5 Annoying Questions!

1) How much are they paying you? (Actual meaning- What’s your salary?)

What’s it to you man? Will you increase it? I will be lying if I say I don’t work for money. It feels nice to see my bank balance grow in long digit numbers adding up month after month. But my real payment is when the kids I have taught grow up and come back on Facebook to say “hi Ma’am, Remember me? I am a doctor/ engineer/ CA/ stand-up comedian ” …you get the picture, that’s when I get my actual pay check.

2) You only have one child? (Emphasis on one child in a slow drawl… actual meaning: one daughter? *Shocked tone!*)

Why didn’t you go in for I.V.F, surrogacy, artificial insemination, adoption, cloning? Other desperate measures that could increase the human population by one more and your family would look so much more normal? Unlike now when you three look so lonely!

Poor you! Who’s going to cremate your body, without a son?

And there is no such thing as having too less in our country, more the better, you would look so good with a brood of screaming kids around you!

Your only child looks so lonely, no wonder she is so thin! No appetite for food without her siblings grabbing the last slice of pizza from her hand, she will never know the joys of wrestling for remotes, bathroom space and privacy! Tsk, tsk! She must be having mental issues fending off her boredom and loneliness no?

3) You don’t look Assamese?(Actual meaning: You are dark and people of north-east are  supposed to be fair and have mongoloid features and go to church)

Well just maybe you have your geography and history all mixed up. The people of Assam inhabit a multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic society. Negroid, Dravidians, Tibeto-Burmese as well as Aryans had been the important groups that lived in Assam. Migration of people to Assam from North India started as early as the 4^th century .They introduced Hinduism in the North-East…….Blah blah blah!

Are you sure you can sustain more of this sociology/anthropology information, because I don’t mind carrying on.

4) Where are you from?

This is the most difficult to handle. I presume I am a homo-sapien and since homo-sapiens came from Africa and Eurasia some 200,000 years ago I too presume my ancestors came from there.

And if in case you mean like the larger picture of where we as humans came from? I would love to sit and have a chat regarding the cosmic theory vs. the Christian/Hindu concepts of man’s evolution!

Unless of course if you mean in the recent past , then I came from home and my home is at present in xyz city and before that it was in xyz city and before that ……I think I need a drink now (head to bar area).

5) Hello! Who is speaking?

Since you called and you dialed those numbers, you will have a better idea, no? As for me I am still trying to figure that question out myself! Why am I continuing this conversation? Hangs up phone!

To Work Or Not To Work

The count-down has begun for the transition– the transmutation of a stay-at-home woman to a working woman! Once again it’s time for the changeover, the metamorphosis of this lady, meaning me.

My spouse works at the mercy of the Indian Government’s whims and fancy. He gets transferred to new cities and towns every few years. I being his devoted better-half mutely agree to pack my bags and move with him, offering to resign from my job each time.

The days in between jobs are days of self-conflict and self-assessments. Laziness kicks in and I toy with the idea of whether to go job-hunting or to enjoy my sabbatical.

When I am home I enjoy my home-time. I go into hibernation. I make a business of an un-hurried approach to everything. I am in control of my own time. I look forward to leisurely reading the newspaper, unhurried morning walks, lazy afternoons of soap on the TV, hunting for recipes (no worries that they often end disastrous), post-dinner chats with my husband and child, banish that monstrous thing called an alarm clock!

As days turn to months life becomes monotonous. I start to dread the boredom of my daily existence. Some days I am plagued with an identity crisis. The devil raises its horns- doubts fill my fragile mind.

I don’t seem to fit into the breed of efficient do-all, know-all, prim-proper ladies who stay at home,  make perfect round soft roti’s, picture perfect veg-pulao, cakes, farsan and pickles. They who enjoy their leisure time shopping, visiting spas and attending kitty-parties or simply dropping by for friendly chit-chat over chai-pani at friends. I truly envy them. I can’t even braid my child’s hair let alone make a perfect palak-paneer. I detest shopping and most social do’s (unless absolutely necessary and forced to go) my trips outside my home become a rarity and the only humans I interact with are my family, my house-maid, my press-walla and sabji-walla. That’s when I start feeling truly fossilized.

