Being Bad

I was reading “Bad Feminist” by Roxane Gay the other day. In her book, she mentions how she came up with the term “Bad Feminist” and what it means. And what she said made a lot of sense to me. She says, “I embrace the term bad feminist because I am human. I am messy. I’m not trying to be an example. I am not trying to be perfect. I am not trying to say I have all the answers. I am just trying.. “ And that resonated with me a lot.

When I was a kid, I was raised to be a good girl. This was way before the word feminism was a part of my lexicon. Study well. Respect your elders. Don’t raise your voice. Cross your legs when you sit. Be kind. Smile. And when I was young, it didn’t occur to me to question any of it. But even then some things were obvious. I often heard statements like, “That’s not for girls.” or “Boys can do that, not girls.” and in some part of my budding psyche, I had the nagging feeling that something was not right.

I was raised a good girl because my mom was raised to be one. The term or concept of feminism wasn’t on her horizon either. Back then and honestly even now, the word feminist has only negative connotations attached to it. Like Gay says, ” I was called a feminist and what I heard was, “You are an angry, sex-hating, man-hating victim lady person.”” But I knew there was something unfair about the rules that governed a girl’s life.

The disruption in my good girl upbringing was thanks to my father. He still has a ways to go before being called a feminist because his feminism, while I was growing up, seemed selective. He was always very encouraging of my sister and me. He always encouraged us to dream big dreams, never told us we were limited by our gender, taught us to never believe anyone who told us otherwise, gave us the freedom to speak our minds and form our own opinions. But these freedoms still came with restrictions. He still controlled a large part of our lives and as we grew older the restrictions grew as well. You could say he was trying to protect us from an increasingly unsafe society when he controlled the way we dressed, or our use of makeup or our responses to harassment, but it was again not very “feminist” of him. On some level, I understand his concerns now that I am a parent myself, but back then it was stifling.

But his influence was huge in molding my character. I first came across the word feminist when I was around nine years old. I wasn’t exactly sure what it meant. All I knew (from my flawed understanding of the concept) was that feminists were bold. didn’t wear much makeup, believed they were as good as men and hated all men. See how flawed my understanding was? But I was all of 9 and since I had always been brought up to believe I was as good as the next guy, and since I was not very fond of the opposite sex at that point of time, I was all set to jump on board the feminist train.

It was also around this time I started noticing something else. Whenever I spoke my mind or stood up for myself, or expressed an opinion on something or tried to do something that was considered the forte of the male species, I was criticized or ridiculed. I was told I was being tough, that I wasn’t being “nice” and that I wasn’t behaving like a girl. Like Rebecca West said, ” I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.” It was hard trying to make myself understood and trying to make others understand what I was saying. As I grew up, my frustrations only mounted. I never managed to make many friends because of my beliefs and attitudes. And back then, I was too angry and too upset as well to have a reasonable dialogue with people. I also didn’t want to get into trouble because I was still being told at home that I had to be a good student and respect my teachers etc.

When I started college, I tried hard to tone down my feminist leanings. My parents still controlled a large aspect of my life including what I wore and how I behaved in public. So I tried to dumb myself down and not express my opinions. I tried to become nice and likable and sweet. I said things like “I believe in gender equality but I wouldn’t say I’m a feminist.” Cue- eye roll. A lot of it also had to do with the fact that the word feminist was and still is used as an insult in the part of the globe I come from. Even now, women are being vilified and harassed for speaking their minds or demanding their rights. But that was also the time I started reading up more about feminism and its principles. As my understanding of the concept grew, so did my conviction that I was a feminist and that there was nothing wrong in referring to myself as one. I finally came to the realization that it wasn’t an insult, and if it was, that was a fault in the understanding of the person using it and not me.

From then on, to this day, I have proudly referred to myself as a feminist. And any time someone expresses opinions that reek of ignorance of the concept, I’ve always tried to educate them. I’ve learned to be my own person and stand up for myself and speak my mind. I’ve learned not to be nice, or compromise for the sake of social acceptance. I educated my husband who in spite of being raised by a very strong woman, was ignorant of the tenets of feminism. And now, I’m in the process of educating my son who I am determined to raise a feminist. I’m not saying I’m perfect. I still encounter situations where I see and hear people making wrong assumptions about the concept and I don’t respond. I still hear women disavow feminism and although I get angry, I keep silent. It is tiring- this battle to be understood and make others understand. Some days I keep it and other days I’m too weary to do battle.

Feminism also has its flaws. There are multiple schools of thought and multiple definitions. There is black feminism, intersectional feminism, ecofeminism, womanism- the list is endless. My thought is simple and coincides with what Gay herself believes. “I believe in equal opportunities for women and men. I believe in women having reproductive freedom and affordable and unfettered access to the health care they need. I believe women should get paid as much as men for doing the same work.” So when someone tries to tell me they don’t believe in feminism, I ask them this- “Do you think men and women deserve equal opportunities in every sphere of life?” And if the answer is yes, I tell them they’re a feminist.

