Entitled to a Woman

(Image from the Internet)

Over the past weeks, I have met several young people of both genders, none of them married. I met some of them with their parents, who worry incessantly about finding the right life partner for their offspring. This is so typically Indian. Education, marriage and sometimes even a home, Indian parents want to do it all for their children, sometimes even at the cost of their own well-being and material pleasure.

I understand where these parents come from, though I do not like it. Afterall, I am one of them too. However, this note is not from the viewpoint of the parents, but from the young people's.

Young girls really really chafe about the fact that the men they would marry, as arranged by their parents, would be on the basis of the young man's education, the economic status of their home, the status in the society and so on. Not on the basis of whether they find these men attractive, like minded-ness etc, and sometimes even without these two qualities. The way the girl feels about the boy she would sleep with, and spend the rest of her life with, is expected to evolve - positively - post marriage.

On the other hand, young men feel no such trepidation. Young men, if they have been lucky enough to be born to affluent parents who have managed to give them good education and a good home, feel almost entitled to any girl their parents line up for them. It does not even OCCUR to them that the young girl, who is trading in her life, may not like him. And he does not care. He assumes that she would like him, and in most cases, love him. However, he would make no effort whatsoever to be worthy of her love. The reason for this is the fact that young boys in India have no clue how to behave with a girl. Also, this mechanism of parents arranging for the girls, makes it very convenient to ignore this touchy feelie territory. So, he sits back, and either chooses/rejects the girls his parents line up for him. He is entitled to his wife. Afterall, he is a male.

The arranged marriage relationship, no wonder, seems so awful to most young girls. The girls of the current generation - and truth be told, even the previous ones - do not like men who feel "entitled" to them. They would like to be woo-ed, won over, charmed and all the romantic things that their sensuous nature demands.

The Indian society, however, is not equipped to create such boys/men. And indian women have no alternative other than indian men in their geographies. No wonder, the indian marriage events are so huge, with parents creating a big smoke cover, to hide the inconvenient truth from the bride. Once married, the great indian system also provides no real exits for the girl. She is the one who will carry the burden of making the marriage work, ensuring all the needs of her husband are taken care of, his relationships are in place, and so is his house and children. The indian male focusses on being the provider, and nothing else. In case she fails to make the marriage work, she would be ostracized forever by the society. It really does not matter that her husband is a drunkard, or a insensitive lout, or simply someone who she cannot get along with, she is expected to carry the yoke without a murmur, as divorce is a ugly ugly word. The man, on the other hand, stands effortlessly on his impregnable citadel of patriarchy, and enjoys his entitlement of this woman he has married. Without making any effort to be the man of his bride would like him to be, and to treat her the way she would like to be treated. In most cases, the man would not have spared a single brain cycle on thinking about what his wife wants.

This entitlement system sucks.

The burden of guilt

Going through a Gurudutt phase. Something about his insights into the feminine psyche, specially the indian feminine.

Watched Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam yesterday. Saw it for the first time, though I had watched the songs several times on TV, specially my favorite ones - "Bhanwara bada nadaan he" and "Na jaaon saiyaa chura ke bainya".

The movie is a story of a bygone era, of jamindars and havelis and eccentric men. The movie tells the story of Chotti Bahu, played by Meena Kumari, with her quest of being a ideal wife and soul mate, seeking fulfillment in a marital relationship - and the observation of a impressionable young man, who gets acquainted with the feminine for the first time. Beautifully enacted, sensitively told story.

As I watched Chotti bahu, I realized that like Chotti bahu, indian women invariably carry a burden of guilt around their shoulders. An indian woman feels guilty if her husband is a philanderer. She is the one who feels guilty if she can't bear a child, she is one who feels guilty if her husband is a drunkard, she is the one who is demented by guilt if she touches a bottle of "sharab". Sometimes, she is also the one who is considers herself guilty if her husband dies!

She is the one who carries the onus of being pure as drivel snow. She is expected to be a goddess, no less. If she chooses not to be a goddess or the revered mother, she has only one option open to her, of being a slut.

She is not allowed to be human. She is not allowed to seek things for herself, but for the family, the husband, the children. She is defined by her relationship to them, and there she carves out an identity. And if any of these externalities of hers - her husband, her child, her family, her family's health, her family's wealth, her family's honour - is not pristine, it is all her fault. She reminds herself of her responsibilities every passing second, tormented in guilt at the deficiencies, specifically more so when they are not her own.

 Why do Indian Women accept guilt unconditionally this way?

Guilt is handed down to us from our mothers, our aunts, our friends. It is dinned into our ears, and given to us as an ornament, as a sacred robe we dare not sully. We all wear it, like a badge of honor. Refusing to see that the husband's, child's, family's guilt, in most cases, does not belong to us. Correction - it does not belong to us. Ever.

Amazing that it took a 70s movie for me to see that.

Thats My Girl!

I received a note from an on-line friend today, asking me if there were any gender stereotypes that I went against, and to celebrate the stereotype departures.

Stereotype departures? Hmmm, have I done those? As I look back, look at the gender stereotyping, and compare my life with it - oh yes, there have been many of departures. Most of them done unconsciously though, since I did not know what “girls” were expected to do. That’s not to say that I was/am a tomboy. No, not that. I have just been me. You see, I was raised to be just myself, thanks to a doting father and mother, who never told me to not do something because I was a girl. They wanted me to follow my heart and my sinews, and believed that I could do whatever I wanted to.