So I choose to arm myself with a freshly typed out resume, my countless work experience certificates (collected from all over the country) and march around town, job hunting.

Now the thing is, once I am offered the job, I start debating with myself as to whether I should throw myself back into the job-market or stay put. Should I give up all this for hurried days of rushing? Being at the beck and call of an authority? Face irritating arguments with teenage students? The herculean task of getting a class in order. Evaluating answer sheets. Assessing student’s values and attitudes towards teachers, mates, the environment (a necessary evil started by the C.C.E introduced by CBSE board a few years ago), coming home drained of all strength, snapping at everyone , wanting to be left alone after a tiring day at work! Do I want this vortex of activity to sweep into my life once again?

I join work on 1^st of April, is it a coincidence that it’s April Fool’s Day? I will be finding that out pretty soon I guess, the question is should I join the army of working women or just put my feet up and snuggle with a good book?

Men At Work!

The newspaper article reads like this: "Indian men spend a mere 19 minutes a day on housework" The average minutes per day men spend on unpaid routine house hold work was the highest in Slovenia- 114min! That set me wondering if I had married a Slovenian, because my husband definitely didn’t belong to India or any other Asian country according to this survey!

In the early years of our marriage, I recall he would often wake me up with a cup of tea. When my daughter was born, he took over the ritual of sterilizing the milk bottles, mixing and making her cereals and feeds. When she started play-school it was his duty to get her ready for school and drop her off on his way to office (As I use to leave for work early missing out on this great fun activity). It is he who bargains for bhaji with the local vendors on our weekly trip to the haat! He is the one who cooks the yummy Sunday dinners of pasta, pizza or noodles!

And what are my chores in the house?

I love sorting out the laundry, tiding up things around the house, cooking the routine every day meals, managing the domestic helper, planning the monthly shopping, booking the LPG cylinder payment of bills and millions of other little tasks which needs to be done (and get done unnoticed in many homes), tasks that are so important for the smooth running of a house and family!

Isn’t marriage supposed to be a partnership? Why should the women do all the house-work? Why can’t it be shared equally among all the family members?

In the U.K. men don’t do much household chores either. (Speaking from my experience of a year’s stay at the U.K)However, there the domestic work is less labour intensive. Their cooking is convenient. They have machines to help in the washing and cleaning. Dusting, sweeping and scrubbing the floor is not needed as vigorously as is needed in Indian houses. Here in our country the cooking is elaborate. The dust and dirt is baffling. To top it all our climate makes us lazy and tires us easily.

Over the years the participation of women in the work force has steadily increased. Opening up of the economy, greater education opportunities, changing attitudes were the key driver for this difference. More and more women now go out to bring in the moolah. In the future too we are going to see more nuclear families with double incomes. When both partners leave for work, return home tired and hungry who does what to tackle the mountain of domestic chores that greet them at the end of a tiring day? Will the Indian woman alone have to do the juggling , while the men sit on their butts? How will this mentality work?

Indian mothers baby their sons right up to their marriages (some unfortunate souls even beyond that), they don’t allow their precious sons to lift a finger inside the house. Women nurse their fathers, their husbands and their sons, mollycoddle them and see to all their  needs. We may blame the patriarchal  medieval mind-set for this but now things have got to change!

Sharing of household chores is the only solution. Indian men need to “get up, stand up”  share the house work, contribute in parenting and doing all the tiny odd jobs that need doing inside a house. They have to discard their delicate princely statuses, come down to earth, help their life-partners and show their true worth as a house-holder!

Thank God my husband belongs to the Republic of Slovenia otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this blog at Sunday dinner time, would I have now?