And on the occasion of this Women’s Day, let us all, men and women, make an effort to better understand and embrace feminism. Remember what Kathy Bail said, “Feminists are just women who don’t want to be treated like shit.” And no one wants to be treated like shit, do they?

On Privilege

Privilege is a word that’s bandied around a lot these days. White privilege. Male privilege. The privilege that comes from being rich. The list is endless. Each of us enjoys a different sort of privilege and some of it depends on one’s perspective as well. For example, some of my friends in India think I’m privileged because I live outside the country and hence enjoy a lifestyle that’s coveted by many. Some other friends wouldn’t dream of being in my position, because their lives in India are perfectly comfortable, and they enjoy the proximity to family and affordable full-time help that’s nonexistent outside of the country.

But what I want to talk about today is teaching kids about privilege. My son is five now and he has a very comfortable existence. The other day, we were having a conversation, and he said: “All the kids can watch what they want on TV Amma because everyone has a TV at home.” I started to explain to him how that’s not true and he just couldn’t fathom it and wouldn’t listen. In his version of the world, every kid has a TV at home. I can’t blame him either, because every home we have been to has one, if not more, televisions and a myriad of other gadgets. And that got me thinking on how to explain privilege to my son.

I didn’t grow up wealthy. My parents were middle-class Indian parents and like any middle-class family, we scrimped and saved for the stuff we wanted. We were expected to finish the food on our plates without complaint. We got new clothes for birthdays and special occasions. We had exactly two pairs of shoes- one for school and one for everything else. Chocolates and toys were an occasional treat. TV time was regulated and we were told we simply had to do well in school. Every single thing we had, we were expected to be thankful for, and we were. Both my parents had their ancestral homes in small villages and every holiday, the sibling and I would be packed off to our grandparents. There, we would see the kids in the neighborhood, their homes, and their struggles and that would reinforce what our parents told us, that we were indeed privileged. Our parents also always made sure that we were cognizant of the world around us, the struggles of everyone around us. They also made sure we shared with those less fortunate.

When my son was born, I wasn’t worried about his upbringing. I was going to raise him the way my parents raised us. What I didn’t factor in then was the fact that while I grew up in India, my son has already lived in four different countries in the short five years of his existence. He barely remembers India. He started his schooling in one of the most developed nations in the world. He went to a preschool were his friends’ parents were already shortlisting private schools and prep schools for their kids. We have two cars. His friends have lavish parties for birthdays. They get multiple presents for Christmas. And to an extent, as a parent, I have had to comply as well. He hasn’t had a lavish party to date. And I always try to limit the number and value of the presents he gets. And for every present he gets, he has to donate a toy he already owns. I try to strike a balance, and often when I feel he is taking things for granted, I sit him down and tell him how privileged he is to have all this.

I don’t know how much of it he understands, but so far, he complies with whatever it is I ask of him. He gives away his toys willingly. When he gets money as a gift, he donates half of it to charity. He tries not to waste food. He does chores around the house to earn money and donates part of that too. But he is only five, and I worry that as he grows older, and becomes more exposed to the place and the culture that surrounds him, he will forget his privilege and start taking things for granted. I know I will be prepared, but I don’t know if it will be enough.

But for now, I’m doing what my parents did- I’m trying to teach by example. And I’m exposing him to stories and issues from different parts of the world, showing him kids who don’t enjoy the same privileges he does. I teach him to be thankful for everything he has. To be thankful for the people who help him- be it the server at the restaurant or the cashier at the supermarket. To be thankful for the things he has every day. And I try to find stories, incidents, and books that we can discuss that talk about privilege. And I’m hoping that for now, this is enough. And that once he’s grown up and we have the more complex discussion about what it means to be privileged, he will understand and choose to use his privilege wisely.

Year Out and Year In

The end of a year demands a mandatory year recap post right? Not that I have been active on this space for any length of time this year. I meant to, but as always, life got in the way. No. That’s an excuse. I just didn’t think this space was a priority for me and I neglected it. I’ve tried to scribble elsewhere like my journals and my notebooks but I haven’t been too successful on that front either. It has been due to a combination of factors. For the first half of the year, I was gainfully employed and finding the time to write was hard. The husband was working almost seven days a week and taking care of the home and the son fell to me. I was also pursuing an ambitious reading goal of 52 books for the year, a book a week, and each by an author from a different country. So whatever time I could spare went to reading.

Halfway through the year, we had to move. I had to quit my job, pack up the house, say goodbye to some amazing friends and colleagues and move to a whole other country. Settling in a new place, finding a school, a bank, grocery stores, doctors, dentists and what not took me months. Then came the adjustment for the son. It wasn’t easy for him. Not that I blame him. In the five years of his existence, this is the fourth country he’s living in. That’s crazy enough for adults leave alone for someone who doesn’t even understand why we have to move!