So, with no gender specific expectations given to me, what kind of life did I carve out for myself?

Well, to start way back when I was a kid, I was not one of those “Seen, but not heard” types. I was a talkative child, and a very opinionated one, normally the first and the loudest to express my opinion, never mind if it was not politically correct. I could argue with other kids and adults, and sometimes even with teachers, with a bristling manner, which caused many eyebrows to be raised against my parents and the way they were raising me.

When not playing verbal duels and yakking incessantly, I enjoyed wrestling with my brothers, muscling myself into all kinds of street games that they played with their playmates – Gulli danda, Gada gadi, Sitauliya, Langdi, Catch Catch – I was game for everything except cricket- which I hated for some reason. I caused much exasperation for my mom, who had to work hard to keep me in bounds, for I was constantly breaking rules by coming late, collecting smelly bones and feathers and reading books that were forbidden – some of them hidden under my frock and carried inside loos to the read in private, away from the prying eyes of my brothers.

Things become much more fun when I turned into a teenager. I loved sports and I quickly became a part of the school basketball team, and also joined a football club. Our sports coach spotted me and got me engaged in multiple teams – Volleyball, kabaddi and kho kho, as I was one gutsy player. I could run fast, had tremendous stamina and thought much of myself, even going so far to challenge the schools Boys team for a match – which we girls unfortunately lost. I still bristle when I remember that one!

For the record, I was never a cheerleader. Our class mate boys would often come out and cheer for us when we played the school matches, and later treated us with samosas and chais!

My mother tried hard to teach me feminine work – such as embroidery, crochet, tailoring and even doll making. She was very skilled in these arts, and she worked hard on imparting some of her knowledge to me – and though I did learn how to put down a cross-stitch, I still tremble when picking up a needle. I would rather give away a torn hem to a tailor than to stitch it myself. Ditto for cooking. Mom tried hard to inculcate culinary skills in me, and made sure I stood beside her when she did her cooking, but it never interested me. Even at the ripe age of eighteen, I did not know my daals. Tuvar dal, Chana dal, Moong dal – they were all was the same to me. Sometimes, my moms friends would give her a talking-to, and she would force me to go through the culinary skill building exercises with grim vengeance. I had to then burn rotis and create burnt sabzis to escape those sessions! I did learn to cook, but till date, have remained a half-hearted one. So much so that even today, when my daughter wants to eat her favorite dish, she is more likely to ask her father to make it, rather than ask it of me.

In studies, I was equally good in languages, maths and science, though maths was clearly a favorite. I enjoyed the beauty of mathematical equations and atomic physics as much as I enjoyed the intricacies of my favorite dance, Kathak. They both moved me in similar ways. After my high school, when I opted to study engineering, nobody was surprised, even though this was in eighties, when barely 5% of an engineering class comprised of female students. I did not even know what I could do after I graduated, did not know if women engineers were hired at all. Heck, no one in my family, or for that matter, our family friends, knew a single woman engineer! But it seemed like the natural progression of things, and nobody really objected to my choice. The objections came from a different fall out of the decision.

Not only did I opt for Engineering, I hankered to go to a top notch Engineering school, which was away from my hometown, and one which had a hostel, tucked away miles away from civilization. I wanted to be on my own, on my own two feet, forging out a life for myself. Now, sending a girl child to a hostel was not an easy decision for my parents. In fact, it was the only time when I heard the gender issue being considered as a fact during the family decision making process. Several friends of my parents and respected members of the Jain community, when consulted, expressed fears about raising a girl child in this manner. My parents were warned that they would not be able to find a mate for me if they sent me away to a remote school, where they could not directly supervise me and protect my virginity. They were warned that I would turn too independent and would not get along with my future mother-in-law, warned that I would not be able to create a home with my future lord and master with this kind of upbringing etcetera.

However, I knew my father to be a sensitive fair parent, and knew that despite his fears, he would never let my gender become an issue with him. I appealed to his sense of fairness, citing example of my brother who was sent to the same remote engg school. If my brother can be sent, then why not me, I argued. Did he really believe that since I was a girl, my claim was inferior? My parents could not but agree. After having raised me as an equal child, they could not - indeed, did not want to hold me back. Gender could have mattered, but it was over-ruled. In the final decision, gender did not matter. I was ecstatic!

The engineering school that I went to reinforced my belief in being an equal sex. This school had no reservations for female students, and things were the same for all students, male or female. Competition was intense, but girls could do as well. The topper of our batch was a female, and so was the topper of the batch before us. At least, in the professional training part, Gender did not matter.

On the other part, of being the 5% female population out of the 95% male student community – Ah, there it did matter! And all for good! It gave all us girls a surfeit of male attention, so much so that even now, years later, I have never really felt the need to attract any male attention, unless it was more than a casual lust. This engineering school taught me that all I needed, really really needed, to attract a guy I wanted, was – well, I just needed to be - a female. That’s all – I just needed to be myself. No artifices were really needed. Nature has bestowed women, at least at that age, everything that is needed to attract a man. Gender does matter, but here, women really have the winning hand!

