I know you

It is tasty to do that oh yes
to do the guessing game
of understanding others,
Ha, look now I am believing
my own fiction
I know this is the truth now

Now I know you better than
you know yourself I believe
Why you do what you do
and I have pegged all your motives to a tee
mind you, you need not talk to me about it
it is not necessary

I will pile my theories on you
in case you need to talk
then you only need to clarify
or justify or explain or sulk like a
bad sport!

may be this is why they say
god is in me
I create you, him and her
in my mind and
It is difficult to let go of this super power!

Coming of age

I know my hair is soft and silky, the colour is pitch black and lustrous. I know how much effort I put in making it that way. Paste of methi seeds one day, steaming the roots and hot towel treatment another day, oiling and massaging with camphor and neem leaf smoked coconut oil and what not.

I know men look at me when I go out and they know that I know that. With anticipation of the world applauding and falling to my feet, I go out feigning nonchalance, tossing my hair and with wide open ears.

I sing in the bathroom passionately and wish that a music director walking in the street suddenly discovers the haunting melody coming from an untapped original voice and eureka!

I secretly hope that people think that I am beautiful. When I look in the mirror I see that I am beautiful to myself but what do others think? I curse my pug nose at one time because it makes my face round like a circle at other times I think it is fashionable to have a distinct nose.

I get lost in fantasies listening to music. Aamir Khan comes to Mysore and is riveted on the spot when he sees me. (Ponds dreamflower talc ad!). He does not have any other go but to follow me and bawl at my feet. Wow too much. What will I tell mom when that happens? I still need to study and I am only 16! will he wait till I am older?

I write poems and I become famous because the writers discover the uncanny talent I have. I am the talk of the town. All I need to do is write and send it to publications.

I see a boy following me wherever I go. He is my neighbour. I teach English and Kannada to his young nieces along with my siblings. I give him a glance once in a while. His niece drops a letter in my lap one day. He is begging for my love, he is ready to face the world, he is ready to convince my parents, he is ready to wait, he is ready to take on anything.. all I have to do is say YES.

Ooohoooo, this is becoming way too serious mannn!! I dont need letters, you can follow me all you want but nothing further ok? Dont you get it? I do not see you like that at all and I have no intentions of marrying till another decade and a half and that too not to you by the way!

I share all the above haughtily. Whew thats that. I have cleared the matter. No misunderstandings. Nobody knows at home. My reputation is unscathed. Hurray!

I wake up to commotion of loud weeping voices, loud abuse in the street.. what else do you expect when you are living in such uncouth surroundings?

Wait, the abuse is aimed at me and my family, the wailing is because somebody died! The people thronging in the street are to find out what I will say to this!
HOLY CRAP what did I do? I brought disgrace to myself and to my family. I pushed someone to commit suicide. I am a vamp and the world hates me. People will throw stones at me and my mother will die because of the shame!

Should I commit suicide as well? But how to die? Where to buy poison or rope? God will it hurt?

Brothers are walking around chuckling, mother is weeping and angry and sister is chuckling and angry from time to time.

Ok when to die? How to die?

Naanna asked me to go with him on a walk. I went with him. Does he want to banish me from home? Will he leave me in the street and ask me to get lost?

So far my interactions with him were about demanding money for various things, joking around and getting tutored by him to do simple & compound interest problems for SSLC exam!

We go to the nearby stadium and sit. He is looking some where and telling me, “this area is not suitable for young girls like you, I am planning to shift the house immediately to a far away area, we will do this within 15 days, till then you stay with your sister in her hostel at Hassan, we will shift and fetch you from there, this area is full of people who do not have class”.

He held my hand while coming back. Am I his little girl again? I am given another chance to life? I will be so damn good this time, he will be proud of me.

Siblings can chuckle away and mother can weep but Naanna is going to make everything al right for me.
I will never go out of the house even unless required. I am going to be the most penitent dutiful daughter. Aamir Khan can wait …....

P.s: The guy did not die, he took sleeping pills and faked his own suicide. What a classless ass! But, thank heavens I will not go to jail!