I had set some goals at the beginning of the year apart from my reading goals (which I accomplished in style). One was to not shop for myself, which I managed to quite an extent. Apart from books, which I had excluded from the list and essential winter clothes, I didn’t get anything for myself. I wanted to write twice a week but that didn’t happen. I’m planning to attempt it again next year. I wanted to save more which I did. I wanted to eat healthier which I managed to an extent as well. I wanted to restart yoga which I did although my practice is still spotty. I wanted to declutter. I had accumulated so much junk and I felt it was getting out of bounds and I managed that as well. I’m planning to make that a yearly thing. I feel I have too many material possessions and most only give me a fleeting sense of joy except for books. So I’ve decided to be careful about the things I acquire.

This year was a tumultuous year for me with yet another move and having to quit my job again. I don’t regret the move though. The husband was under extreme pressure and as a result, we were barely spending time as a family. The son had even begun to not listen to him anymore. I was holding down the fort all by myself and I could feel my patience fraying. It was definitely one of the most trying times in our marriage but we got through it. He’s much better now. He keeps better hours and he’s under less pressure. The son and he finally have time to bond and I feel less like a single mom.

I made some amazing new friends at my work, met some amazing women- both colleagues and clients who have inspired me. Their stories will always stay with me. I’ve worked with a company I never thought I’d work with and in a building that was over 200 years old and felt more like a ballroom than a workplace. I also lost friends, but I have no regrets there either. When someone takes advantage of you and then tries to weasel out of commitments with inane excuses, it is better to let it go. I’m not bitter. Some things have their shelf life and this was due to expire. But my time with them made me a better person. They were also there for me in some terrible times and for that, I will be thankful.

I have also introspected a lot this year. Reviewed and revised my long-term goals and ambitions. I’ve realized what is limiting me and I have decided to take charge and make things happen.

So my resolutions for 2019 are:

1. Be less likable- I’ve always been someone who has been nice to people. But I realized this year that this niceness has come at a cost. I had repressed so much of who I was, to be perceived as nice, that I had begun to lose sight of who I really was. I only found patches of the person I was a few years back and I was shocked. So I’ve decided that in 2019, I am going to be my own self. Speak my mind. Share my thoughts. Call people out. And not worry about the consequences. Because, like my sister says, if someone is meant to be in my life, they will be.
2. Write more- I had set a goal of twice per week for this year but I’m revising it down to once a week for 2019. Hopefully, that will be doable.
3. Explore new things- I realized this year that I had become a little rigid in my nature. I had a comfort zone, and I was finding it extremely hard to break out of it. It took the sibling a few sessions of yelling at me for me to realize that. I was becoming a recluse, and I was shutting myself off from experiencing new things out of some weird fear, and I was becoming a shell of the person I was. I plan to change that in 2019.
4. Expand my social circle- I have a small circle of people whom I call friends. But most of them are so far away that catching up with them is a pain. But I love them and treasure them and the things they’ve brought into my life. But since I’m constantly on the move, I am forced to make new friends. Although I enjoy meeting new people, making friends is hard for me. It could have to do with the fact that I’m very introverted. I scribble better than I speak, to be honest, but I’ve realized the son has started to take after me and not make too many friends as well. I don’t want my nature to affect him so I am going to attempt to broaden my social circle.
5. Prioritize my health- Physical, emotional, spiritual. I’ve been neglecting myself for a while and although I made a start this year, I still have a long way to go.

I have many other smaller goals but these are my big 5. And I intend to make these happen. Have you made your resolutions for 2019? What are they? Did you manage to stick to your resolutions this year?

Going Grey

There are certain pivotal moments in all our lives. We are cognizant of some, we welcome some, some we are unaware of and some hit us like a bolt out of the blue. I had one of those moments at the beginning of this year- the bolt out of the blue kind. The day started innocuously enough. I rolled out of bed, trudged into the bathroom and as I started to brush, I caught sight of my mane of hair. I have short hair and I never tie it up when I sleep. Ergo, I wake up looking like Medusa. I tried to get my hair into some order with my free hand and then I saw it- a lone grey hair. I almost swallowed the toothpaste.

Being a woman and not completely immune to social conditioning try as I may, the sight of that lone grey hair put me in a state of panic. After all, that’s the one thing we are expected to dread and battle once we hit our 30s. First grey hair, then wrinkles. You get my drift.  “I’m too young to be going grey”, was my first thought. I’m 33 and apparently, that’s the age at which the average woman starts getting grey hair. So I’m a pretty average woman I guess. But I panicked. I felt geriatric. I could almost envision the walking stick and hearing aid and nursing room walls. I wanted to wake the better half up and scream at him about how the world was ending. But I thought better of it since he’d already gone grey a couple of years ago and had sailed through it without a second thought.  I wanted to book an appointment at my salon and start colouring my hair. I wanted to pull the offending hair out.