The entire cosmetic industry, I concluded back then, was based on thin air. This relieved me a great deal because I could never stick putting nail-polishes, brushing my hair, and putting mascara, etc – I found the entire beauty rigmarole irksome. The beauty skills were very difficult for me to master, for one, and for the other, I could never really get my colors right. Added to this, I hated spending money on these things. I could never really bring myself to spend money on a color cosmetic or a piece of jewellery, preferring to buy a book, or a samosa instead. Over the years, I have thought about this industry, indeed, it was one of the ways one of my employers made money, and have now agreed that it meets a need. But not to attract and retain men, as it commonly believed, but it feeds on the fears of scared women, who want to buy the belief that they can. It is sad that many of us women need to buy this confidence – if we only look deep enough in our bones, it is right there, within us and never really goes away.

So, while my parents decision to allow me to fly away from their nest made me a young girl from a child and made me confident of my abilities, my engg alma mater, gave me the confidence and awareness of my own feminine power to deal with the other gendered part of the world. And, after that, I never looked back. Never doubted that I was equal. Equal not just to the male sex, but also equal to face anything that life would throw at me.

As I graduated and walked into the professional world, I found myself absolutely at home in the factory and workplace. There were no other women engineers in the company I worked for, as it was a mining company, located in Rajasthan, a state known for its repressive practices against women. But being the only woman engineer never bothered me, and I can also say with certainty, it never bothered anyone else who worked with me. Responsibility was thrown at me by strict uncompromising demanding bosses who cut me no slack, and I delivered. I built control systems by myself, built a brand new department, negotiated with the ferocious mining workers and traveled with my male colleagues, staying at moldy rickety hotels, wherever needed, intent on what we were building and creating together. It was exhilarating, to be a part of a team, who was creating and building. It felt good to be an engineer. Though I must have been a rarity, and perhaps the only professional woman they had worked with, none of my male colleagues ever made me feel like an outsider. In fact, looking back, I think I got more respect and opportunity than I deserved, as I was still a chit of a girl, and very raw professionally. It was here that I really earned my professional spurs.

Professionally, I have since then changed multiple jobs, till the time I now find myself as an entrepreneur, leading my company, my all-male team and my business. During the journey, I have never doubted that I could not do this as I was “only” a woman. That I am a woman, and that I am an engineering entrepreneur, are two unrelated facts.

In my professional life, I doubt that I can say that I had to work 10 times more than my male colleagues to be where I am today. I had to work hard – very hard at times - every professional has to do that, but I do not think that I worked the hardest. There were many of my male colleagues, who worked harder, and just like me, their progression was governed by the market exigencies of the time, the kind of clout the bosses carried, and I, along with them rued the multiple slips possible on the corporate ladder. For as many gender related slip-rungs on it, the corporate ladder has many more which were otherwise. In a long career, gender does not really matter.

Ah, but that was the professional side of it. But how about the personal side of it? Was I not subjected to gender stereotypes here, in the great Indian Marriage, bound by the most intimate and lasting relationship of it all, the often-called stifling relationship where the men rule over the women with a iron fist?

Well, as in the other phases of my life, I am blessed to be helped with the males I find myself with. I am wedded to a man who is as committed to running an equal-opportunity marriage, as I am. In all of 22 years, going on 23 years, of my marriage, both my husband and I have pursued independent careers, and each of us has provided opportunities to each other in every way we can.

We have both taken turns at being the primary nurturer and being the primary bread winners, and everything in between. There have been times when my husband has been the dominant (read making more money in the job) bread winner, and times when I have taken on that role. There are times when he has taken on the mantle of being the primary nurturer (read keeping house, baby sitting), and times when I have dropped everything to nurture our daughter. I am both mother and father to my daughter, and my husband is the same. Each of us have a life of our own, not necessarily inter-wined with the marriage, where we have individual friends and interests, which we both enjoy with or without each other. The number of invitations we get, addressed to Mrs with spouse, are as many as the ones we receive as Mr. with spouse.

That said, over the years, we have realized that I am more suited to do the home bound nurturing, for our daughter and our close relationships, and he is more suited to doing the outside oriented fix-it jobs, and the tough negotiation jobs. It is basically a role distribution with emphasis on innate capabilities, standing on the bed rock of unflinching commitment to the family unit. In our home, Gender does not matter.

My slate of life as I have led till now is wiped clean of gender roles. It is not that people have not heaped me with gender specific expectations, but whenever I have resisted these expectations if they were not in line with what I wanted, most have had no problems in accepting the role that I did decide to play in that situation. It was not that difficult for people to accept to my “No, I will not do that.” statements, and from what I can tell, I have lost no relationships or opportunities because of it. Gender does not matter. I am just me. I do things because I can and I want to, and not because I am a woman.

Being a woman, it is expected by most people I meet that I must have been subjected to stereotypes, and I must have chafed against them. Indeed, when I meet any member of the press, this is one of the standard questions, and I normally have a ready made “politically correct” reply for it, so that it is keeps my feminist friends and listeners happy. But I realize that I must, at last, speak the truth. It would be a disservice to all the people in my life, if I did not acknowledge the truth that I did not face much gender discrimination. Perhaps I was lucky, but not really inordinately so– since I know of scores of other women – fellow engineers, mothers, home makers, professionals, matriarchs, who have succeeded in being themselves and have not been stopped by the men, and women in equal measure, in being equal.

