I once described life to this guy I was riding behind with. I told him that my life was like those minutes inside a movie theatre. Now, I had the ticket with me, I'm inside the theatre. I'm watching the movie. Waiting for it to end. Only then can I walk out. Awaiting death, I called it. Years later, I am made to realise that I still feel the same.
Industrial revolution. Industrial
revolution and women. Women during industrial revolution. Working women during
industrial revolution. Industrial revolution mad men. Mad men commentary
industrial revolution. Iconic images of women during industrial revolution.
Rosie the riveter mad men. Mad men feminist book. Feminist books. Feminist book
industrial revolution mad men. And voila! I finally found the title of the book I was looking for - The Feminine Mystique.
My second ever assignment during editorial
training, on my third day at Digicaptions was on a commentary for a Mad Men
episode. The writers/producers talked about the show and the industrial
revolution and women venturing out of their households and men adjusting to the
change and a mention of the book - The Feminine Mystique. I once spent hours at
work trying to find out which show I had transcribed that spoke about the book. And today, here I was, desperately googling for it. Not that this post is about the book. The book is just a thing that you remember which takes you back to that place, that image in your head, that moment and the thoughts you had then and the ones you consequently have over the years to come.
Not housewives, home-makers, we say. Labelling
the non-working married women. I do not see much difference in the two,
frankly.
You see so many women holding high offices,
you have your mothers and aunts at responsible positions of authority, you see
your neighbour having her own organic garden while she raises 2 kids, you see your
female friends venturing into starting something new themselves, you see a
female rickshaw driver... And you see all these women and you feel proud. Women
out there, fending and earning for themselves. Respect and awe comes naturally.
And then... You again see your moms and
aunts in the house all day, cooking and tidying up after you and the rest of
the inhabitants of the house, that distant aunt who juggles 2 whole sets of families
all under one roof, your friend who got married the week after your last exam,
your neighbour lady who is seen outside only to say bye to her husband and
kids, and then to receive them again with a smile in the evening and you think,
you think to yourself, why is that woman not doing something else with her
life?
We tend to see non-working women a notch (or two)
below the working ones. It is true.
But there is a lovely movie out there that
showcases both the sides. And here is one lovely scene with Julia Roberts, the
art teacher trying to get her student, Julia Stiles, enrolled into a law
school, in a bid to let her ‘pursue her dreams’, instead of being married away.
Watch the video and then read the
transcript below.
Katherine Watson: There are seven law
schools within 45 minutes of Philadelphia. You can study and get dinner on the
table by 5:00.
Joan Brandwyn: It's too late.
Katherine Watson: No, some of them accept
late admissions! Now, I was upset at first, I can tell you that. When Tommy
came to me at the dance and told me he was accepted to Penn, I thought, 'Oh
God, her fate is sealed! She's worked so hard, how can she throw it all away?'
But then I realized you won't have to! You can bake your cake and eat it too!
It's just wonderful!
Joan Brandwyn: We're married. We eloped
over the weekend. Turned out he was petrified of a bit ceremony, so we did a
sort of spur-of-the-moment thing. Very romantic.
[Katherine is stunned]
Joan Brandwyn: It was my choice, not to go.
He would have supported it.
Katherine Watson: But you don't have to
choose!
Joan Brandwyn: No, I have to. I want a
home, I want a family! That's not something I'll sacrifice.
Katherine Watson: No one's asking you to
sacrifice that, Joan. I just want you to understand that you can do both.
Joan Brandwyn: Do you think I'll wake up
one morning and regret not being a lawyer?
Katherine Watson: Yes, I'm afraid that you
will.
Joan Brandwyn: Not as much as I'd regret
not having a family, not being there to raise them. I know exactly what I'm
doing and it doesn't make me any less smart. This must seem terrible to you.
Katherine Watson: I didn't say that.
Joan Brandwyn: Sure you did. You always do.
You stand in class and tell us to look beyond the image, but you don't. To you
a housewife is someone who sold her soul for a center hall colonial. She has no
depth, no intellect, no interests. You're the one who said I could do anything
I wanted. This is what I want.
A couple of years ago, I used to ride to
work on chilly mornings at 6:30 and annoy the hell out of everyone. Why? I was
annoyingly happy. I loved my life in the house which I shared with a thirty
something woman. She travelled a lot and was hardly there. I had the entire
house for months at a time. Top floor house, it was. Nice view of the
neighbourhood. Quiet and lonely up there. I had my very own room, a narrow but
fully functional kitchen and the hall which had long French windows right next
to the door.
I remember how excited I was when I got a refrigerator and paid for it myself. It
was my very own fridge. It was small and red. I made sangria. I started
learning a new language. I downloaded audio lessons. I cleaned and repeated
weird sounding words after the guy on the tapes. I cooked dinner. Tried my hand
at new recipes. Treated myself to yummy food. I went out walking in the
evenings. I remember the rains and the skies the best. Monsoon. Chilly weather.
I sometimes met up with a friend or two for dinner or coffee.
I remember one late evening when there was a heavy downpour and the lights went out.
There was thunder. Loud. I took my veena, sat down in the hall, faced the
windows and played for hours. I didn’t have a candle. Or a torch. Longest I
have ever played. I was happy.
But I didn’t make just sangria. I experimented with white rum. Miniatures stocked up. I
had a wine bottle always tucked away in the bottom most compartment of my
cupboard. My nights were a routine of having a couple of glasses with a movie
or a sitcom. But I did wake up every day at 5:30, all by myself, to go work. Every
single work day. All charged up to irritate people during breakfast on the top floor.