Geometry of life

A line, a circle, a square and a triangle,
decided to have a party,
Line tried to measure the length of all,
circle tried the circumference,
triangle tried the angles
and the square tried equality

It is not easy to measure or
measure up to others
but still we do it like
geometric figures!
Are we two dimensional?

Memory remains ...

I heard his voice .......
Remembered huddling in bed
for hours talking, fighting and silent
Remembered that we used to
take walks and I shared aloud
what I thought of the young sun or green grass
his friend or something other
Joyous mornings they were

Remembered sitting on the cycle front
with him pedalling it
reaching our secret spot
known only to him and me

Remembered the spontaneous merry making
the protective hand on my shoulder while we crossed the road
the long letters during his absence
the promises we made without saying a word

Remembered him in my night gown
in my new dresses with a goofy smile

remembered them yet again!

Unholy silence

Words – un spoken have a life of their own
They sing and dance constantly on
the skeleton and the rattling
makes the bones porous

Unspoken words suddenly
shoot up one day and come out
as flustered tears for unexpected
reasons – looking at a TV soap

They sometimes sit heavily
on the chest and
make the heart pump faster
to shake them off

Some day, they sit in the stomach
blocking hunger,
they circle the eyes and they
paralyse the laughter muscles

Unspoken yet ringing as loud as
bells they make the hearing obscure

Unspoken words have a life of
their own!

Needs and the needless

The same old same old same oldness of things
the tiring vicious trot
a conscious step forward and
an unconscious step backward

Energy bursting forth while passionately sweeping the floor
and scraping the muck off the bathroom tiles
a meditation of sweat....
the cloud of despair descends
as the oscillation between extremes of
indifference and attachment starts

All tried and tested emotions but still gripping
love to return to the sweetness of labour
which bursts forth like a shower of flowery rain
and a clear blue sky follows through

Lamentations of a tragedy queen:

Its a known fact for people who are intimate with me that I am going through an inner churning right now.

Akka experiences my rantings against patriarchy and my plans to do something instead of sitting and fuming (videos, research and radio programmes) and she knows that lens of mine.

My dearest friend Ms. Bones (name changed to give her privacy) knows this plus the frustrations around a slow motion letting go of a dear team and we both smile or sigh together in this limbo always grateful to fall into an embrace.

My partner knows about all these plus the mood swings, anxiety attacks , fatigue fits I get into (which he bears from time to time) and many more.

I can see myself float around the minds of people in bits and pieces of opinions, images, funny lines, laughs, rages, insensitivities, love, compassion and hugs.

I am a throbbing mass of live cells who together carry around the tapestry of thoughts and memories – old and new.

The guessing game of who they are to me and what I am to them some times becomes depressing and can be exhilerating as well if one is open.

This openness is a tricky business, the 'me' always chooses how open with whom. My openness floats like a mosquitonet and depending on how much of it is needed, either it is open or it seems easy to open.

I am a stitched together tent of tiny opennesses. Stitched by images of you, them and me.

Authority - the perceptions and confusions around it ...

I keep having trouble with this one. Many times I feel that I am not exercising enough of it and am being a push over. But, the image I make is of a person who is bringing the authority in. This is a tricky business and I need new insights into myself, my leadership style and when things become participatory across the board and when it is My call alone. Where does the buck stop?

Happy day amma: Lalitha part 1:

We spoke in a secret language when I was very young. Nobody else could understand it. I was convinced that I could talk in it because my mother understood what I said and responded in the same language. We used to call it ‘atu putula bhasha’. We could converse in this nonsense gibberish for hours and it ended with great giggly laughter, kisses and hugs. It went something like this “ kichona kamaki kim? Or some such nonsense!!

She was a magical and powerful person for me. She could summon Hanumantha to be with me invisibly so that he can guard me from dangers (which came in the form of going to the loo outside in the night etc.) If anybody was sick, she could summon Indrakshi (goddess of health) to make them better, we were told not to joke about or say bad things because ‘Thathasthu devathas’ would be roaming around saying ‘thathasthu’ and the bad thing will come true. I was petrified of saying bad stuff. Whenever she spoke, the lizard would approve and she said ‘krishna krishna’ and looked emphatically at the audience. Many of her stories involved ‘Shiva and Parvathi’ going around the sky doing ‘vihara’ and they would chance upon good or bad things people were doing. So I felt like the sky is studded with all these Gods and goddesses roaming invisibly and my mother knows them all !!!