The feminist world insists that women face a bias, and that they get the raw end of the stick from men. Not necessarily. Not much in the educated middle class India. It happens, but not all the time in ones life. It depends. The world is a rough place, for men and women both, and almost as many men get the raw end of the stick than women do. My feminist friends will not like my saying so, and accuse me of being a gender traitor. But I am not. I do not believe the world owes us equality. We owe it to ourselves to find it.

But, my feminist friends scream, how come many educated middle class women have these issues? Are all of them wrong? The propensity to blame their gender by women for all the problems faced by them is a tough one to deal with. I have as seen as many women take advantage of their genders, as many being beaten up due to it. It is just that the women who get beaten up about it speak about it. The ones who take advantage of it, well, they probably snuggle up with their predatory advantage and gloat over it.

That said, how about the women who do get beaten up due to their gender? After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that wherever gender discrimination occurs, and it does occur, I believe that the responsibility lies as much as with the perpetrators as with the receiver. Women who cow down to conform at the first hint of the gender expectation, who do not insist on being equally capable and gritty, are equally responsible for the gender issue as the perpetrators.

Gender is an issue if one makes it so. I believe that reasons for women making the gender issue important one in their life, goes back to the way they were raised by their fathers and mothers, rather than the bosses and husbands they face in their adult years. If there is a bias, it is more likely to be at home as a child, as a daughter - than the one at home, as a wife or a significant other. The bias a girl child suffers at home, can make her believe that she is not equal and blight her future in ways not imagined by the parents and care givers. If a girl child is raised as an equal child, she is not likely to settle at being anything other than an equal employee, an equal employer, an equal parent and an equal partner.

How can I be so sure of what I am saying? I can, because I know. For, in the final analysis of what caused me to become what I am today, the one thing that stands out in its contribution to me is the pride that shone in my fathers face when he saw me doing things I liked doing, and exultingly cried, “That’s my girl!”

That’s all I ever needed. This one is for you, Papa, for making me the woman I am.

My shoes and I

Hillary Clinton had a mishap recently. Her shoe refused to walk with her and greet the French President. She moved on while her shoe stayed back, sulking, it’s mouth angry and wide open. Maybe it did not speak French. Maybe it did not like 50 year old men who divorce their wife to marry a model. Maybe it did not like the slippery floor. Maybe it was not happy with Ms. Clinton that day.

You can never really tell with shoes. I thought I was the only one who was misunderstood and disliked by shoes. But watching Ms. Clinton being maltreated like this by her shoe, made my heart go out to her. She is a soul-sister. Just like me, her shoes do not understand her, and do not work with her.

Ms. Clinton and I are in the minority. Most women I know get along very well with their shoes. Shoes are their friends. Their shoes go merrily with their wearers, with a flourish, looking great with matching trousers and saris. They never look angry, never stay behind and sulk – and certainly not with their mouths open, the way they did with Ms Clinton.

Yes, people’s shoes are nice and affectionate towards their owners. Not like mine. Mine routinely misbehave with me, bruising my skin around my ankles, pinching my toes, and occasionally, when in particularly nasty moods, giving me blisters on my last toe finger. And once, in violent anger, they made me trip and fall when they opened their front long tongue, and I was laid up in bed with a twisted ankle for days on end. There have been times when they have stayed behind while my feet have moved on, just like Ms. Clinton’s. In other times, they have got stuck in weird corners, slotted floors and once even on luxurious carpets, when they did not like where I was going. They have ruined several of my professional days, when they have choked my feet, refusing to let them breathe, while I was in the middle of conferences they found oppressive - and have forced me to sit awkwardly bare feet on such events. They have cut short many a social evening for me when they have broken a strap, or a heel, on sighting some person they did not like, and have forced me back into the car, carrying the broken screaming shoe with me. I have observed that this is invariably accentuated when I am wearing red.

There was never been a shoe that did not hurt me. Scars and bruises on my feet tell the story of the long battle that my sensitive skin has fought and lost with the shoe’s leather. I have got used to the sympathetic glances of beauty assistants as they take my feet in their laps for a pedicure. The scars are not pretty at all. Of course, for the rest of the world, I just hide my feet. I do not want to discuss the relationship with my shoes with all and sundry.

It is not that I have not tried working with them. I have used intermediaries when the friction between us became too much – wearing peds, socks, and nylons, but the intermediaries could not give me much protection from the callousness that we treat each other. I have also tried various types – the snooty stilettos, the so-called comfortable pumps, the ugly clods, the elevating platforms, the pseudo suedes, the airy sandals – everything. But nothing, nothing works for me.

I must confess though that I do subject them to some rough handling. But it is not anything more than a slight yank to a strap. Sometimes in anger, I have hit their exterior with some surface causing them to scratch, and sometimes, I am sorry to admit, I have torn apart a loose heel. Some have called it abuse, but I don’t think I agree.