Then I decided to take a deep breath and stop panicking and think about what I was doing. Let alone the fact that I was letting something so superficial control my life, I was also acting like it would in some way alter the person that I am. My dad has always had scant hair and whatever little hair he had, had started turning grey in his 30s. My mom greyed only in her 40s (some awesome genes there). My grandmother greyed in her 30s as well, and she carried her greys gracefully. I spoke to my girlfriends. Some of them had gone grey in their late 20s and had been camouflaging it with colour since then. Some had started to grey and were contemplating colour. I slowly started to feel better. My vanity was appeased. And I wasn’t the only member of the “fifty shades of grey hair” club. Phew!

Then, I started to really think about it. Why is going grey such a bad thing? I mean when a man goes grey, he gets called “silver fox” and what not. Look at George Clooney. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that man with a head of black hair. I bet he’s never faced pressure to colour it. I bet he never lost a movie offer because of it. I bet no one called him sloppy for having grey hair. Why is it that only women have that kind of pressure to do something about grey hair? Why is it that only we are faced with whispers of “she’s letting herself go”? Can’t we be silver foxes as well? Or do foxes have only the one gender?

And then I decided to own my grey hair. It was the lone hair initially. Now, I have a few. They are mostly hidden under my regular black hair and aren’t all that noticeable. But every so often one will escape its confines and someone will point it out to me. And I shrug it off like its no big deal. I still have days when I look in the mirror and I feel conscious about the greys. I have days when I contemplate colouring them. But for the most part, I’ve learnt to let it be and not let it affect me. No offence to anyone who colours their hair and enjoys it. I just don’t think it’s me. And I know for a fact that the time and energy needed for its upkeep is not my thing at all.

So now, I’m waiting for all the rest of the greys to pop out. I might change my mind about colour. I might never do it. I don’t know. The only thing I know is that when they come, I’ll be ready for them. And the greys didn’t change me or my life in any manner. And I feel confident I’ll be able to deal with the wrinkles better. Oh, wait a minute, is that a wrinkle I spot on my forehead? The horror! The travesty! I’ll be right back…

Raising a boy

Parenting is hard. It is demanding, exhausting and mostly thankless. And as primary caregivers, it is often harder on mothers than fathers. You are responsible for your child’s well being- physical, emotional, mental and in most cases spiritual as well. You are constantly worrying about what your child eats, what he drinks, what he reads, what media he is exposed to, what sport he plays- the list is endless. But then, parenting has always been difficult. “It takes a village”, they say and they’re right. Only in today’s global society, you are the village.

When I was pregnant, I had this quiet conviction that I was going to have a boy. Once D was born, I was at a complete loss on how to raise him. I only had experience around little girls and I was completely flabbergasted on how to go about bringing up a boy. The initial months were easy- you just had to feed him and make sure he wasn’t too warm or too cold. As he grew, so did my disquiet. As a woman, I felt, I was more comfortable connecting with a girl than a boy. After all, all I had to do was teach her from my own personal experiences and those of my friends. I just had to teach her to keep struggling and fighting against the injustices meted out to her, in the same way I had been doing since I was old enough to understand being a girl put me at a disadvantage. I just had to teach her to not conform to society’s expectations from a girl, to fight against patriarchy, to tell her that being a girl did not make her any less of a human being. With a boy, I wasn’t sure where to start.

That was the time the MeToo movement started taking center stage and as I went about reading and doing research and wondering how to start parenting my boy, it hit me. Boys have never had to face any of the disadvantages that girls did. They were never told they weren’t good enough. Ergo, the challenges they faced were different. And they were complementary to the ones girls faced. I realized then that raising a boy wasn’t all that different from raising a girl. It is just that the issues they had to face were different.

The first order of business was trying to raise my son to be as gender neutral as possible. Which meant not conforming to the “blue-pink” madness when he was little to choosing his toys, the books he read and the messages he was exposed to. I’ve always let D pick out his own toys. I’ve never made a conscious effort to direct him to more “masculine” toys like trucks and cars. Granted he loves them but he also loves to cook and play house and I’ve never stopped him from doing those. I’ve never asked my son to “toughen up” and not cry. I’ve taught him in turn that everyone cries and it is yet another way to express emotion. The one time he told me that only girls wear pink, I told him no- colors are a personal choice and it’s not just for girls. He’s dressed up in skirts and tiaras and in superhero costumes. He’s sensitive and frequently needs to be held and cuddled and kissed and I’ve told him that’s a healthy way of expressing affection. He helps out with household chores- cooking, cleaning, folding the laundry, taking out the trash- all traditionally considered to be the forte of girls. I also make sure he sees his dad doing the same things so he understands that household chores aren’t divided based on gender. I’m doing this to make him self-sufficient and also to instill in him this belief that gender doesn’t define what one does or becomes. Hopefully, when he’s older and is bombarded with the kind of sexist messaging and imagery that is so prevalent in today’s world, he will remember these lessons he learned as a child and be strong enough to stand up against them.

