Women and We

The issue of women’s liberation and empowerment has become a seminal topic in almost all discourses. The 20^th century has germinated the seeds of women’s cause that were sown a century or two back to full growth. Women gained suffrage, equal pay rights, reproductive rights, education and a lot more, and still a lot remains to be achieved.

                       
 We’ve come off our stereotyped roles, and we have been relentlessly trying to push the social margins further and further. For independent women like you and me, women’s empowerment and liberation is our cornerstone. So, every once in a while my girlfriends and I deliberate over such movements like ‘no-shave armpits’ and ‘free the nipple’, and join a few others to show our solidarity.

                        
 But then one day I met three middle-aged women on a trip to Agra. They were homemakers who enjoyed their dependence and loved to dominate the measured world of 2BHK. But now that their husbands have withered and children have moved out and need their care little, they decided to enjoy their lives travelling. This was their first trip alone and that they were nervous would be the least to say. I felt piteously sorry for them who have been now become useless to their children and husbands. I felt terribly sorry for them who had clipped their wings early on in their lives and had never ventured outside the protective male gaze. And so, while I pitied them, one of them caught my tone and remarked, ‘It is by choice that I am a homemaker. I chose to lead this life.’  Soon, I realized how horribly ignorant I was! I wondered how vainly liberated did I feel against my mother who chose a life for herself – to have a family and not to live alone in an unknown city for employment? How much powerful do the sons and husbands feel when they queue up a pre-paid taxi booth and ask the women to stand under shade with the luggage? These same women travelling alone does all of that and may be much more!

I realize how vain I was. My myopic vision prevented me from realizing that feminism is not in pitying women in a situation which you don’t find favourable. It is in realizing and acknowledging her choice, her will and above all her ability to lead her own life in her own terms. My mother is a homemaker and she chooses to spend her life travelling because it is what she wants to, not what she is left to do!

Rainbow's Landline!

One of the recent books I read is Rainbow Rowell’s best selling novel of 2014, Landline. Adjudged as the Goodreads Best Book of 2014 in the fiction category, Landline marks Rowell’s return to adult fiction after her two best selling young adult novels, Eleanor and Park (2013) and Fangirl (2013). Landline is Rowell’s take on marriage, love and mature relationships.

                                                                                                                                                                                                   

               

                  Georgie McCool is a successful scriptwriter who is very much aware that her marriage is in the rocks. Her husband, Neal, is a stay-at home dad who looks after the kids and patiently waits for Georgie to commit her time for them. He has increasingly grown distant from her and is discontent with a sterile conjugal life due to her endless work. She drives the last nail in the coffin when she chooses to soar high in her career and ditches her husband and kids on celebrating Christmas together with Neal’s family at Nebraska. However, just after Neal and the kids depart for Nebraska, Georgie begins to crumble. She worries if her marriage is over, having realised that perhaps this time she has pushed Neal a little too far away from herself. She begins a journey to rediscover herself, her feelings for Neal and to achieve a full understanding of the conjugal relationship she shares with Neal.

                        Rowell explores the themes of travails of marriage, midlife crisis, work and parenthood adroitly through a psychological study of her characters and the deft use of the instrument of magic realism. Georgie attempts to fix her marriage by starting afresh her conjugal relationship with Neal. She attempts to talk to Neal, but the Neal she keeps talking to from her teenage bedroom using the old yellow landline is the young Neal, one that she had fallen in love with. As Christmas draws near, Georgie travels between past and present to understand her own feelings and her relationships. She is left to consider if they should stay together, if they are enough as a couple to make each other happy.