I think, my fault is – if there is – is my carelessness with them, and nothing else. For example, my propensity of watching stars when I walk has often resulted in my shoes doing a head-butt with sundry stones and rocks. I have always been yelled back and punished with blisters whenever this has happened. Sometimes to relieve the pain in the small of my back due to high heeled shoes, I have bent my shoe heel the other way, causing the heel to yowl in pain, sometimes even causing it to break. I have surreptitiously worn other peoples shoes just to see if they were more comfortable, and this no doubt, has been the cause of much jealousy and heartburn. I have always come back – sometimes early, and in rare cases, with some delay - but I have always come back to my shoes. I have a suspicion that the toe-pinch behaviour arises out of incidents like these. There have also been times when I have neglected them, as I have mistakenly worn other people’s shoes, not realizing that they did not fit me. I also remember once bending the shoe dangerously, so much so, that the shoe looked like a hoe when I was done with it.

Worse, I once had walked with one of a different pair in my feet – but hey, that’s just me! I meant no deliberate disrespect. I never did mean to separate the pair and leave the other behind, and I always did come back and reunited the pair. But oh, the anger I had to encounter later! It was excruciating!

There is no point denying it. I hate my shoes, and they hate me. We have never been comfortable with each other. I cringe when I have to wear a shoe, and I am sure my shoes cringe when they see me approaching them with an intent look on my face. We have lived with each other as couples do in bad marriages – resentful, full of complaints of past hurts, and balefully straining at the binding yoke.

I have not given up hope though. I have given myself another 6 months, to find my perfect shoe. I will do whatever it takes, spend half of my household budget, if that is what it takes, so that I can find that perfect shoe, the one that would not bite me, would not embarrass me in public, and would be kind to me. This is not an easy search, nor is it an inexpensive one.

At the end of the six months, if the search of a perfect shoe still eludes me, then of course, I have no choice. I will simply grow a thick hide, which can ignore horrified stares from well groomed hostesses, and will start my bare feet existence, freeing my feet from the shoe fetters for all times to come.

Or maybe I will get in touch with Ms. Clinton. She may have a trick or two for telling me how to mind an errant shoe.

Strident Optimism

Watched a wonderful play a couple of days back -"Happy Days", written by Samuel Beckett. Exemplary acting by the cast of two - Patty Gallagher and Joe McGrath, performed in an intimate theater setting, like the one at NCPA I used to frequent at Mumbai, the location Rangshankara, Bangalore - which even has its announcements in the voice of Girish Karnad, an old friend sitting besides me, and a young niece on the other side, watching a play like this for the first time. A rare rare treat, in more ways than one.

The play itself, left lot more unsaid than the narrative itself. I was so intently listening to what was being said, that I could not reflect on what was not being said. Age, me thinks. There were times when I could listen and reflect, both at the same time. Ah, well…... Guess age has its compensations, such as being able to appreciate and ruminate over a play like this. Age is better. Yes, it is.

Coming back to the play - the play was about a woman, Winnie, buried in sand, waist down in the first act, and neck down in the second one. No reason evident on why it was so, the sand being a metaphor for many many things. She could be buried in a meaningless existence, a soulless marriage, a dead-end job, whatever. And the sand was just taking her deeper and deeper into the earth, to non-existence, slowly, inexorably, and presumably, agonizingly. And she has a husband, Willie, who lives around her, maybe due to the matrimonial bond, or some other, who is mobile, and yet chooses to live in a hole, crawling in and out of it, sometimes using his elbows and sometimes his head.

The play is about the optimism of Winnie, of her being determined to have a “Happy Day”, despite her being buried the way she is, and her efforts to reach out to Willie as she masticates over the memories when she was not buried thus, engages in her daily routine which she turns into a ceremony, murmurs half forgotten prayers, and tries very hard to reach out and engage with Willie, urging him to connect with her, terrified as she is about "talking to herself". She does not complain about being buried, but just accepts it the way it is, refusing to use the revolver she has in her bag at all times, which could end it all at one go, that which is any case is ending slowly, excruciatingly. She has her days of panic, when she fears about Willie not being there, and her days of doubt as she wonders what people (Shower/Cooker….or something that ended with an ‘er’) say about her, and resigns herself to existing and surviving, and tries to choose the perfect time to “sing her song”. And in all this, she is perennially gay, thanking her God for the thousand mercies, and once even curses mobility, the one thing she does not have, being buried so.

The play ends when Willie crawls out of his hole, one Happy Day, and reaches out to her, to maybe give her a kiss or maybe to make the revolver kiss her, maybe to end her pitiful yearning for intimacy with him, or snuffing out her pitiful existence- difficult to say, which, and when Winnie finally, finally, sings her song. Lilting, not musical, not good, but yet, her song, the Winnie song.

As I walked out with friends, I could feel a disquiet within me. This was an optimistic play, in a way, as Winnie is so hell bent on being happy, and yet, I felt so sad inside. No, this was a terribly dark sad play, I reflected later. Her insistence to be happy, in a situation which is so obviously an unhappy one, is sadder than everything else.

No wonder, the flyer that came with the play called her a “Strident Optimist”. Winnie is optimistic, but her optimism jars. I wish she wasn’t so, I wish I could tell her, “Winnie, it is’nt getting any better, you are just fooling yourself! Your optimism is sad. Very sad, sadder than the wails that you have throttled inside. Cry, if you must, but don’t smile. You are in a hell hole, and it maybe better to just end it, rather than go on this way, it may be kinder to die than to survive.” Maybe thats what Willie decides to do that after all. Kill her rather than face her strident optimism.