This is a world of angry men and angry women. Women’s anger is righteous and stems from centuries of being oppressed, controlled and relegated to the sidelines in all walks of life. Men’s anger stems from a lack of control. It tries to silence the voices of others including women. For ages, men have been taught that they are in control of everything- from their destinies to politics, economics, society, and women. Why else would we still have men making decisions on women’s bodies? Every single mistake they ever made was justified with the nonsensical argument of “Boys will be boys”. They’ve had the world handed to them on a platter and have constantly been told that they could be anyone and have anything they wanted. The whole world was full of successful “men” for them to look up to.

But today, women’s voices are louder than before and it has led to a fundamental shift in the definition of what being a man entails. Today, being a man has come to mean being an ally to women. At least, that’s the way I prefer to think of it. And this means, instead of sticking to the age-old ways of raising boys, we need to raise them more like we raised our girls- to be sensitive, to be compassionate, to be helpful, and most of all to fight against the established world and social order that treats girls differently from boys.

Mind you, I want my son to be tough. I want him to be tough in the sense that he’ll stand up for what is right. I want him to be tough when he stands up against racism, bullying, patriarchy. I want him to be tough in the face of pressure from peers and from a society that will try to fit him into the stereotype of being a man. I want him to be tough when it comes to standing up for his beliefs and convictions. I want him to be tough enough to go against centuries of beliefs that make him the favored sex. I want him to be tough enough to fight eons of deeply entrenched patriarchal systems. I want him to be tough enough to shrug off the venom that will unfailingly be directed at him by a lot of his own gender when he chooses to be an ally for women. But beyond all this, I want my son also to have that innate toughness to choose the kind of person he wants to become- the courage to be his own person not shackled by anyone’s expectations including mine. That’s the toughness that I will welcome and strive to foster in my son.

I am constantly trying to raise my son to not be defined by his gender. And I know there are millions of mother’s like me around the globe trying to raise their son’s to be allies to their daughter and to girls around the globe. Hopefully, these little boys won’t be corrupted by the toxic world environment we see and read about every day and when their time comes, will be, along with the girls,  harbingers of the kind of change the world so desperately needs.

PS: After reading this some of you might feel that a lot of what I’ve written has been generalized. Like the fact that all men have it easy or that all women are angry about their lot in life. Well, there are men who have had tough lives and women who are perfectly happy in patriarchal societies but for the most part, what I’ve mentioned here it true. My writing might also seem very straightforward but as we all know, there are no blacks and whites to anything in life. I’ve just tried to articulate to the best of my ability what I feel and what I’m trying to do. 

Home..​

Before I start the actual post I want to say something. This taking long breaks in between posts and then claiming a comeback seems to be a vicious cycle I have fallen into lately. So I’m not going to do that anymore. I have a million things that I need to take care of every day- a kid, a husband, a home, family, work, reading and the millions of other things that I need to tick off of my growing to-do list on a daily basis. So writing is often neglected or relegated to the sidelines. Today I found some time and the inspiration to scribble and so here I am. 

Its been almost three years since I’ve been home. I was someone who always believed that home was all about people. And to a large extent that stays true. Home for me would be my parents and my family. Any place they are at would constitute home for me. But the other day, I chanced upon this quote and it got me thinking – “We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.” (Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon)

It suddenly hit me then that I miss home- not just the people but the physical place as well. And not home in the sense of the place I live but also the myriad of other things that make home.. well home for me. I don’t just miss my room or my books or the trees outside my window. I also miss the well-trodden paths, the familiar sights, and sounds and smells of my neighbourhood as well. I miss my Amma’s and Achan’s ancestral homes. I miss the temples and temple festivals and ponds and caparisoned elephants. I miss the rituals and chanting and the smells of sandalwood and camphor. I miss the ringing bell of the newspaper boy’s cycle and the loud cries of the fishmonger. I miss the morning cacophony in homes and on roads as mothers hustle to get kids off to school and their husbands off to work before they themselves head out for the day. I miss the smells of cooking- from piping hot idlis and puttu and vada to the smell of frying fish and banana fritters.

I miss the chatter that wafts from tea stalls and roadside shops that range from economics to politics to movies. I miss the heat and the dust and the occasional respite that untimely showers bring. I miss the cawing crows and the street dogs. I miss the green of paddy fields, the backwaters carpeted with water hyacinth, the coconut groves, and toddy tappers. I miss the scorching hot stones that pave the temple walkways and the sun-warmed sands that kiss your feet. I miss the serpent groves and the theyyam and the theeyattu. I miss the familiarity and sense of belongingness that comes from hearing your mother tongue spoken by people around you. I miss the feel of those words on my tongue. I miss the craziness and confusion and noise that characterize the place I call home. I miss it in spite of its faults and flaws. I miss it even though I know I will want to leave once I’m there for a while.

