Pink. Anger

I watched Pink today. It made me angry. It made me remember things I had chosen to put at the back of my mind. It made me angry because while I have bitched about those things to friends and they’ve bitched back, we never really raised much of a voice against it then, preferring to roll our eyes at “regressive Indian men” instead; preferring not to make much of a scene. Watching the three girls in Pink told me I should have. Maybe all of us who are in our 40s now and were single in the city about 20 years ago, should have been more vocal, should have done more than raising our eyebrows and shaking our heads at ‘idiots.’ Maybe it would have been a tad better by now. Pink is a movie with an ending that can be called happy in some ways because the girls are vindicated. But it leaves you silent, stunned with discomfort and somewhat deflated. Because even if not in the scale as it happens in the movie, bits and parts of these things have happened with you. Or someone you know/knew. You’ve had that sly, gossipy neighbour who makes her/his own judgement about your moral character just on the basis of when you land up home or whether you stand on the balcony wearing shorts. Yes it’s a Sunday and yes you’ve just woken up to have your first chai of the day but all good bhartiya naris either wear a respectable maxi (and make it even more respectable by putting a dupatta over it) or salwar kameez before they give balcony darshans to the neighbourhood men, right? You’ve had the colleague whose roving eyes landed on your chest ever since you attended an office party together and he saw you dance a bit wildly after more than two beers! You’ve been the girl who thought she would never take shit from anyone and then got down from a DTC bus because, hey, better be safe than sorry, right? You’ve largely tried to stay out of trouble, even if you felt that trouble should’ve been punched right back on its face! In the movie, Falak, one of the protagonists, loses her job because a bunch of idiots hell bent on revenge morph her face into a naked body and mail it to her place of work. Her bosses of course don’t believe in checking facts or even giving her the chance to explain. They fire her. It has happened to someone I sort of knew once. Unlike Falak, she wasn’t in a movie with AB to save her and probably did not have the support to stay on and fight her battle. We shared a hostel and her father and brother came to take her back. I still remember their whispers with the warden, the brother’s stern look, the girl hanging her head, wordless, shaking with tears, her friends talking to the father -- how it wasn’t her fault. I don’t think the father believed any of them. We found out much later she had been a victim of what we now call a cyber crime. I’ve no idea where she is now but that incident in the movie made me think of her, hoping that incident didn’t break her forever. Years ago when we looked for a PG in the safest city in India, all landlords would have one standard question: Boys ayenge kya? We would shake our heads and say no diligently. Finding a place was more important than inviting your male friends inside it. Just like it was important to ignore comments or whispers from neighbours that branded you as ‘those girls who come home late’ or ‘those girls staying alone...’ or ‘those girls who drink’ once you had landed a coveted 1BHK or PG. A PG was more important than taking panga, especially if you had a decent landlady or landlord. So you carried on with your life, you went to work, you partied you, came home late from work on weekdays and late from pubs and parties on weekends. You were 20/25 years old. You thought if you ignored comments and barbs they would go away. You thought you were too cool to dignify those with a response. You thought just do your own thing as long as there are like minded people around you and one day, times would change. You clearly thought wrong. There’s Pink. And there’s news like this: http://thewire.in/67205/bhu-rsss-ne...

Alone Now

These days, I’m re-learning to be alone. I’m re-learning to do things on my own – from going for a quick lunch on my own to just going about life. Or rather, daily life as it comes when you have small children, school, bus stop drops and pick ups, badminton classes, older parents and in laws and a work from home situation.

I’m also re-learning a thing or two about marriage. Or at least the way it is perceived by most around us.

Last October, my husband moved to another city because of work. He travels back home on most weekends and intends to continue the arrangement for at least some time in the near future. It’s an arrangement we are both very comfortable with at the moment. I run a start up along with a friend that is based in the city I live in and our children go to a school here they love. My husband is trying out a new job and city and wishes to see first if it would be long term. We see no reason to upset the apple cart at the moment.

So while I re-learn several things in the ‘husband’ department formerly, such as driving or fixing the kiddo’s bike, what’s been really interesting to see are the reactions of people around us.