She is still magical and powerful for me. When I boarded the longest international flight, my flight fright came down by recalling her powerful statement “as long as I live, I won’t let anything happen to you”. My anxiety comes down always with that recollection and I know she won’t let anything happen to me.

The moment of dis empowerment

The other day, two people knocked on the door. They were in their mid fifties. Both of them looked like the uncle and aunty one would spot in a Bhajan session. Tell tale marks of staunch Hinduism adorned them.

They came in on a sweltering hot afternoon. We asked them in, I gave them water to drink before they became comfortable on the Divan and the chair. The lady was carrying a big bag and she got some printed sheets out and said ‘we are here to do the census, we will not take much time, and can you give us some details?’ I felt happy to be participating in this event where in I get to say my status for Govt. database.

She pulled out her sheet, took a pencil and started asking Venky about his name, birth place, father’s name, education, income, what assets he owned etc. I was rehearsing my answers which would come when my turn came. It never did!!!!

She asked him about his wife’s name, her age, her father’s name, what she does, how old is she and took his signature on the sheet and both of them thanked us for our cooperation and left!!!!!!

What the hell just happened in here?????

Even if Venky had said that his wife’s name is Paris Hilton or Margaret Thatcher they would have written it down, would have taken his signature and left!!!!!

Don’t I get a chance to validate my presence? What about the data that can be corrupted by husbands who might take advantage of this situation?

I am fuming still…..

My mother Lalitha – Part 0 (to be continued through out the blog journey…)

I was 14 years old small town girl. I grew to my current height (5.4 ft) as soon as I reached menarche. I was the tallest in the class and the last bencher because other puny kids complained that they can not see the board if I sit in the front. I was gawky and hunched my shoulders to underplay my height and other body parts which belonged on an adult.

One day, I ‘found’ a 2 page letter professing love tucked in my bag. That day was devastating as I thought of the humiliation I will face if any body else came to know. On the long walk from School, I thought of tearing the offensive material into shreds and getting rid of the evidence. But, I was also at an age, where this letter was devilishly exciting. Description of ‘me’ in boyish terms like ‘moon beam’ and his devotion to worship my shadow etc. were in a way perversely precious as well. I did not even know who wrote it and thought of the boys and started to do my guess work and it became even more exciting to think of a particular boy.

But, I am still a child at home right? I should be rightfully outraged and embarrassed and feel angry right? To a decent degree I was all that. I did not know how to break this at home and to whom to break this to. My immediate elder brother though shared everything from fantasies to knowledge bits always acted more elderly by taking sides with the other elder brother in crucial times. That was the boy thing to do may be. My sister was more like a friendly boss whose friends lived in and possessed fantastic things and being in her good favour was always an advantage. (I ran around to their houses fetching and dropping stuff for letting me dial three rounds in a phone, for letting me pick my own choice of rose etc.!!!). My father! NO WAY.

So I took mom to the room, locked the door and gave her the letter and as a testimony of my innocence started crying. At first she was silent, then she hugged me and then she told me that as long as I did not encourage people it was ok. These things are bound to happen when a girl starts growing up. In future, I should be careful not to leave my bag unattended and for now pretend like this letter was never seen by me. Never take any letters from anybody etc. As my relief flooded across my face and I started crying with happiness (more of a relieved tension I think) she told me to write this in my diary. It will be fun to read ten years from now!!!!

She became the coolest mom in the world for me from that moment on. And she continues to be.

Feeling and being

I was thinking about moments of frustration or moments when I feel on the verge of tears due to mute anger in my relationship with my partner. I am writing about it as I am going through one such moment right now (ha ha). I was trying to understand why such moments are almost predictable at hind sight?
One interesting fact is that there are seemingly endless ways of expressing resistance subtly. Selective engagement with issues is one way I feel. If we get into why selective, then we will get into a diaspora of subjects and it becomes never ending.
I was astonished to read that procrastination to take issues at hand forward in relationships might be due to resistance to authority!!! If we dig it deeply it might connect to gender and what not.
You get the idea right? I am pissed off so this rambling...

p.s: If you are concerned about what is happening then dont be. Because some times what does not happen might be the problem. We have a track record of kissing and making up before we sleep so rest easy ;-)

Why am I a sucker!