And now, with the wisdom that comes with age, I know that I miss it because I have left parts of me there. There are parts of me scattered in all the places I’ve lived and loved, in the paths that I’ve walked, the things that I’ve seen and experienced that have made me who I am today. The much younger, very naive me that believed that I didn’t belong at home is still party right. But so is the older, somewhat wiser me that feels there’s no place like home. Perhaps this yearning is for a place and time I can never recreate or go back to. Perhaps this is a yearning that comes from being away from home for so long. Perhaps this is a yearning that has taken root as a result of seeing my son speaking a foreign tongue and forgetting his own. Perhaps it comes from the fear that he will never know the beauty of his language or his roots or the rich tapestry of the culture he comes from. Perhaps it comes from knowing that whatever I try to do, my son might never love my home the way I do.

I remember these lines I read ages ago that made perfect sense to me since it explained who and what I was perfectly.

And I fear that is what my son will be as well- too foreign and never enough.

 

Competitive Motherhood

We had a PTA meeting at my son’s school the other day. And by school, I mean preschool. And I don’t know if I should be ashamed to say this, but I had no clue preschools had PTA meetings. Anyway, this being the offspring’s first official meeting and my first “school event” after D’s official entry into the hallowed portals of an educational institution, I was excited about going. I thought I would meet some lovely parents and I would finally have people to maybe go out with for a cup of coffee or crib about our kids.

But, within minutes of arriving at the school and meeting my first parent, I was disabused of that notion. I had conveniently forgotten something I had first experienced while I was pregnant- competition. Well, I was acquainted with competition much before, but the fact that the notion could be attached to something like pregnancy was news to me till I was carrying D. There was competition in everything- from getting the best doctors to putting on the least amount of weight, to having the least or worst morning sickness and to even the sort of childbirth you had. Natural birth with a midwife out of the confines of the hospital scored you most points, while cesareans were the lowest on the rung. (I should clarify here that I am in no way against natural childbirth. In fact, one of my closest friends did just that with both her babies. She found an atmosphere without the beeping of machines and the “hospital smell” perfect for her. I, on the other hand, cannot imagine having a child in a place other than a hospital.)Then came everything from breastfeeding to child-led weaning to hitting all the milestones. While I was shielded from most of that because I was with my parents, and I followed their example in raising my child, I was subject to all kinds of unwanted advice on how to raise my child (which I considered or rejected depending on the person who offered it or based on its merit).

(Image Courtesy: someecards.com)

But I digress. The comparison started when I mentioned whose mother I was. The minute D’s name left my mouth, the lady went, “Oh! The really tall boy”. While I might qualify as a midget, my son seems to have taken after his father and is pretty tall for his age but I’ve never had someone address him as the “really tall boy”. She then went on to tell me how her son was small and didn’t seem to be putting on weight or height no matter what she did. I tried to change the topic saying I was the same way and so was my sister and we both turned out ok and that each kid had his own stage and time and pace of growth but she didn’t seem satisfied. She went on to say how me and my sister were girls and how shortness in boys wasn’t a desirable quality. I didn’t want to tell her how misogynistic that was. Anyway, the said lady’s friend arrived and I was again introduced as the mother of the really tall boy. I resigned myself to the moniker and waited for the meeting to begin so people would finally stop the comparison. The meeting started and the school started talking about their teaching methodology. I was pretty impressed with what they were doing and in any case, my primary aim in enrolling the offspring was to get him to socialize and make friends and get him out of my hair for a while so I could get reacquainted with my brain and sanity.

But evidently, I was wrong in being impressed. When the teachers mentioned that they often had activities and studies for kids where they were grouped together based on interest and not age, some mothers took offense. Their major concern was that while younger children might benefit from interacting with older kids, the grouping was unfair to the older ones. They might not pick up things as fast, and might be late in meeting their milestones of reading, writing etc. The questions and arguments went on for so long, that after a while I zoned out. I’m sure I might have come off as an uncaring parent or a zombie masquerading as a mother, but I was at the point of not caring anymore. I don’t disagree with the school for one. My sister is five years younger than me, and she’s definitely the more accomplished of the two of us and I’m constantly learning new things from her. I also believe interacting with younger kids teach the older ones virtues like patience, sharing, compassion, and adaptability- qualities I believe will serve them well in life. When one of the teachers mentioned a much younger kid who was a whiz at math, I swear I could almost see some mothers turning green with envy.

(Image Courtesy: cartoonstock.com)

Competition is good, I agree, and in today’s world, it is pretty much unavoidable. But my parents always taught me to compete with myself. It was always, “We know you can do better than this. You’re capable of so much more”, and never, “You can do better than him. You have to.” There was never any comparison between me and the sister. We would compare often, but never our parents. We compare even now, but we’ve both come to realize we have our strong suits and are perfectly happy with the way we turned out. And I try to impart the same philosophy to my son. When he talks about a classmate who read them a story I ask who it was, and what story it was, and if he also shared something with the class. I don’t attempt to grab the nearest book and get him also to read. I know my kid is smart. He is curious and sensitive and tells silly stories and likes only happy endings to any story he reads; so much so that we often rework stories with somewhat sad endings to make them happy. He cares for trees and animals and those smaller than him. He is shy but I can see him slowly coming out of his shell since he’s started school and started being with other kids. And for me, those are accomplishments enough. I don’t want my child to have a Mensa-level IQ, or participate in all sorts of extracurricular activities the school offers, or read Wordsworth and Kafka when he’s 6. I just want a happy, well-adjusted child. The rest will come when he feels its time. If I’m branded a bad mother for this, then so be it. I’d rather be a bad mother than have a child who’s scarred for life because his mother was busy training him to be the best at everything that she forgot to let him be a kid.