                          Beneath the sparkling narrative lies a subcutaneous tension that Rowell has adroitly captured. Once again Rowell proves herself as a master storyteller in her ability to narrate a heart-warming story that dissects a modern marriage to talk of the problems of modern life and relationships. At the heart of her story lie the imperfect characters - Georgie and Neal.  Georgie is a far cry from a perfect lover, mother or wife. Neal is a quite brooding man whose stolid passivity and resigned acceptance constantly conveys Georgie her inability to make him happy. It is also interesting to note how consummately Rowell has reversed the gender roles in her story. The man patiently waits for his wife’s attention and time as he looks after the house and kids. But Rowell falls back to her young adult strain and gives into that idealist and escapist nerve. What rubs off against me is the forced reconciliation of the story. Somewhere in the end the characters seem to give up their free will to resolve Rowell’s plot. The author manipulates her characters to script a happy ending that is at once affected and fake. However, Rowell’s lucid language and swift narrative, evenly distributed with humour, make Landline a page turner. It is indeed a good read that combines the pleasures of a young adult novel and the plot of an adult fiction. 

10 Situations that People with Small Feet Know Best!

Who do you blame when you grow up to see that your body and mind had developed and grown both in size and matter, but your feet haven't? None, but your genes and indispensable fate! Here's a few curated situations  that only people with short feet will familiar with. 

1. Your feet are so awkwardly small that finding shoes of your size is a rare thing in your life!

 Most shoe brands don't make shoes of your size. You are one of those who believe in couture items!

2. Buying shoes online is a serious joke to you!

Nothing can be more sad than to see your friends buy shoes online. Your is size is just unavailable. You comfort yourself with kids' shoes.

3. You have to live with the shame of buying shoes from the kids' section throughout your life, may be even after you become a mother!

You walk into the kids' section and pretend to nonchalantly look for shoes for your nephew or niece. Be careful to avoid the salesmen before sneaking your feet in the little shoes to check the fit.

4. You follow the latest trends in kids' shoes.

Nothing can be more disappointing than to know that latest trends and styles in foot ware can add no colour to your life. You've got to follow the kids' trends!

5. You have to give every shoe sale a miss!

You can't help! There's hardly anything you will find that will fit you. You can't express your fetish for shoes even if you want to!

6. Insoles are your real friends.

Can't find a size smaller or bigger? Insoles are there to rescue you. You know them best - brands, types, sizes, uses. Just everything about them!

7. As much as you like weddings, you dread the day you will get married. Where will you find stilettos to fit your size?

It's a nightmare every time you think of the day you have to go shopping with your in-laws for your wedding.

8. When normal socks don't fit you, you have to wear baby socks.

When kids' shoes are near at hand, how can baby socks be far away?

9. You have to unquestionably bear forever in your life the wondrous look of people when they say 'You have such small feet!'

You just learn to take it in your stride with a pinch of salt.

10. However, you ace it all when you say,'None of my shoes go missing because none ever fit others!'

Who would dare answer to this? Everyone's had their share of the 'lost shoe' experience.

Four Women and an Ancient City

Our history makes for our present. There's nothing more enriching than taking a trip to a historical city that will help us reconnect with our country's and culture's roots. What’s another popular city, close to Delhi, that is historically and culturally as rich? You're thinking of Agra, right? So for a visit to a historical city, my friends and I did something courageous—we took an an all-women trip.

The best weather to visit Agra is early spring, for it gets a little too hot a little too quick, and also cools down to a chill and makes for very poor visibility. We didn't manage to visit in spring, so we chose early winter. The weather neither gnawed a cold bite nor scorched our skin.

Plenty of buses ply between Delhi and Agra throughout the year. Trains like Shatabdi also makes for a good comfortable travel. However, our last minute plans left us with little choice but to be the adventurous bus travellers. Armed with volvo bus tickets, four of us set out to explore the ancient city of Agra.

We took an early morning bus from Sarai Kale Khan ISBT. Crowd was decent, interior was clean, and most importantly the bus halted at proper stops. Clean washrooms and fresh food were available at the stops, as against our fears. Following a four-hour ride on the highway we reached Agra ISBT. Entering the city we saw nothing of the majestic grandeur that the city boasts of. All that we could see after reaching the city were the jostling crowd and wayward traffic. Perceive the city through time-tinted glasses and you will see the chaotic confluence of heritage, decadence and modernity.