Recently I was told that I am very insensitive to a child and I rejected her as a baby by disagreeing to hold her. I took this verbal violence for an hour, sucked in my feelings of despair and anger and went on to plead my case and apologise for things that were quoted and exaggerated out of context. In retrospect I feel I should have objected fought and what not…

What to do when you have not said the right thing at the right time? How do we deal with the negativity? Some people confuse themselves of being hurtful, brash and tactless with the identity of being straight forward. You want there attitude changed and you know you can not relate unless they realize how much they have hurt you over the period. How to say this to those people?

Being the sucker I am, I think I will always suck my negative emotions up, smile and retry after I recover from the previous onslaught!

Is there any other way out of this?

Polarity unleashed

Goethe, Graham Greene, Mark twain, Edgar Allan poe, Virginia Woolf, Eliot, Hugo, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Tennyson, Walt Whitman, Sylvia plath….

Handel and Beethoven

Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill

Vivien Leigh, Marilyn Monroe, Linda Hamilton …

Tim Burton, Coppola, Mel Gibson, Van Damme, Jim carey, Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Junior, Richard Dreyfuss, Robin Williams …

Ted Turner
Vincent Van Gogh
Florence Nightingale …

What is common to all these people?

Did you say these guys are famous? Yes that is obvious so that of course is not the expected answer. Then what else?

Guess what, they all suffer/ed Bipolar disorder.

What is bipolar disorder then? Is it a disorder which makes people famous and successful in various arenas? One might ask this question after looking at above list of people with luminous careers. If the answer was yes to that then ‘I want to be bipolar’ would be on many people’s wish list and we would call it ‘Bipolar the higher order’. There are research studies which have explored the phenomenon of extra ordinary genius associated with bipolar. There is no conclusive evidence as to the order of the occurrence – meaning – whether bipolar people are more creative because of bipolar or whether more creative people tend to become bipolar!

Though it seems glamorous after being associated with the who and who of all spheres, Bipolar is not a glamorous disorder.

According to one definition given by a doctor we know, Bipolar disorder is getting stuck for a longer period of time in one sort of mood (either in the pole of aggression or in the pole of depression) and then move from there gradually to get stuck in the opposite pole, then move from there gradually to get stuck in the first pole then move from there gradually … you get the idea? This journey looks like a wave. Up and down, up and down, up and down…

I have a heroic fellow in my family who rode these waves for long and then crashed into the hospital and now is in the process of mastering the wave. I want to tell him what I feel about him now.


Dear fellow,

• Though I do not understand many times what you are feeling and thinking, I am with you no matter what.
• I react based on my previous images and I hurt you unknowingly because I do not know how to freely communicate my fears with you. Forgive me for this. I am becoming more aware about this and I will definitely change as the time goes
• I know for a fact that you are talented, creative, inquisitive, diligent and a thinker who always thinks beyond the box and I want you to remember that always.
• I am there as a support whenever you need me. Let us be communicative over mails, phones, walks and talks and not stick to one type of reaching out. Let us go for dinner during the first week of the month. Just you and me. Is it a deal?
• I am going through lots of stuff these days, being the solo coordinator, managing my anxiety, being aware of and getting out of my addictions, being there for venky when he is in transition and taking charge of my life. Please consider these if at all you feel that I am not attentive to you. I do not mean it and I want to be there. At this juncture, I can not handle surprises and need a holler before that.
• I love you and as I wanted always to be your ‘Flag’ I want you to be my ‘Eagle’ and soar high with majesty and brilliance.

Dear readers, I am pasting the famous tips shared by famous people who are managing their Bipolarity. In case you want to share this with people you know who need it. There is a word of caution as this is shared by people who manage their disorder, this need not be a scientific guide but please look at this more like sharing.