I have no idea of what Beckett meant when he wrote this play, or what others say about it. Maybe after I am done thinking about it, I would look for what others have to say, but for today, I need to think more about what he meant, and what sense I can make of it.

To me, the play typified the pain that we all go through, terrified of being alone, of talking to no one. Just like Winnie, we are all scared deep inside when the day will come with the ‘words will cease’, when our breaths are wound down. Just like her, we reach out to find companions, who would care, who find us lovable, and despite finding that the “Willie” we are with, does not care or does not want to, we incessantly try and find meanings in our relationships when maybe there aren’t any. We console ourselves with optimism when sometimes it is obvious that there isn’t any sense in it. And that’s the darkest hour. When we know internally that we are even faking hope.

It happens. It has happened to me. Hopefully, it wont ever happen again. But it did. Then I survived because there was nothing else to do but survive. It did not make sense to survive. Survival seemed worse than death, but survive I did – as I made the notions of going through the day, counting seconds, counting minutes and then hours, every single day, waiting for the sun to rise and set, willing myself to live the next second, even when it made no sense to, as I struggled with the multiple options that I could use to end it all, and found none to be satisfactory.

I survived. And it wasn’t because of hope. Hope had died. But I could not die even when hope had died. I remember a friend asking me of those days – "Just how did you survive?" And I remember answering him – “What else was there to do?”

Inane reason, but who said truths aren’t inane?

Willie survives, and so do the most tortured lives. Not because survival means something better, but because annihilating oneself is tougher and scarier than survival. So, one takes the easy option - Survives, fakes hope, puts on a cheery smile, and calls is optimism. Strident Optimism.

This is so dark, so full of despair. I recognized it because I have been here. Maybe Beckett had been here too. But wait wait wait….That was then. I am not at that emotional junction today, not today. No No.

Today, I would have chosen to take the other perspective, the other path. Not in its emptiness, not in despair. Not even in hope. But in acceptance - not in optimistic way that Winnie did, but in simple, stoic acceptance. Not in right or wrong, good or bad, but accepting reality the way it is, and dealing with it in a spirit of benediction to myself – not because the universe is kind – I still think it is indifferent – but because it is kinder on myself if I think it that way. Lame? Faking it, you say? Yes, maybe.

But could I sing my song, the way Winnie did, in my acceptance mode? No. I don't think so. I wish I could though. Stoic-ism does not lend itself to songs. Singing songs would definately be better, if I could figure out how to. The way, Rabindranath Tagore did. Where I can believe in the benediction of the universe, surrender to it, and believe that there is a beloved waiting for me somewhere, after this worldly existence, even though I have no means of really knowing that He is there, and sing my song, like Tagore does...with so much certainty.

“The song that I came to sing, remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing and unstringing my instrument.
The time has not come true, the words have not seen rightly set; only there is the agony of wishing in my heart.
The blossom has not opened, only the wind is sighing by.
I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice; only I have heard his gentle footsteps from the road before my house.
The livelong day had passed in spreading his seat on the floor; but the lamp has not been lit and I cannot ask him into my home
I live in the hope of meeting him; but this meeting is not yet.”

-Gitanjali, Rabindranath Tagore

Some day, I hope, I can feel the way Tagore felt when he wrote that. And I hope that on no day, I feel like the way I think Beckett must have felt when he wrote Happy Day. No, I don’t want to go on that path again.

The day I feel like Tagore did, I would be at peace with me, my existence and that of the universe, and that day, I would need no “Willie”, nor would I need to fake optimism, strident or otherwise. Till then, stoic-ness is what I will stick to. Try to.

In Silent Sufferance

The heat from your body
hits me in waves
under the shared rajai

I writhe and turn
while you snore
hand on my thigh

I crumble
my knees close
shiver out a sigh

Living Under Dust Covers

It was the golden hour. Soft bright sunlight was pouring in from her bedroom window, creating a patch on her bedcover. She could imagine little men, photons, carrying light straight into her bedroom, yelling “Stand Aside, Stand Aside” as they rushed in to do their jobs of spreading the morning warmth. She longed to just stay in bed, and watch the sunlight for a while. But, no way, the evil clock on her head stand nudged her and she got up, pushing the coverlets aside.

“Lift up those covers, fold them and keep them aside”. Her husband instructed from the bathroom, where he was shaving his stubble. “You always leave the room in a mess, and I have to spend time cleaning it up”. He was sounding irritated now. He is right, she thought, I never like folding up the bed immediately after I wake up. Somehow the act is too harsh when I am not fully awake yet. I would like to do that after I finish my tea. But she knew from experience, he can not stand the delay. So, she sighed and got down to the job. There - the job was done, the bedcovers were folded, lying neatly, and she straightened up, tying up her loose hair and began to walk towards the kitchen – Ah tea, that what she needed just now.

