On being a woman

Womanhood. Such a loaded word. The moment we hear it, we are slotting people into gender-based ideas of what a woman should be, what she should stand for, what she can or cannot do. All of this, before we even begin to process, distil and look beyond our prejudices, leave alone looking beyond a woman's body.

In today's context, what does it mean to “identify as”, more than just to “be”, a woman? I can only talk from the cisgender perspective. And that is the one thing I can categorically adhere to. But everything else that is defined by our hugely patriarchal, vastly limiting and increasingly annoying perceptions of what entails a woman, is something that I have chosen to defy for most of my life. 

So, as a woman, who am I? A daughter? A wife? A mom? Are we defined merely by our relationships, because patriarchy says a woman's identity can only come from a man? Surely I am all of these, but I am also none of these.

I am a very grateful daughter to wonderful parents, who for the most part, let me be myself. But I don't feel so grateful when brahminical bullshit raises its ugly head to treat women as outcasts. I am a very happy partner in a relationship that has given us the freedom to evolve, without limiting each other because of our respective genders. But I am not so happy when others choose to look at me merely as someone's wife or a +1. I am a very fulfilled mother of six four-legged feline children (and many more that have come and gone). And I have chosen, with my own free will, to not have any human children. Because that kind of “mother” is simply not who I am.

Although my life and my choices come from privilege, there is everyday sexism, internalised misogyny and religious patriarchy that I continue to face. For instance, I am an introvert and I don't do very well in groups or group activities. But I was shunned in one of my jobs, by the women no less, because I wouldn't go out shopping or sit for hours shooting the breeze. For instance, every time a bunch of us go out for beers, the glasses are always placed in front of the men, whether they have ordered them or not. For instance, the time when my husband was offered to test drive our friend's car and it didn't even occur to the friend that I could drive it too. More so because I am a great driver and I have driven for way longer than my husband ever has. For instance, on multiple occasions when families met, women were asked to go mind the kitchen and the kids, while the men wanted to drink. I don't have kids, I don't like cooking, I want to drink too, so where do I fit in? For instance, when an aunt-in-law said “in our houses, we don't let the boys do any house work” and proceeded to clear their plates. The only way I could react was with a soiled facepalm. For instance, when my husband was asked very sympathetically how he lives with a wife who doesn't cook a smorgasbord of dishes. Just like how I live with a husband who doesn't cook at all? For instance, when an acquaintance constantly self-censors his words because women shouldn't hear them, and in the same breath sends Happy Women's Day wishes. For instance, the innumerable times I have been asked to not touch things when I am menstruating, or when I was asked to pray for my husband's long life. I don't follow religious practices simply because of how ridiculous they are. 

Every one of these instances may sound like I am making a mountain out of a molehill. That all they need is a “tsk tsk” before being permanently brushed under the carpet. The problem is, every one of these instances came from privileged circumstances – comments made or habits followed by high net-worth, modern, liberal individuals. And if we don't call them out for what they are, how do the marginalised even stand a chance in a fight for rights?

The problem is, we have all been indoctrinated into believing that our issues are so small that they don't deserve a voice, irrespective of their magnitude. But where does a mere offence cross the line into becoming oppressive? When do multiple happenstances suddenly start looking like harassment? When does a prank turn into a show of power? How long should we tolerate inequality, before we are obliterated into insignificance?

The problem is, quite often, a lot of us will turn defensive when we hear accusations. “It was not meant to be discriminatory”, “It just happened inadvertently”, “we were not aware that what we did was sexist”. In this world of information overload, what stops you from being aware? What stops you from questioning your upbringing/ your beliefs and changing them when necessary? What stops you from being mindful of every action, every day? Become aware. Act advertently (even if that word doesn't exist). Or take the accusations. 

Clearly our attitudes are not gender-based. There are female sexists, male feminists, women who objectify other women, men who believe that women's lib isn't subjective, women who alienate women for being different, men who alienate women for being themselves – the world has all kinds of everyone. Which is exactly the point. Why then, should our opinions, judgements, or our entire belief-systems be gender-based? Why can't the world see women for who they are – some who don't gossip, some who love idle chit-chat, some who cherish their femininity, some who relish their whiskeys and cigars, some who are great moms, some who are great bosses, some who swear by their cooking, some who love to swear, some who hate pink, some who like porn, and ALL of whom are never ever told to act like a lady? Because it's just a nicer world when individuality trumps gender.