Tip 1: Take charge of your treatment plan. Be in tune with the doctor.

Tip 2: Know your triggers and warning signs
a. For knowing your triggers please reflect and keep a mood journal
b. Warnings- Financial troubles, work – keeping one or getting one, relationships status – fluctuation between like and dislike and sleep status – lack of it shows a movement towards aggression, more of it is towards depression.
Tip 3: Have an emergency action plan – Discuss with your family about when you think they should hospitalize you. This will lessen the trauma the family feels during episodes and this gives more scope for immediate medical attention for you.

Tip 4: Develop an active daily routine – structuring the day helps in observing, managing and monitoring the moods better and exercise reduces the stress levels.

Tip 5: For sleep schedule – No caffeine after lunch and no alcohol in the night. These prevent from sleeping.

Tip 6: Warning signs of relapse – Depression related
a. I no longer want to be around people
b. I crave chocolate/alcohol/any other substance
c. Head aches
d. I think people bother me or annoy me
e. I need more naps during the day – I want to sleep more

Tip 7: Warning signs of relapse – Aggression related
a. I can do 5 things at once
b. I can not concentrate so well
c. I talk faster and more than usual
d. I feel irritable
e. I am hungry all the time
f. I need to move around because I have more energy than usual
g. I feel that ‘I do not need medicine’ any more

Most important thing is to know that bipolarity is never a chosen state.

Happy Birth day my dearest – 17/12/2009 A missus writing mush – Beware!

I was wondering about what gift I should get for a man who has been with me since I hit my twenties!!!! He has seen me through my wild days of tonsuring my head, glugging rum like water, smoking just to scare the aunties in the hotel and slapping eve teasers left right and center. He has seen me as a man who sees his woman and made me feel like THE most special person on this earth. He has seen me with compassion when I struggled with my demons choking him with my stress. He has seen me as a terrorized child when I shivered during my nightmares. He has seen me with amusement, as my bed side books grew in to mounds and never laughed when the book I was reading often fell on my face when I dozed off. Though he slept earlier than me in the night he held me tight just in case I feel lonely when he is asleep.

What gift can I give this man who is enriching my life every day?

I thought I will tell him about the things I appreciate, acknowledge and love about him as a starter. Me who demands articulation from him about all his emotions all the time, have never told many things to him myself. This is a glimpse of what I forgot to tell him,


• On the day we got married, I was going through a mixed bag of feelings, joy at one level and at the other level sort of facing the finality of the situation so a bit flabbergasted, we no longer had the control over our day, people were propelling us in the agreed scheme of events. Venky held my hand in the hotel we went along with the family for dinner and whispered “it is ok, we are same, we love each other right?” He was right of course
• I do not know about his idea about honeymoon but he came with me as soon as the wedding was over to my grandparent’s place and to all my uncles’ places, every town above 40 degrees of temperature in the peak of summer. I have never told him that I loved his gesture. I especially loved his involvement in handpicking the alcohol bottles we chose for each of our uncles. I can never forget Venky sitting in the toilet fanning himself 
• I really do not want to go chronologically month by month, year by year so heave a breath of sigh.
• I am an informally certified hypochondriac, recently after reading about mental illnesses; I asked him, ‘venky, do you think I have psychosis? What if I do?’ he says, ‘then I will ask the doctor how to maintain this Psychosis because I love it!’ He is all the medicine I need.
• We were in the courting period. I loved drama and passion. I thought he was this passive guy who would never express himself overtly. With a high dose of Jane Austen in my blood I sighed wistfully thinking real life is so boring compared with fiction. One evening, he pulls me out of the side wing, makes me stand so that the light falls on my face, and he asks me to look in to his eyes and tell him that ‘I mean what I say’. I told him that I did and he sighed a big sigh held me tightly and looked piercingly in to my eyes and left. I never told him that, that moment was breath taking. He was more intense and passionate than any of the scripted heroes.
• I was in my first job and he had taken a break from his mainstream job to figure out what he wanted to do. Though I was well paid for starters, I never managed my money properly and he gave me money to go back to Bangalore, he gave money to tide me through this or that. Amounting almost to 20 thousand rupees over a period of time. We were not married then. He never asked that money back, though I kept saying that I will return it, I never got around to doing it. He has never ever mentioned that ever.
• He laughs at all my jokes and looks at me like I am this precious box of wonders all the time. His constant encouragement ringing in my ears, I am a woman I want to be and I am a woman who loves a man and I am woman who can do anything.
HAPPY BIRTH DAY DARLING HUSBAND/PARTNER AND FRIEND 

