Week 27

I didn't write the weekly update on the weekend as I was coping with physical and mental exhaustion. Stress playing havoc with my cycles or perhaps it was the other way round.

I had to speak to a doctor.

Do you have extreme mood swings, get irritated over small things? The doctor asked.

Was she mad?

I have been cooking 3 meals a day for 4 people, every day, for the last 6 months. That with an ever increasing workload at office, blurring office and home timings, no cook, no househelp and then there are grumbles about food!

Irritated?

Maybe it was diplomacy or just empathy. She didn't probe any more about my moods.

I checked with the family too.

Irritation? Did they too think I was heading towards early menopause?

A long silence and meaningful looks later, the younger one cleared her throat. Not at all, Mom. You were always like this.

Nothing to do with the lockdown!

Choosing the stress

“You need to sort out your priorities.”

Is that what a lot of women who want the world get to hear?

“You have a home to manage two kids to take care, you don’t want to outsource teaching them or cooking and you feel bad you are not doing as well as you wanted to at work!”

“Everything is not possible.”

Knowing that doesn’t work.

Sometimes you want everything.

And that creates all the strife in your heart.

I tried to avoid the stress-that is supposed to be the biggest killer of our times. To focus on a few things and to do them well. Those things all turned out to be the most necessary and the least soul-filling of all the things.

I did them. But I was not less stressed.

Because in keeping priorities to a manageable level, all the fun, all the meaning was lost.

The body would perhaps live longer, but the soul was crushed. The scientific part of me doubts even the existence of a soul-I know it is critical to keep the body running, but the fact just doesn’t work for the other part of me, the mad, crazy part.

So again, I strive to do it all-to scrimp and save the minutes and spend them with my children; to go back to driving through the dug-out roads to Bangalore and do a job that gives me an identity and income of my own.

And I want to write and do my bit for the world too (they are two separate things). What makes me think I can even do it?

All the wonderful women out here, who refuse to ‘sort-out’ their priorities and go all out for their work and their dreams; all the women who do so much more….they give me the strength to chose the stress an attempt to do it all.

Ladies Seats

I grew up in a small town where public transport was almost non-existent. I drove my own scooter and then a car before I was old enough to get a driving license and my parents were ok with that. My mother had felt mauled and violated every day of travelling in a bus to college and this was there way of protecting me.

When I moved to a bigger city and decided to use the public transport, everyone who knew me had advise to share. Travel only in the ladies compartment. All busses have ladies seats in the front. Don’t go towards the back. Don’t get into busses which are too crowded. Never get into a bus which is nearly empty. Wear shoes with sharp heels. Carry an umbrella and poke it into anything that comes closer than three inches.  

Except for wearing pencil heels, I tried out most of the other tips. I would be weary after the long day of internship but still stay propped between sweaty women even if there was more breathing space at the back.  After some time, I started driving my scooty to work even if it meant driving 56km through Delhi traffic.

It took some time for me to try and use the bus after I moved to Bangalore. It had better buses, there were less dire warnings around and yet I stuck to the seats in the front, which far too less compared to the number of women who traveled. I saw an empty seat at the back and went for it. (I did have an umbrella). I realized that since the seat was two feet  higher the view was so much better too.

I am big advocate of public transport now. I have persuaded many to try the trains, metro, car-pools and the bus. I tell them to travel in more numbers. To claim what should be ours. To carry umbrellas or pepper sprays or whatever works for them. I just don’t tell anyone to stick to the ladies seats.

This post is in some ways contradictory to my previous one. While I was writing that I was questioning myself on why we have to do so much to stay safe when it is, they who should be living in fear. I guess that too was rooted in reality and so is this one.

There are times when we have to be extra vigilant and there are times when we need to be brave. There is a reality we cannot change in a day. We need to be prepared for it. But that doesn’t mean we give up trying to change it. 

Do words work?

Most of my posts are frivolous and fun as I deliberately avoid writing about serious issues, about things which matter most, about things I cannot change…..

This is because even though I find writing cathartic, I am really not convinced about its power. When we try to create awareness through words, does it even reach the right people?

As I was going through some really thought-provoking posts on Domestic Violence Awareness month, this was what I thought-are the women who are victims, even reading these? Will they start believing they have the right not to put up with it? Why do they endure it in the first place?

And violence is not always physical.

Some firmly blanked out memories crept out…

Yep.  I am an Engineer and a M.B.A and I have put up with a whole load of stuff from my MIL which no woman should.

Why the hell did I do that?

Because I hate confrontations and nastiness and I was afraid it would inevitably lead to more nastiness, because it would upset the whole family, because I still wanted to cover up for her…

Because I was a wimp!

There comes a point when enough is a lot more than enough, when you have to wake up and realize that things will not change until you change them. The sooner you start the better.

I hope some more women out there start fast.

Coming back to my original thought, yes I guess “just writing” may not be enough to bring about change, but maybe it just starts a ripple somewhere…