems inhabiting our social and professional mindsets but something we said and did when we were 14, or maybe 4.

And now for the men, and how they should “revise their ideal woman criteria”:

(i)        “Having a traditional wife who cooks, cleans and is submissive might be nice. However, choosing a capable, independent and career-oriented woman can also bring enormous benefits.” You haven’t met a capable wife who is traditional, cooks, is independent, career-oriented, cleans and is not necessarily submissive just because she does cooking and cleaning? Come and meet me! Also, these are not antonyms. Why use them as two opposed types of personalities?

(ii)          The “benefits” of a working woman (you make this sound like a business deal!) vis-à-vis a housewife include “relating better to organizational issues”, “help afford a decent house” and help a man “discuss his own career with”. Very capitalist and incorrect. Also, the house is an organization the running of which not many can manage. Try it!

(iii)                “A working woman is better exposed to the world, and brings back information that can be useful to the family.” Watch some TV. Adverts on new holidays and good mutual funds to invest in are running as you read this. Staying at home doesn’t mean staying uninformed or naive. And “quality of life” is often independent of which mutual fund is least subject to market risks.

(iv)     “Children of working women learn to be more independent and will do better than mollycoddled children.” Any examples/research to support this, please? Mr. Google is proving to be of no help, at all. 

(v)              “Sure, there are drawbacks also in being with working woman. But the modern age we live in, the phulka-making bride may come at a cost of missing other qualities.” Drawbacks like? Also, a bride who likes cooking more than careering may not lack in any important qualities. Maybe looking up your ancestral family tree will help change your mind?

I do agree with you on one thing – “Yes, we men have to learn. However, the stubborn, fragile and pampered Indian male ego is a tough nut to crack. Collectively, we as Indian men, have a long way to go before our women can be proud of us.” You are absolutely right. And I wonder what makes me say so!

And now that we have ended on a note of agreement, may I be sent one of those Motivational Frames your team is selling? (Why do I feel your team is all men?) My mollycoddled son would love them! But that aside – I need motivation. You see, I’m the person you asked to quit her bad boss’s bad job since I’m one of the “talented hard-working people who are much in demand”. So, when do I report for work?


[Printed in Democratic World magazine] 

To Cook? To Not Cook. That Is The Answer.

I can barely cook. Just yesterday I considered buttering my bread cooking, and only this afternoon I managed my second round-n-soft chapatti after 5 years of doing something with the LPG in my kitchen. I know the award for martyrdom goes to my patient husband, but then, I’ve tried to be tasty and continue to do so. And trying means 50 per cent of the battle won moral science tells us – even if the dal stuck to the cooker, the bhindi was served raw and the saag smelt like plants kept in vases way past their life, many times over in these past few years. And today, my loyal vegetable man points out to me those raw green little-little mangoes the season is producing for us by the ton. “They’re very fresh, and just sour enough for achaar, or panna or even for a subzi with kaddu”, he chimed proudly. As I imagined all three swimming before my eyes or me swimming in all three and caught myself licking my lips on the road-side, I also realized how he made me really see my score in the kitchen - which I had been peeling away from my mind for all of my cooking life - 1/10. No more.

But I can explain.

1. It’s a ready-made life. Sandwich spreads, garlic-ginger pastes, whole royal preparations in packets just a hot-bath away from being served “fresh”. Tops to Pops to Treat to Kissan to Maggi to Knorr to Quakers to others happily get delivered at your door-step. Saves peeling, chopping, saucing, roasting, toasting, heating in weather that makes you feel all of the above in the kitchen. Saves energy preserves health! To add to it, West Delhi has lovely looking aunties who make and sell “bhuna masala” by the kilo – for party purposes you see! God bless them with many more diamond rings on their hard-working kitchen hands. And enough supply of ghee for the rest of my kitchen life.

2.  Time is money. If you have it, you’re rich. If you don’t have it, you’re busy getting rich. I don’t have either, so I guess I’m a very busy being but surprisingly continuing poor. Where is the time to grind spices at home, make jams and cakes, roast chicken legs, boil corn and produce chutneys? Where? I don’t see any such time available. There’s just about enough to dip a tea-bag in hot water, call Chawla Chik-inn for kebabs or order a pizza after announcing the discount coupon number on the phone. If I don’t write my daily-dose of mindless humour, what will my family feed on, my hand-cooked poisons? (Yes, yes, I’ve tried fast-track recipes from Tarla and her friends on www. Can’t blame them if I try making curd in the fridge, can I?)

3. Secrets are getting lost. As generations bid goodbye to make way for newer ones, those secret recipes, super measured hands and smart skills are vanishing fast. My mind brings back images of sitting on the floor with my grandmother and mixing 200 different looking things in a steel paraat, pouring a gallon of oil and popping home grown pieces of raw mangoes into it - the popping being the only activity we 6 kids in the house were allowed to do. The ready pickle was then put into large martbaans, tied up like they contained  Alibaba’s gold, and stowed away to last a very tasty summer for a joint family of 12. The point being, I have no hand-written diary by my grandma to which I can c.f. Something tells me even if I did, it wouldn't be the same anyway.

I have great admiration for those who make a dish themselves, and not just cook it. Who invent, improve, improvise and invent again. I feel jealous of them too, not just because they have more time on their hands than I ever will but because they have a will-to-cook-well which perhaps, if I had, my 2^nd chapatti ever would be a perfect circle and not my 1002^nd. But like I said, I’m at it and charging away in the battle field. And then of course, every soldier needs a break, so where there’s a will to drink panna, there’s a way! I just speed-dialed 911 and ordered a big jar of aam panna powder, Tops mango achaar and sliced raw mangoes in neat packets from my saviour's shop called 'Cheap Provision Store'. And that, people, is 100 per cent of the battle won!  

(P.S. – I would have included names of many delicious delicacies here, if only I knew them. Sorry! Do what I do when I eat food I’ve cooked – take it in and gulp it down with a big sip of water.)