Most of the hotels and resorts are located further away from the city. Tajganj and Fatehbad are the places to look out for, with hotels and resorts lining its sides. We had already booked ours from https://www.booking.com for ease on arrival. It's also advisable to rent a car to travel around the city, however, public transport like auto and electric rickshaw are available in plenty too.

Of the several ancient structures that stand to bear witness the height of Mughal architecture in Agra, the Agra Fort is one of them.

It is a complex of courts, palaces, gardens, pavilions and mosques. The fort is carved mostly in red sandstone, which is perfectly complimented by the marble palaces it houses within its confines.

The Agra Fort also happens to be the fort where Emperor Shah Jahan spent the last days of his life as a prisoner to his son, Aurangzeb. Guides flock the gates of the fort in plenty. The best way to avoid people from duping us for our gender is by taking the services of government appointed guides who have fixed rates for the services provided.

The holy city of Fatehpur is a must visit when in Agra. You will be swept away into the pages of history as you'll step through the grand city gate of Buland Darwaza. 

As the legend goes, it is believed that Emperor Akbar came here on foot to seek the blessings of Sufi mystic, Sheikh Salim Chisti, to have a son. Akbar’s prayers bore fruit and he built the city of Fatehpur to honour the Sufi saint. Within the inner walls of Fatehpur lie the Royal Mosque and the tomb of the Sufi saint. Pilgrims visit all round the year to offer prayers.

 The Taj Mahal has come to be eponymous of Agra. The magnificence of Taj looms large over Agra, to the extent of almost consuming Agra’s individual existence. It's magnificent grandeur is beyond words to describe.

 Vehicles leave you 2 km away from the Taj. Battery cars and camel carts are readily available to take you on pillion. Carry your id cards and buy your tickets if you want to take a closer look of this grand monument. Latticed gardens and pristine blue pools adorn the Taj like a foyer, as the monument rises from a red sandstone base. The double dome, the slender four minarets materialize in front of your eyes. As you enter the dark dome you see Persian verses decorate the walls and a marble inlaid enclosure, within whose vault lies the cenotaph of Mumtaz Mahal and the casket of Emperor Shah Jahan.

The architecturally exquisite Taj is much more than its twin ‘Bibi-ka-Maqbara’. At the end of it, you leave the Taj with wonder in your eyes and a mesmerising awe of having seen something so beautiful and so grand built to epitomise someone's death!

Now, when in Agra, peetha must not be missed. As word of mouth goes, peetha from Panchhi store is the best that Agra has. It is one of the oldest petha stores of Agra, established in 1926 and selling a large variety of pethas. From Angoori to Kesar, Panchhi petha is popular all over Agra, so much so that its duplicates criss-cross the market.

Agra, like Delhi, was the seat of Mughal governance and eminence. It's indigenous culture, architecture and heritage makes it a perfect city to know more about our royal past. 