“Just why cant you keep the four corner aligned when you fold up?”, he was saying, as he glanced balefully at the bedsheet-fold-up job she had done. She halted at the door, temporarily putting her need for some hot tea on hold. She looked at the folded covers. They looked good enough to her. Obviously, he did not think so. He was glowering at her now – “I simply don’t understand how someone cant figure out that the four corners of the bedsheets have to be aligned, just so. Do you know how uncouth this looks, this non-aligned bedsheet?” Ok, ok, she said – I will do it again, and she resigned herself to drinking that tea later. She sat on the bed – her sunlight patch was still there, dancing merrily with the photon men. She glanced up at him, her eyes still drowsy and dreamy with sleep and the warm golden morning “Don’t you think the sunlight is just lovely? See, the patch it makes – it\s almost a degree warmer than the rest of the sheet”, she murmured.

“Must you stand there and talk about sunlight as if it never occurs every other day? Why don’t you get some discipline into yourself, fold those sheets properly and move out to your office?”, he was practically yelling now. “Sunlight and its patterns on the bed are about as important as your neatly folded bedsheet” – she almost retorted, but held her tongue. She had lost the warm, drowsy look in her eyes now. Proper sheet folding done, acknowledged by an exasperated sigh from him, and she walked out, pushing her feet in the slippers.

“Don’t wear those slippers to the bathroom. I have just wiped the bathroom clean. Yours are so dirty all the time. Here, wear mine” he pushed his slippers towards her. “My slippers are not dirty”, she said indignantly. “Oh, yes. They are. Just see”, he said, as he turned the soles of the slippers towards her. Yes, they were slightly dirty, dirt clinging from the soles, but she could always wash them in the bathroom, couldn’t she? He replied even before she asked – “I know the way you would wash your slippers. You would leave water all over in the bathroom, with mud in the edges. No, better wear mine.”

She moved to the kitchen after she finished from the bathroom. “Use the Aluminium tea pan” his voice sailed from the bedroom. “I have washed it for you, and please, don’t use the blue coffee mugs that we bought yesterday. They are a devil to wash, and you always chip china when you wash them”. But, she liked that glass coffee mug. She had bought it because she was tired to having her tea in these brown mugs for years now. She had liked them enough to have bought them even when he was completely against it, murmuring against her ears that it was waste of money.

She ignored what he said about not using the blue mug, and poured her tea in her new blue coffee mug. She would wash them herself, she resolved, and would do it carefully. She carried her tea out on the table, and went outside to pick up the morning paper. When she returned, he was pouring the tea out from the blue mug to the brown one. “The blue one was looking dirty from the outside”, he said. “Have your tea in the brown one today. I will wash all the blue ones and you can use it from tomorrow”.

Suddenly, it did not matter any more to her. Tea, no tea, blue mug, brown mug – it was suddenly too much work to get anything she liked. She gulped the tea, grabbed her towel and headed for her bath.

Stumble, Slip, Fall!

The next instant, she found herself sprawled on the floor, which was now somehow wet. Something near the foot region, she was hurting, it was as if something was broken, and she cried out involuntarily. She saw him running towards her through the tears of pain, and was grateful for his presence, for the first time since she woke up.

He helped her to her feet, and said “My God, Water is spilled all over, just after I had wiped it dry. Just stay here. I will get the mop”.

Women - With Women

Women, in the long run, get along better with women. I know I am
saying this to a group who have lot of men-friends and perhaps prefer their men-friends, being engineers, but still, here it is.

Our relationship with women travels multiple paths, and phases, but in the end, we find rest back with one of our kinds. No sexuality involved though - this is plain kinship.



The “Naaah” Phase:

Between ages 4 and 9: We love girls, hate guys and their clumsiness and boorishness.

The “Look who’s looking at You” Phase:

Between 9 to 16: We like girls, lots of fights with them, and are getting VERY interested in boys. Most of our interactions with girls is about boys and studies, in that order. We still like girl friends quite a bit, and have intense love-hate relationships with them, but our dominant shared interest is the same - Boys.

The “Ouch” Phase:

Between 16 to the-time-we-find-the-guy-we-sleep-with: Girls are
great to sob about HIM, and great to discuss how to finally "nail"
HIM, and sometimes we fight like cats over HIM. Our innermost thoughts and yearnings are with HIM, and we look at similar female travelers on this quest for support. We don’t much like pretty girls and turn up our noses at guys who chase them. We declare ourselves as being cerebrally attractive, though we are inwardly aching with our feminity. We meet a lot of men, and some we genuinely like, even though he is not HIM. We become great friends with them, and we love horsing around with both girls and guys, and publicly have a blast, with nightly tormented private sobbing-in-the-pillow moments. For touchy-feelie woman stuff, we keep those deep in our hearts, and prefer to keep the stuff upper lip, much like our guy pals. After all, we are equal to men, aren’t we? We just somehow deal with our abundance of emotions, sometimes without any support.

The “Found My Man” Phase

Between 19- to the time we get married: We have finally found our man, and we are mighty pleased about it. We love him, revel in his manliness, our love for him, the fulfillment of our dreams, and yes, our sexuality. He is the center of our universe. We outgrow our girl friends at this stage, and loose all contact with them.