Rhythm. Writing. And the blues.

I started talking really early. I went at a rapid pace from learning new words to building full sentences. By the time I was one-ish, I was speaking in capital letters, commas and italics. Then came the big full stop. I shut up. Completely.

I spent my entire childhood in silence. Silence that poured out of my ears like thick black goo and swallowed me whole. Silence that amputated my limbs and cut out any chances of a social life. Silence that did a massive memory-dump of everything I don’t remember doing between 2 and 20. I thought words were something I would never get along with. Until I chanced upon writing.

That’s when words became my best friends. They gave me a job and defined my career. They gave me a voice and lent me a ear. They coloured my thoughts, exemplified my experiences and made life more meaningful. They proffered a pun to play with, an idiom to iterate and an analogy to allude to alliteratively. They stood by me through fat and thin. They gave me strength to silence the world. Until I opened my mouth again.

I started talking, that too with great difficulty, to get a business going. Polite conversations with new clients. Banal banters with associates. Aggressive negotiations with suppliers. Academic deliberations with colleagues. Moronic debates with old clients. Blah blah blah. There were so many yakkity-yaks jumping the fence in my sleep that I neither had the time, nor the mindspace to write. So, when I decided to restructure my business to focus mainly on writing, the prospects looked frighteningly foreboding.

Perhaps I am not so big with multitasking. Perhaps speaking and writing couldn’t co-exist in my life, like two grumpy grandmas living together. Perhaps I needed all of 30 years to fine-tune both skills, before I could begin to process them simultaneously. But now that I have finally understood their mutual exclusivity, I intend to start chipping away at my future, letter by letter.

So here I am, on the threshold of new beginnings and old age, solemnly vowing that I will start scribbling again. And that’s something I can give you in writing.

Twit or Tweet.

There’s this thing doing the rounds on the Internet that is taunting me. Pussyfooting behind my derrière, pointing its inky fingers and cocking a snook at my fictional writing skills. It calls itself NovelRace and it tweets and superpokes writers into doing something monumental – authoring a 60,000-word novel! And here I am struggling to get a blog going from anywhere mundane to anything but.

How do you even start writing a novel? Or a short story? And why does every blogger and twitterer want, through some Satanic intervention, to morph into the love child of Salman Rushdie and Padma Lakhsmi? The only thing I have in common with said parents is - @mom: I am TamBram; @dad: my folks live in his short story. Almost. Surely, I have a long way to go from there.

Like the foxy wolf (or was he sheepish after all?) in the sour grapes story, I am going to indisputably ignore the race. Unfortunately, that makes me sound like someone who denounces change or admonishes adventure. (He might think he’s taking a stand by saying he doesn’t do stufflikethat. But, I think he’s just not capable of doing it in the first place.) Sheesh, what a dismally misleading place to be in.

So does that mean I’m going to write a book? Dunno yet. I’m not the one to go about spinning a yarn. I’ll get on to it when I know how to begin and when to finish. Or what to do during the interval. Right now, I’m happy Twittering.

Older. But none the wiser.

I’m racing into the last year of my 20s in my reborn scarlet scooter. And I plan to live it big. Big for me is not a big house, a big car, a big designation, a big bank balance and a big family. Them bigs are what oldies long for.

I, on the other hand, am doing the Benjamin Button thing. Regressing. I would know, ‘cos the first thing door-to-door salesmen ask is if my mom or dad is at home. And the first thing strangers ask is if I am studying. My life has become a Santoor Ad sans kid. I sure hope these questions are a reaction to my appearance and not my mental make-up.

Before I degenerate any further, and particularly before I turn 30, here are some of the things I want to do/get/achieve.

First: I want to be able to write. More often. More fluidly. More intelligently. More humourously. More better.

* I want a Yamaha RX-100. To own. To ride. To never have an accident on.