And I try to impart the same philosophy to my son. When he talks about a classmate who read them a story I ask who it was, and what story it was, and if he also shared something with the class. I don’t attempt to grab the nearest book and get him also to read. I know my kid is smart. He is curious and sensitive and tells silly stories and likes only happy endings to any story he reads; so much so that we often rework stories with somewhat sad endings to make them happy. He cares for trees, and animals, and those smaller than him. He is shy, but I can see him slowly coming out of his shell since he’s started school and started being with other kids. And for me, those are accomplishments enough. I don’t want my child to have a Mensa-level IQ, or participate in all sorts of extracurricular activities the school offers, or read Wordsworth and Kafka when he’s 6. I just want a happy, well-adjusted child. The rest will come in time. If I’m branded a bad mother for this, then so be it. I’d rather be a bad mother, than have a child who’s scarred for life because his mother was busy training him to be the best at everything, that she forgot to let him be a kid.

Ergo, dejection.

Some days, you wake up fully charged and ready to take on the world. Some days, you need a little nudge in the form of a message from a friend, or a kiss from your little one. Some days, you feel like you need a dozen shots of espresso to get you through the day. Some days, you need a swift kick up your posterior. And then, there are those days when you wake up, and halfway through the day, you wonder what prompted you to crawl out of bed in the first place. Although not belonging to this last category I could do with a few espresso shots right about now. Pfft!

Waking up after a long night in which the offspring, who I’m thinking of renaming as the “Karate Kid”, practiced his moves on me, and getting through an early morning breakfast fiasco (the idli batter seemed to have a mind of its own), I somehow managed to hustle my boys out the door on time. I went out on the patio to water my plants and realized that some of them were afflicted by some kind of bug. I’d already gotten rid of one and now I have another one to contend with (cue dramatic eye roll). After that disappointment and some research into ways of getting rid of it, I managed to sit down and restart my job hunt.

With the son at school, I can finally entertain the idea of being a paid member of society. He’s been at school for a little more than a month now, in which time I managed to finish a course I had to leave halfway through because I couldn’t juggle the son and my studies, and brush up my resume and draft a cover letter and send them out to every single company in the country. I had to put that on hold last week because the son came home with a bug, and I was busy nursing him back to health (read trying to get him to sit still for ten seconds so I could shove medicine down his throat). Today, I’m finally back to my schedule and after spending five hours hunched over the laptop and reading through a gazillion job descriptions that the job board thought “matched” my profile, I managed to apply to a measly five. And when I really started to feel that crick in my neck and my eyes started to water from staring at the screen too long, and my brain started to feel woozy from the long hours, is when I started craving those espresso shots.

Dejection is easy to get and difficult to get rid of. I know it isn’t easy to find a job when you have very little experience, and when you’ve been away from the workforce for well over three years. None of the companies I’ve worked for are big names and that makes it harder to convince any recruiter to pick my resume out of all the others they receive daily. Ergo, dejection. And I don’t handle dejection well. I get frustrated and angry and unsure about myself and my skills. And since I don’t have a large sweet tooth, and I don’t consume copious amounts of alcohol, I try to drown my dejection in coffee. The catch now is that it’s been almost a year since I quit coffee. In an effort to reduce caffeine intake I’ve switched to black tea in the mornings and green tea in the evenings. And the house has been pretty much cleansed of all forms of coffee.

So now, I’m sitting with a crappy cup of green tea while my brain is yelling obscenities at me for having given up coffee, and feeling all mopey and sad. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better, or maybe I’ll break down and head to the nearest Starbucks to get me a double shot espresso. God knows I need it today!

Back to Blogging (yet again)

Life is a waiting game. Like in the case of me and this blog. It has been almost a year since I posted anything on this space. I had planned to post more frequently and it was not like I had a shortage of things to post about. It was more like me planning and the prodigal son disposing of all those plans with a flick of his wrist. I’d often jot down ideas or compose posts in my head. I’d read a book and want to review it and would do so often albeit in my head. I would read a piece of news that affected me profoundly and think of sharing my views here but would never get around to doing it. Being a full-time mom to a hyperactive toddler far from family and without any help, my world sort of collapsed to an ironclad routine that revolved solely around the pint-sized dictator I birthed. My days were a blur of cooking numerous meals, cleaning the house only to turn around and find it messier than before, doing innumerable loads of laundry, reading the toddler the same books over and over again till I could recite them in my sleep, and honing my diplomatic and marketing skills in supermarket aisles and checkout counters.