The “Mommy” Phase

Between 20 to 30: Then comes the most earth-shaking one of it all. We become mothers! We have a human being completely dependent on us, and we are overwhelmed. And we need other MOTHERS! And we go out and get them. A million questions – urgent and important - Oh shucks, how does one sleep when the kid is wailing? Just does one work leaving the child behind? We wonder at how our mothers raised us, and we become great pals with them. Guys, even our lover and soul mate, is only an appendage now - needed only to be the thoughtful baby sitter

The “Coming Together” Phase:

Between 30 to 40: Having gotten comfortable with our "mother" type friends, we suddenly realize - hey, I enjoy being with girls!! We reconnect back with old girl friends, reach out and make more girl friends of all types – older, younger, working, non-working - and really enjoy discussing relationships, parenting, cooking, work, dresses, nail paints, mascara brands etc. Our soul mate, we have by now realized, is an emotionally simple human being, and we need more than him to meet our multiple emotional needs. We become comfortable with men, and a lot of the desperation associated with them has now vanished. For the first time in our lives, we have come together.

The “Mother” Phase

After 40- and happily ever after: Professional relationships apart, men are now like our babies. To be humored, taken care of, petted. Still a strong friendship- but the lover part of it is now kind of faint. This is also the stage when men start calling their wives "Mom". And younger men worship them as moms.

By now, our girl friends form a big part of our lives. We rejoice at births, and grieve at deaths together. We organize birthday parties, trips, travel, take-a-class-together and dinners. We giggle, cackle, criticize – and have great fun. Men friends, I hate to admit, normally peter off in this stage. In some cases, we are firm friends with their wives now!

By the time we have reached the Mother Phase - we are firmly with the girls, and we enjoy being there, and will stay there till we die. It can happen at age 28, or it can happen at age 48- depending on the life path the woman has taken. The Mother phase is a great phase to be in - it is restful, nurturing, life-giving and most delicious fun. Being a part of the sisterhood is emotionally liberating, and finally, we are comfortable being in our emotional skin.

Amazingly, from what I have observed, this really is a "woman" thing. Men do not seem to get into this phase. I have seen men envy friendships that women share at this stage of their lives. Most women, however unfortunate, will find her own sisterly band, and most men, however fortunate, would be lonely, with few friends. Another amazing thing, a woman who does not get into this phase, is irritable, out-of-sorts and a pain to be with. Being with other women calms a woman down.

So, all you women engineers, struggling within a man’s world, bear it for a while! The sisterhood will come to you – and will come surely. Just give it time!

A Goat and a Hyena

Strange people get married - and stay married.

The reason why they get married is clear- the great Indian Arranged Marriage System - where the only things which are considered as mating pre-requisites are an ability to earn from the grooms side, and the ability to attract and procreate from the female's side, or vice versa - depending upon the social status of each one of them. In absence of any other scale, the gold scale or the beauty scale prevails, and that makes sense to me.

However, why they stay married when it is very obvious that they are very different types of human beings continues to amaze me, despite the economic vulnerability of the woman.

I recently visited one such couple. This couple has been married for years and years - maybe 40 years - the one fact that some of my friends who have western sensibility would celebrate, obviously with an assumption that if intelligent people have stayed married, it is because it made sense for them to stay married. How mistaken they sometimes are!

This couple are as different as a goat and a hyena. The woman is patient, docile, obedient, god-fearing and dutiful. The man is rapacious, self-serving, waits upon others to do his thing - pretty much a scavenger. The Hyena makes the Goat do everything for him - cook his food, give him his medicines, clean his house, lay his bed, lay the table, press his feet etc etc. In return, the Hyena does nothing for his wife - he does not even talk to her nicely. He yells at her at the slightest provocation, and insults her whenever he can, while waxing eloquent publicly over how much he loves her. The Goat bears it all, sometimes with patience, and sometimes with irritation, but her upbringing has taught her to respect her husband, and serve him - and thats what she does, without question, week after week, month after month, year after year - even when she is now worn out, old and almost fragile. The Hyena on the other hand, suffers from heart conditions because of his terrible temper, but takes excellent care of his health, and can hope to see many more suns.

The Goat and the Hyena have been living together for years, and as is wont in marriages, they have stayed together not because they love each other, but because they once entered the bonds of holy matrimony, arranged by their parents, and because Hindu marriages are not expected to break.

However, what I saw in my recent visit to the couple made me wonder if Hindu marraige was not sometimes a slavery - in fact, almost akin to indentured labour.

For, the Hyena has now taken to piss, by choice, not in the commode which is what all ordinary mortals use, but into a special vessel made for holding it due to some Baba - who has told him that pissing in a commode made him less virile. As a part of her marital duties, the goat is made to clean up the ensuing mess, and also carry the piss to the appropriate place to dispose off, as she is after all the Hyena's wife. The Hyena is very much capable of doing this himself, as he is in decent health, but he chooses to give his task to his wife since it is so distasteful to him.

I could see what made the Hyena ask his wife to handle the piss. About the virility part, I do not even wish to speculate.

The Goat does all of this, without question, without a thought of revolt or saying no - and all in the name of marital duty.

It is sick. What makes me sick is not the fact that the Hyena behaves the way he does, but why the Goat behaves the way she does. She is a human being, a person in her own right, a thinking caring intelligent person, she has no compulsions of any kind. Just why does she submit to such cruel insulting behaviour? After all, if the Goat stopped accepting the insults, would not the Hyena have to stop? After all, who else in the world will take such an insult?

Just why does the Goat not behave like a human being? Just because of marraige vows? Yeah, right. Dead right.