* I want one of those see-through abdomens. You know, where you can see the ripped muscles through your skin.

* I want to read more. Corollary: I want to make just enough money to buy more books.

* I want to grow my hair as long as it can grow before I shave it all off at 35.

* I want a pair of Ray-Ban Aviators. And I share this ambition with my husband and my brother. So, if either of you guys get it first, I steal!

* I DO NOT ever want to have children. At 30, at 40, at 50, at 60, or until I can’t anymore. Whichever comes first. I would do anything for the people I love. But I love my life too much to waste it on them little beings.

Last: I want to not be lazy anymore. But I doubt I can change that. It’s in my jeans, which incidentally, I’m too lazy to get out of. And although it’s two sizes too big and way too dirty, I still wear them. Or they wear me. My poor parents have had the misfortune of giving birth to two sloth bears. Sigh, and to think all we ever ask for is to sleep. For two more minutes.

So, there you have it. A wish list for the year. I am going to work very hard on the first and the last. The inbetweens will come and go.

Who knows, next year, I might want to start playing with toys or some such Freudian-childish thing.

Dhrishti suthifying (rolling eyes) in wonder.

Bah. Too much eyes I put on my ideal life the last time I broke my leg.

Just when I had sprung back to my feet and had gotten back to a healthy routine of work and workouts, I had another accident, went screeching in an auto to the hospital, wheel-chaired my way into the X-Ray room, discovered a lateral condyle tibia fracture, went into surgery, got two screws fixed below my knee, got a big fat iron brace to hold my leg straight and got sentenced to two months of bed rest. I know I have big-big eyes. But to cast evil sight on myself? Didn’t think I could do it.

Coming to think of it, I wonder how long I have been wallowing in self-contentment. The whole of this year, I have been mighty pleased about starting a moderately successful business venture, spending time the way I want, having enough money to do so, seeing a little of the outside world, building and strengthening friendships, losing weight and a lot of it at that. And every time I think life couldn’t get any better, I’ve been handed a double dose of misfortune – I broke my leg twice, my husband went through surgery twice, two other members of the family did time at the hospital, my company almost closed shop and I almost lost a good friend – the year 2008 couldn’t have been any better. Or any worse.

It’s sad to think that you can’t even feel good about what you have worked so hard to achieve. Sure, modesty is the way to live and all that. But it’s not like I thought I achieved Nirvana. Or that I thought other people still had many rebirths to live before getting to where I was. On second thoughts, maybe I did. Sigh.

Anyway, it’s a lesson learned the hard way. So, no puffing belly and thumping chest this time. And no feeling oh-so-proud about my laziness and finding excuses to encourage it. The fact that the injury has been extremely painful is also keeping my emotions in check. Nevertheless, it doesn’t mean I want people to know I am hurting.

For I’ve begun to realise that underplaying life is the best way to live it. Don’t feel too happy. Don’t feel too sad. Nothing is permanent. And modesty IS really the way to live.

Big foot blues.

I am the laziest person I know. And thanks to life’s little joys, I got a chance to practise lethargy by getting a doctor-endorsed excuse for it. I gave me a broken bone, a baby blue cast and a brilliant way to spend 5 weeks in blissful indolence.

It happened one rainy night when I tried to walk too fast. I lost footing, my ankle twisted, the ligaments tore away a part of the bone and I got a fracture. It doesn’t say much about someone who’s been sacrificing a non-existent social life to 270 evenings in a gym, running away from horrific mirror images, photographic proof and crystal ball visions of corpulence popping out of my ears. Coming to think of it, the 270ish days of strength training could in fact redeem itself by explaining the fact that I endured 7 hours of bus travel, to realise the next morning that I walked home with a fracture after my long weekend holiday at mom-town. The next thing I knew, I was clicking pictures of myself coming out of the hospital on a wheelchair. ‘Cos I was bringing home the biggest reason that I needed to stay home.

And so, without wasting a moment’s time of wastefulness, I shed my gym skin to bare my true sloth bear self. I had make-shift arrangements made to watch endless episodes of downloaded serials, channel surf on the new cable TV set-top box, web surf, charge laptops and phone, eat and drink and L-A-Z-E with a capital hurrah, all without moving an inch!