A boy and a girl and a new dynasty …

The girl was 8 and the boy was 10 (give a year here or there). Till that night, their major preoccupation in life was skipping hours together mastering all the levels and getting educated from older brother who taught them capital cities of all nations, Latin numbers (alpha, beta, gamma, delta ending with kappa and lambda) etc. and all the ‘stuff’ one needs to know. They new names like Eurasia, Oceania, Middle East and Far East because of him.

That particular night, they were sitting on the cot and the boy was showing off his prowess in jumping tricks and the girl was in awe of the rubber limbs of the boy who was contorting his body parts like a circus monkey. Suddenly there was a great ‘THUD’ and a breathless yelp and great eerie silence.

They both knew what it was and rushed out of the house. Their guess turned out to be true. That was the cruellest thing they had witnessed in their experience of a decade.

The boy always wanted a puppy and she wanted whatever the boy wanted because she knew it must be good if he wants it. Because he was the one who protected her from ‘real’ danger. He told her when they were crossing the road to School to hold his hand, he was the one who beat up the pesky boy who taunted them, he was the one who made her believe that ‘Hanumantha’ is always with them, he was the one who held her hand in the night when she was afraid of ‘Vajramuni’ coming and piercing her stomach, he was the one with real strategies to escape if there was a cattle stampede, elephant attack or an earthquake….

Their home was a smallish building which was in the fashion of a train. 5 different sized living spaces one after the other. There were six people living altogether with lots of stuff since the father was a hoarder of old stuff.
That eventful night, the boy and girl rushed out to find the puppy which they had looked at with longing, in the drainage ditch. That puppy had wandered off from the locality of its birth and was ‘claimed’ by a pesky boy who got to keep it just because he was younger and peskier. It was rightfully the boy’s and the girl’s. Pesky boy’s grandmother knew it and she kicked the puppy forcefully and evicted it out of her premises.

The boy and the girl faced one insurmountable barrier – PARENTS. The boy showed his potential to be a great negotiator by tearfully pleading and agreeing left, right and center for whatever adverse effects parents put forward and the girl told the ultimate solution, she would go with two meals everyday and the third meal can be given to the puppy. There was agreement after lots of haggling over the price the boy and girl will pay.
• No dog poo or pee in the house
• They will be responsible for dog walks
• They will make sure it is clean and will never enter THE kitchen
• It shall not be a nuisance when it grows up and should stay out of the house

Counter considerations were put up by the boy and girl team,
• There will not be any poo or pee but just in case it happened then they will only clean it up,
• They want the puppy to be inside the house now because it is winter and it is cruel to leave it out but it will go out once it grows
The puppy which looked like a starved pirate came in to their home that night. It was the founder member of the ‘Chinnu’ dynasty. It ruled the roost from that moment on.
This dynasty was founded by the boy and girl.

To my gorgeous cousins

People keep talking about respecting each other in relationships. Though this is a key to all interpersonal relationships, I am focusing more here on man – woman relationship. I keep saying that I respect my partner and he respects me. What do I mean by this?

If as an adult I have to explain this to a youngster how would I do it?
This is to my young cousins who are just stepping into their twenties and are looking at the opposite sex in wondrous ways.

I think, respect is nothing but being aware of and accepting each others boundaries and borders. The ones that can be stretched, the ones that can be overcome and the ones which are non negotiable and stick. Awareness about these and being open and considerate about the other person is respect for me in a nutshell.

Just like we pass from kindergarten to graduation, there will be levels and nuances that we go on learning about the other. Otherwise respect would become a clichéd and revered laundry list of unshakable truths.

My dearest girls please know that when you have a person in your life who is ‘open’ and respects you for what you are, then know how you understand it and by knowing what.

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?

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...