With the toddler giving up his afternoon naps, my days became even more tightly regimented. Since I was also determined to raise a toddler who wasn’t always glued to the television, I had to come up with novel ideas to keep the son engaged. I wasn’t successful completely. If I needed to do any kind of work around the house, I had to put the son in front of the television; but I did manage to keep his afternoons and part of his morning television free. My days became so mundane that I could feel my brain cells dying. Granted, getting to spend time with my son and being able to shape his character and be a part of his likes and interests was rewarding; but I wanted some time for myself as well. And that was well nigh impossible with a husband who was work-obsessed and with no family or friends nearby. I managed a bit of reading on and off but that was about the extent of my “me-time”. My writing was ignored, keeping in touch with friends suffered, I didn’t cook as much as I would have liked to. I was neglecting myself.

The son started school sometime back and now I have a lot of time on my hands till he gets home. It’s been a huge change for him and it has been accompanied by its ups and downs. He has his moments of crying and distress and doubts. I have my moments of heartache and the sense of loss and the fact that this is the first in a series of goodbyes I’ll have to wave my son in his life. But I’ve been glad to reclaim some time and the house to myself. I finish my cooking in record time without him there to interrupt me every five seconds. I’ve finally finished a course I had abandoned halfway through because the son wasn’t giving me enough time to finish my studies and assignments. I’ve started reading more. I’ve been able to get back to my journal. And soon, I hope to get back to work as well.

And today, as I was making a list of the things I wanted to finish in the next month, and jotted down “write more”, I realized I hadn’t gotten back to this space in ages. I checked the blog and realized that my last post was almost a year ago. I’ve made a lot of comeback posts here before, but I’m hoping this one will be different. I’m hoping this time I’ll be able to stick to my word of posting more. I’m hoping I’ll be able to keep up the momentum and not give up like I did. I’m hoping this will be sort of a revival for this space that has been grossly neglected in the past few years. So here’s to new beginnings and better things and hopefully better writing as well.

Of Shapes in the Clouds and other things..

The other day, me, S and lil D were on a drive, and since it was a long drive, and D was being uncharacteristically quiet, and it being a glorious day, I was staring at the sky. Azure blue with clouds floating by languidly, it looked like a beautiful canvas to me; and then, my brain started to find patterns in the clouds and I was transported back to my childhood.

It was the time before mobile phones and gadgets, before even cars had the mandatory “entertainment consoles”, back before automobiles had air conditioning in India. Our family had a zippy little blue Maruti 800. I was around seven and the sister two. We were stationed in Kozhikode back then, but for every vacation or long weekend, without fail, we’d head to either Achan’s or Amma’s ancestral home. It was quite a long drive- almost 7 hours if I remember correctly. And making the journey with two kids without many avenues to keep them occupied was even harder. These days, with D only being two, I still have to pack a myriad of things to keep him from getting bored on even the usual grocery shopping expedition.

But my parents made the journey back then, without anything to keep us kids occupied other than their wits. We’d sleep for a while, then wake up, roll the windows down, feel the wind in our hair and face and then the incessant questions would begin. When would we reach? Where had we reached now? How many more places to go before we reached? We’d play with each other for a while and then boredom would set in. And then Amma and Achan would come up with fun games for us to play. We’d sing songs. We’d spot things along the road and talk about them. And then sometimes Achan would casually look up at the sky and say, I see a rabbit in the clouds, can you? And then me and the sister would me mesmerised by the sky and thus would begin a competition to see who could spot the most outrageous shapes on the horizon.

 

 

The sheer joy of doing something so inane, and trying to outdo each other doing i,t is something I find hard to describe now. We’d scream with laughter and giggle at each other’s descriptions. During the monsoons we’d look up in awe at the grey black clouds and watch in wonder as it poured. We’d trace the water drops that trailed down the glass. We’d make bets on which water droplet would make it down first. And the smell that wafted in when you rolled down the windows after the downpour, was sheer heaven. Or if it was only drizzling, we’d roll the windows down and lift our faces up to the spray. And in all these little shenanigans, we wouldn’t even notice when we got to our destination.

These days, with the advent of technology and air conditioned cars and mobile devices, all this is lost.  The inside of the car is always at the perfect temperature. There are too many things to keep you occupied- music, movies, your mobile phone, your kindle- you name it. And in the midst of all this who has the time to look up at the clouds or the trees or the rain? I’m guilty of the same as well. But the other day made me more aware of the fact that I need to get my son more interested in these. We do sing songs, and spot our favourite colour cars and big trucks, and watch for trees and rivers and what not when we go out, but his pleasure in it is all fleeting. Probably it is because of his age. Or probably it is because he’s already used to technology. I’m also guilty of using technology to keep D from acting out when we are out. So maybe I’m to blame as well. And I guess to an extent, society has also become less tolerant of kids acting out in public? Anyway that’s matter for another post.

As of now, I’m going to try and teach him to spot rabbits in the clouds and play with the raindrops.

(Image Courtesy: Your’s truly, taken on my iPhone)