And whaddya know, I am finally living the life I’ve always dreamed of. My friends come home every day to entertain me. Every visitor wants to do his good deed for the day by helping the poor and needy. (Me being the one coming closest to the aforementioned adjectives.) I get excused from all the tedious relatives’ house-hopping to exchange leaves, nuts and cut-pieces of cheap cloth during festival time because I cannot walk. (I haven’t told them that I can hop). I get to holler for what I want, when I want it. Even if it means making people walk up and down and back and forth to bring stuff, when one trip could’ve fetched everything. (My excuse – I see other people doing what I cannot do and I am gratified by living my life through theirs.) Is that too much for a sick patient to ask? Sympathy votes in favour of a resounding NO.

Before I cast my own evil eyes on my hard-earned nirvana, I should warn myself that it’s all going to come crashing down just like I heard my bone go crack, pop and weasel. That the day I start walking again, all my friends will walk out on me. My well-wishers will shift loyalties to endorsing more pressing social issues. Like preventing domestic wars breaking out over why a certain daughter-in-law didn’t go house-visiting. I will run out of reasons to ask people to do things for me. And I will have to start running doubly fast on the treadmill to undo what 37 days would do to 9 months of sweat and BO.

So when it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee (that I would have to make for myself), I am going to need a better excuse to wear those gym shoes that I am not going to get my lazy ass into. In the meanwhile, I am resorting to cheap tricks like getting a nail-round in my thumb (loose translation for "naga-chuthu" a.k.a. bad-ass pus-forming boil) and getting my tooth pulled out to give my vegetative brain more time to think of sympathy-votes-winning, work-avoiding, timepass-encouraging excuses.

Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus.I am from the dark side of the moon.

Everything about me is irregular. From an asymmetric anatomy to fleeting moments of consciousness, I have the body and mind of a regular schizophrenic. There is no order in my life either. No habits. No clockwork oranges. No daily dosages. No morning potties. No monthly salaries. No 9-5 work days. No summer holidays. No weekend parties. No Monday morning blues. No Saturday night fevers. No Sunday brunches. No vegetarian days. No bad hair days (it’s just generally bad). No girls' night outs. No lady-like behaviour patterns. No motherly instincts. Other than my period, practically everything else in my life comes and goes as and when it pleases.

For the considerably a-for-mango life that I live, I'm not surprised my blog is just as irregular. So what do people like me do to make a habit out of something? More importantly can someone like me even carry on something for long enough to make it a habit in the first place? Not when I like my random lifestyle, I suppose.

Really. Who wants to wake up in the morning knowing exactly what is going to happen every hour, on the hour? Who wants to live a life dictated by calendars, alarm clocks, to-do lists and threaded fingers? If people around you set their clocks according to your do or die “bath at 7:10, office at 9:22, coffee at 10:16, boss-bitching at 11:33, lunch at 1:05, post-lunch gossip till 2:02, catch 40 winks at 3:00 and the 40-B at 5:00, quality family time at 6:35, brush-gargle-floss at 10:15 and kiss husband goodnight at 10:20” schedule, surely, there isn’t any life left to live after the first day, is there?

Compare that to getting up when you want. Not having to fight the 9 am traffic to reach office at 9:31 to find a red mark on the attendance register. Working for a few hours every day and making enough money to sleep off the rest of the month. Or to sponsor phoren holidays once in a while. Not having to minimise that interesting website when the boss does the rounds. Not worrying about that jealous colleague scoring brownie points with the boss by telling him you surf when you should be contributing to the company’s balance sheets. Having foreign films appreciation sessions – oh, who am I kidding – watching movies during weekdays when there is no work. Not knowing when the week ends and the weekend begins. Not knowing when the weekend ends or if it does end at all. Having enough and more time to catch up on all the books you’ve ever wanted to read. Having enough and more time to do nothing.

Hardly as interesting as many people’s lifestyles, I am sure. But at least it’s not half as ridiculous as a work-your-life-off-to-retire-penniless middle class existence. I am happy living an irregular life. At least it means I am doing it in my own terms. Maybe I should just write about it more often.