It doesn’t matter that my husband is around on weekends and holidays, spending as much time as he can with the kids, helping out with things around the house. What matters is the time he is MIA.

‘Don’t you think your husband is missing out on his children growing up?’ says a concerned neighbor whose parenting advice I did not ask for.

Another lets me know how her husband would never agree to such a thing because their children would be inconsolable.

Yet another tut tuts at how “poor me” is always running around, picking up and dropping the kids, finishing outside chores. “I did that earlier too, when my husband lived here,” I tell her. “It’s still different, at least you had him back at the end of the day,” she replies back, because of course that is the prize all good wives wait for at the end of the day, don’t they?

If that is meant to inject some sadness into my cold cold heart, it doesn’t.

Yes, there are times when you want another adult to have a conversation with at the end of the day. An adult who may speak in monosyllables and stay glued to the TV screen but is a comforting presence anyway.

Yes, there are times when you wish you did not have to discipline the squabbling kids at dinnertime on your own for four nights a week and sometimes more. But there are various devices to keep us all connected more than enough these days and whether it’s a kiddy battle or a much needed conversation, it can be dealt with via that medium. Then there are friends who could be easily arm-twisted for a mid-week beer J Not exactly the end of life, is it?

I may sound irked but I’m not disputing any of the things people have been saying. These are fair points, all of them and there is probably a sense of genuine concern. What amuses and bothers me in equal measure is the sense of incredulity I get behind these questions and conversations. Being comfortably alone in a marriage and admitting it doesn’t seem to be the done thing. If you are in a marriage, at least in India, you need to say and do the right things.

And it isn’t just being alone.

Anything that is different in a marriage is usually questioned, if not openly, then with very thinly veiled interest. A friend works a full time, demanding job. Her husband is the stay at home dad at the moment, working on his nascent venture, with more time on his hand than his wife has. It’s he who is around the kids all the time. It’s he who is the playground dad. Their marriage too gets the same incredulous reactions. Doesn’t he mind the late hours? She is asked.

Doesn’t she miss the kids on her frequent travels? And of course, the inevitable, how long do you plan to continue this? Because life has to be planned to power point precision?

So what do I make out of this? In a marriage, your behavior and beliefs, at least to the world at large, need to be the socially approved ones. Yes, you may be the mother who works but you also need to be the mother who shows up sometimes at the playground. If not, you are possibly without any maternal feelings. You may be the mother who is comfortable playing single parent for a while; the mother who doesn’t mind stepping out for a drink with her friend on a weekday while her husband is in another city but please do not announce it to the world. You may be ‘alone’ but far from lonely but please do not make that public .

That’s not how tried and tested formulas work.

Thought Process

A thousand thoughts in my head. Cannot sleep. Am I becoming a very different person from who I set out to be as I age? Is it true that I find it hard to take feedback on myself? Perhaps part of it is true. I do tend to get ‘defensive’ about my actions very often these days. The intention isn't to react like that but I do tend to. Where’s it coming from? A place of insecurity? A place of self doubt, inferiority?  Because I want to prove that I'm right in what I'm thinking. That my actions are justified. That I'm not racked by self doubt.

And if it is, where’s that self doubt coming from? Why is my head constantly thinking of whether I have earned approval or respect and at times, in a not so appealing manner, actually striving, no struggling to achieve it?

Why is it so important suddenly? Earning this respect, approval, praise of those around me? Have I always been this way? Have I always craved it but not been able to acknowledge? Or is it what age does to you?  

Not the best of days but then it isn't the worst of them either. A somewhat unpleasant (to me at least) interaction, a warm chat with a venerable 76 year old about her charitable work, a dip in confidence levels thanks to the unpleasant chat, a rise after a quick nonsense chat with two old friends....this is what it is about, isn't it? Good days and bad times.

The post from a hole

I'm neither here nor there at the moment.

