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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Oh men beware of women we will emasculate you!

A seemingly polished patriarchal funda proposed in a new Hollywood flick interested me a few days ago.

The Funda:
Q: Why men lose interest in their ‘wives/partners’ to have sex, pay attention, to relate to them in a meaningful way etc. ?
A: These days, women are so sure of themselves, they have definite opinions, they are increasingly becoming control freaks, they are highly efficient, they are critical etc. in a nutshell women have become ‘ball breakers’. All these traits of modern women ‘emasculate’ the man and he does not feel like ‘The man’ in the relationship and is almost afraid/intimidated to touch or hold her….

I am not going to debate about the validity/stupidity of the argument or any such thing but share a few things.

1. As soon as there is talk about any bill which will help stop violation of women, there is a debate about how ‘innocent men’ will suffer from it.
2. There is a general belief that ‘sexual harassment’ at workplace happens only in places where people are ignorant.
3. Women get teased, ragged and raped because of their provocative dressing
4. Women who are open about relationships are loose
5. There are men who believe hiring women is a bad idea because they have more ‘personal’ complications and are under productive (pregnancy, children falling sick, safety issues at late hours etc.)
6. Most of all pregnancy prevention aids that are advertised and sold are for women
7. In two focus group discussions with women and men (separate), they were of the opinion that AIDS ‘comes’ because of female sex workers

For a change, wouldn’t it be refreshing if,
• Mainstream movies are made, where women put forward their views on sex, about importance of foreplay and the boredom they feel about ejaculation centeredness of ‘normal’ sex,
• There will be Ads which talk about female and male condoms more and less about injections, tablets, and what not for women
• Men’s underwear ad makers understand: We boil inside when we see half naked men jump for rescue emboldened by their new briefs and feel disgusted by the false image creation of women fawning over him for the same… are you guys nuts?

This list is huge ……

To end this, where is the start?

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Strength of a woman

I was feeling all Sylvia plathish and acting wistful like Meena Kumari a bit and spent the afternoon listening to what my mother wrote about her friends and her take on 'strength of a woman'.

Best friend number 1:
She was 8 months younger to my mother and was married to a good catch at that time - A professional working in Bombay, he was handsome and city slick. When the boy came to see her friend (let us call her S) she was made to wear a pink 'city' saree which his sister got with her and her hair style was changed. She was 'approved' and got married. For some years there were stories of S in Bombay, S in Gauhati, S in Patna and the exciting life she was in. She had 3 children by then. At that point of time, my mother was intimated that S was hospitalised due to nervous breakdown and has become totally numb - no emotions, no movement and no interest in any thing. Later on when she visited her, she was better and told my mother that there was nothing to worry. She is moving back to her hometown with kids as the husband is changing cities frequently. This is a plan for children's education. But, her eyes were vacant and hollow. My mother came to know through her father that, S's husband was promiscuous and had married another woman and when confronted, had told S that 'she is not womanly' enough.
I am a childhood friend to her kids and she was a gorgeous woman in a classical sense (big eyes, long straight nose and the works)She never told anybody what happened with her marriage, she worked really hard to bring her kids up, lived most modestly through out her life and died with the secret inside at a young age.

Best friend number 2:
She was my mothers friend from childhood and they loved climbing trees and temple towers together. She was married off at an appropriate age to a respectable family with stable economic status. Years went by without much change and she hit her 40s. My mother heard from some body that her husband had remarried. She was horrified and did not know how to ask her friend. But her friend when they met shared her story thus; "My husband is at fault in this situation, the other woman is young, unmarried and a beautiful woman.Because of my husband, she was thrown out of her house and she lost respect in the village, where will that poor girl go for the fault that both were responsible for? so I told my husband to marry her and bring her home." As a twist in the story, that other woman gave birth to a daughter and died. Mom's friend brought her up as her own and now both of them live together.

Strength to abide by patriarchy and strength to cloak the struggles of the self under patriarchy ..... never the less strength of women then, now and forever...

Mood swings forth and back….

I am thinking these days about my moods and the moods of other people who are around me. Some times I feel like Sylvia Plath with an invisible bell jar over my head. This bubble keeps my thoughts in and distorts the thoughts which are shared by others.

I wonder why sometimes it feels so nice to stay miserable and wallow in self pity (self hate under the cloak may be!) when all I have to do to break it is take a walk or listen to music or cook a nice meal or curl up with ever readable bed side bibles (fried green tomatoes, Bridget Jones diary, Silhoutte romance, peoples magazine or whatever).

There is an invisible thread between people and we call it ‘connection’ or we call it relationship. Mine seems to have broken with many around me. There is a stop gap cork fitting activity called ‘get together to have drinks and dinner with conversation and music’ but it stops after that.

I am in search of my threads which connect me to the wider web of lovely people whose moods are not a swinging.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Romance means what?

The other day I was tempted to take a "Is your marriage as honest as you think" quiz from a women's mag (I wonder why women's mags have these quizzes and mens mags have the toys that boys need to have to get noticed or how big is your bicep or what women think of their body odour ...)

Ok coming back to the quiz, the drift of the questions was,
1. Do you steal from your husbands purse?
2. Do you watch porn when he is not around?
3. Do you think he logs into your e mail account to spy on you?

and it gets better, for all these psychotic questions if your answer is a NO WAY, then the analysis is, " My dear, you are way too honest and candid in this relationship, you need not share so much with him try to loosen up!!!"

I was thinking about what is trust and honesty and what is 'way tooo honest'...

As a young wife 8 years ago, I remember the way romance was between me and the hub dub,
we were thrilled to share the same cupboard and felt happy looking at our clothes together (graon .. I know) and when I fell sick for the first time, my novice husband made maggie noodles because he thought I would like it. I liked it but he made it adding veggies for the next meal thinking I would really like it (Ya I know, but the thought is what counts right?) May be, that was our first fight!

I was away for a week because I was sick (went to mom - Lalitha's warm folds and heaps of freshly made good food). When I came back, the person who took ages to write a sentence, had written two poems and best still he read them out in the night under the moonlight!

Has romance faded over the years? this might be one of the question some body might ask right?...

for my last birthday I was wooed with music, DVDs in the car seat, under the pillow, inside my bag and what not.

He wakes up early invariably every day to make us tea (never expecting that I should do it once in a week at least)

He knows when to order pizza - on those overworked tiring nights

He watches all my girly flicks and never comments on them (some he really liked too!)

He loves my family, he respects people who are important to me and he connects with all spheres of my life.

The man who never cried in any circumstance, wept when my father passed away


His hugs are tight and his eyes are kind.... this is more than enough romance I need