Long time back, it all seems. 2013 has been a horrible year so far. Right from
January. I do have French windows here as well but the view isn’t that great, and
a roommate who is absent on some days.
I am no longer annoyingly happy. No miniatures stocked up. They don’t help
anymore.
Torches. He liked to keep them handy by his
pillow. His wallet filled with a wad of money notes under his pillow or the
mattress. Boxes filled with biscuits and rock sugar and chivda by his beside.
His phone book filled with names of people from his daughters to the cable guy.
A bottle of Sprite on the stool before him. A book or two next to his pillow.
He wrote letters to the Governor and the President and made us all wary. His
oxygen tank and other breathing aids surrounded his bed 24/7. A few years
before it was different. Slight changes. Steel boxes filled with khara mixtures
and sev. Plastic ones filled with potato chips and dry pakodas. A tape-recorder
for listening to the FM radio in the mornings. He used to walk around a little
on the balcony outside his first floor house. His very own house. Occasionally calling
out to the pan shop guy to his left or the juice guy to his right or reprimanding
the college boys and dog walking uncles for smoking. A few years before this he
would be seen doing a lot more. He loved getting out the hose pipe and washing
the balcony and the stairs and the compound on the ground floor. He’d
occasionally be seen getting into the auto with his youngest daughter. Most times
to buy books. Every morning after shower there was a ritual done in the kitchen
before the small mantap. Every morning without fail. A couple of years before
this my most vivid memories are of him running after frogs after the rain with a
bucket. I don’t see frogs now. I used to play vehicle counting games with him
on the balcony while we waited for my parents to return from work. He used to
smoke. And I hid his cigarette packets. He always took my side whenever my then
college going Aunt told on me. He rode a Bajaj Chetak. I was 7, probably. I
remember being thrilled at the fact that he okayed me to sit sideways and ride
with him. I once stole 10 rupees to get a chocolate from the local milk parlor.
My mother saw me with it on her way back from work. He took the blame for it.
Said he had given it to me. He never questioned me about it. I never stole
after. I used to head upstairs and sleep by his side. He used to make up stories
for me. Suvarna Sundari - I think was the protagonist ‘princess’ character of
most of his stories. He once took me to his then ‘office’. I can still picture
it. A large room, barren, with a few desks and 2-3 people at them. Was it in
Chamrajpet? I cannot recall. Not a spiritual or a religious person myself, he
was the only one to teach me shlokas and such when I was little. I remember the
black telephone with a round dialler. I remember his favourite black cane
chair. He always, even the last time I
met him and spoke to him, chided me for not keeping a bindi. But I was the only person with
whom he was lax about it. I’d like to think I was his favourite.
My Grandfather. He had his flaws. But he was one person I was never afraid of. The
only person to ask me straight out if I had made love with my previous boyfriend.
The only person with whom I discussed death and how I wished to be disposed
off. Oh, we spoke on it pretty lengthy. He subscribed to Readers Digest and The
Week. The many, many letters to RD in the hopes of winning the jackpot! He
loved Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford and movies with other such actors. I
remember getting in touch with a guy who did torrents of old flicks and
requesting for a list my Grandfather had asked for. He read Clive Cussler, Lee
Child, James Patterson, Tom Clancy, David Baldacci and a host of other
authors. He prided his James Hadley Chase collection. He cooked as well. His signature dish was benDekaayi mudh-palya. It was yum every time.
Over the 24 years of my life, I knew him
and knew of him in stages and phases. He used to call me MS 2 - Maddi SambraNi 2. He was perceived to have weakened over his last few years, but he was strong as well. He spoke well in English and like he'd say, there is no bullshitting about it. I am the only grandchild to have known
him this closely. I miss him already. I shall miss him more over the years to come.
“Making love with a woman and sleeping with
a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does
not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an
infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited
to one woman).”
-Milan Kundera, The Unbearable
Lightness of Being
I love the above text. Kundera puts it with
such clarity. He writes about two very different desires - one sexual and the
other less so. The need to mate is more primal, so to speak. To share a bed
with someone and to just let your eyelids close leading to a state of rest to
your ever wandering mind is something else. On similar notes, being in love
with someone is different from loving someone. To experience love in its
various forms is when you would find yourself open to how to you truly feel
about things. An intense rush of love towards someone is not the same as the
joy and bliss you’d get from being in love with someone. And to be able to
distinguish the two when encountered simultaneously, is when melancholy makes
itself known.
They say there is no such thing as happiness. No one is ever
truly happy. Happiness is something that is much sought after. We do it in such
subtle, involuntary ways even. We always want a little more, a little better.
Everything we do is to feel better than before. Why? Why is it so needed, that we
are happy? Why can we not embrace sadness and welcome it? Why is contentedness
to be found only in happiness? The need for things around oneself, people to
interact with is so pitiable that one is scared to even question their necessity
in life. Relations – the societal need for them surpasses their actual role. It’s
all just sad. Ergo, even though one may try hard to find it, happiness cannot
be found.
It probably doesn’t even exist.
Solitude is least appreciated when given without being asked for. I was close to contentment while I was living alone. I miss that house. I miss my evenings right after work. I miss the nights.
Sure,
times were hard what with the periodic lack of resources, but I pulled myself
by.
Here is a picture taken right outside my door, on a rainy day, just as the skies cleared up...