I was like this eight or maybe seven and half years ago, when Big A was about 8 months old and my new mommy feelings were strong as ever but not enough to survive on them alone. My friends worked. My husband  worked. My mom worked. My neighbour worked, even though she did not really want to. My maid worked. Everyone worked expected me. Oh yes, I worked too. But day and night shifts that are done at home and involve children, high chairs, scattered cereal, splattered sofas, squeaky toys all over the floor, potty seats and wheels of the bus sung for the 25th time to put the tyke to bed are invisible. It's just something you do when you are home 24/7. It's not work because real work requires a smart office chair and desk, a nifty computer where you do other things than check mommy blogs, kids furniture and upload photos on Facebook. And get paid at the end of the month, which is what makes it all real. f

Irrational? Yes. But when you are in a baby induced hole, you tend to have such thoughts, even if you love the hole you're in.

So by the time A hit 8 months, I hit the paranoia button and decided that I had to work. Not full time of course but on a freelance basis. My life depended on it. Yes am quite shallow that way and not exactly ad-material for motherhood.

Now A is about to hit 8 years next month. I have work on hand. Have always had for the last eight years. Small time stuff that's enough to keep me happy, occupied and delusional enough to think that am doing 'real work.' I even have a 'venture' of my own with a friend that is on baby steps but is there, nevertheless.

But the discontent of it all is hitting me back again. Is the work I'm doing really worth it? Where do I stand among everyone else? Has the baby hole sucked me too deep inside? I'm restless and panicky as a friend pointed out today. At least that's how I'm coming across.

Weird? Perhaps to the outside world. Normal? To some mothers-in-a-hole who tread the same line of thought. Abnormal? Certainly not!

In which I go soppy

“I’m suffering from the empty nest syndrome!”A mother whose daughter has just left for university abroad commented recently on a Facebook group I belong to. In less than two minutes, there were other mothers in similar situations commiserating with her. Mothers with children who had just left home to attend college in another city or country; Mothers with children who had started working elsewhere or were about to take off soon, whether for college or work.

As I read the comments, I realized that precisely at that moment, I was rather thrilled to have the children out of my hair. The big boy had gone off to a birthday party and was safely away for a good three hours, while the younger one was sleeping next to his grandparents and would be mollycoddled by them once he awoke, saving me some time.

I thought of the house as it usually is, especially on a holiday. Books all over the sofa, crayons on the dining table, blocks hiding under cushions, balls, cricket bat, NERF guns everywhere, a sock or two flung across at some point, which I’d been too lazy to notice or pick up. Yes, I’m a total pushover when it comes to setting boundaries for play areas within the house. I looked at the mess and instead of getting worked up as I always do, thought of how it would all look once the kids had grown up and left home, like these women’s had. The house would be clean. Almost clean, as the husband wouldn’t be attending college again I suppose. But clean in a way that you wouldn’t trip if you didn’t spot that tiny car on the floor. In fact, there would probably be no tiny cars at all. The boys would be 18 plus anyway and too fixated on their X Boxes and play stations or whatever new comes up in the next 10 years. They wouldn’t want you to sit and play Dragster with them or demand your attention every five minutes. They would be teenagers, almost adults. Attached but detached as well, in their own world.

And so as I thought of all this in a rather uncharacteristic, maudlin manner, I suddenly couldn’t wait for the boys to come bouncing up to the room and take away all the free time I had. Because 10 or 15 years isn’t long when you have children who keep you on your toes and make you long for precious minutes that you get to yourself and stop being a supply chain.

Before I know it, they would be out of the door and the floor would be squeaky clean with no tiny cars, no spilled juice or Chocopie crumbs. As I kept up the weepy imagination, the doorbell rang and in walked the boy. “How was the birthday party? Did you eat anything?” I asked out of sheer habit, the words tumbling out of my mouth before I could stop. “It was okay,” said junior with supreme disinterest and a look that said, really mom? You can’t wait even a minute, can you? He walked to his room, picked up his Beyblade and started playing, oblivious that mom had spent the last half an hour agonizing over and imagined life without him in the vicinity.

The process of detachment has already started. And it is extremely disconcerting at times. Let the nest overflow at of the moment.

I need to write
I have to write
Yet it's a bait
I'm loath to bite