All Alone, All Along

A vision that, for long, would frequent my thoughts momentarily and sometimes even disturbingly was of a small vacant room facing a rather wide-opened window. Drenched in the bluish-orange glow of the twilight, I would often be sitting languishingly within, ruminating such loneliness as born out of the the loss of one so loved (not necessarily caused by death), all the while looking out of the window. A vision, both of sight and insight, of such macro scope the window facilitated that it would hardly commensurate its size. Like a projection screen it would play out the time stained memories, all pieced together into a whole, like a film strip; except that no conscious chronology streamed its flow. I can glimpse through my experiences - revisit those shadowy corners of pain and misery and those brighter spots of happiness, only without being lost in the ever spewing cobweb of present realities. I forever attempt to gain a full view of my lived existence, but it never afforded the complete view of the ever emerging horizon. I don’t know if I should say that the vision renders me impassive to all electric influx of realities in my mind, or if it does accelerate such influx with rousing clarity. The radiant orange afterglow often reminds me of the orange serenity of the monks. Sitting by the window in the bus I wondered at the infinite expressions that innumerous faces wore. The deafening silence that the warm orange glow permeated abstracted all motions and life out of these faces; rendering them like the stolid baked earthen masks bearing suspended emotions - of a bawdy laughter, an ugly pain, a stilted arrogance, a garish pleasure, a hungry cry, a distant fear, a mawkish love and so many more to pin down. This ‘he’, that ‘she’, those ‘they’ were just faces, just strangers I did or didn’t know. I am all alone, and had been so all along. Those fleeting momentary indulgences of company, love, trust, bonding may obscure our vision, but can one deny our inherent lone earthly existence by our innate want of company? Can one deny those rare spasmodic recognitions when you find yourself standing alone amidst an expansive sea of strangers who jostle past you? Who can deny of never being consumed by that piercing fear of loneliness, the agonising ache that comes with the cognizance of there being no one to fall back on, despite the familiar faces around? The ‘he’ I miss, the ‘she’ I cherish, the ‘we’ that I belonged to; all seemed displaced, a mere delusion. In my opinion, ‘Individual’ is by far the most under rated word.

Rain...

As the water trellised down the windscreen and a hundred white feet of bodiless birds splish-splashed on the road ahead, a silent vacuum filled in as I sat in the rear seat of the cab. All those billowy clouds of multitudinous thoughts floated away, as my senses, soaking in the apparent surrounding, hypnotically suspended the banalities of humdrum thoughts. I allowed the splinters of rain to prick at my face as I slumped back and slowly rested my head on the seat; nonchalant to where the cabbie was taking me. Over the past five years I have travelled this stretch of road so frequently that even a stolid inert gaze at any part of it would be a satisfying assurance. The faint darkness of the damp air had cast a silent tranquillity on an otherwise cautious and involved passenger, as I am, and on the busy bustling road of incessant honking and unending traffic congestion. The old cabbie drove on the empty Sunday-road, but I could see the meandering trail of tyre tracks that the preceding car was leaving ahead of us. I looked up at the dark sky through the cab window and felt the grey smoke and dampness around me. I wanted to write something. No, I'm not a poet or a story teller. It was just about the weather, about the drive and I tried capturing in my mind the feeling that was impressed upon my countenance, but I failed in finding the words that would adequately express them. I wondered why it is the rains that inspire me most. Why the bright sunny morning didn't appeal me better? The faint darkness of the rains is as cool as the pleasant winter winds of tropical lands that ignite the warmth of passion, but its dampness reminds me of a suppressed melancholy, somewhere in the distant corner. I heard the rumbling train pass-by in a whiff below. I saw the miniature suns, formed of the water drops, upon the windscreen. But I didn't smell the parched earth. I missed him. I thought of our meeting that was a while back. I longed to feel that presence again. It, however, suddenly crossed my mind that a friend of mine is bereaving the loss of her father. I thought of aunty, at her loss, her startling change in life; but I also thought of a friend who had just settled in for a conjugal life. I wondered if the rains moved all to their passions of love and pain. Would one, at the noon of one’s life, be moved to the passion of love when the dimness of rain approaches? Or does it just fume the passions of a young heart? The cab crossed the road by the lake. I saw the water swell to its brim. I saw the multi coloured umbrellas, with heads propped under them, lined around its bank. It started pouring rapidly. The splish-splashing and splattering increased, as I heard the raindrops dance on the roof of the car. Fog percolated in the windscreen and vision obscured. The wiper swished and squeaked and the cabbie wiped the screen to clear off the fog from within. An otherwise sunny afternoon seemed like an early twilight today, with street lamps all aglow. I thought of the street dwellers, the dogs and cats. Rats could creep through the tiny gaps but the dogs and cats and men couldn’t. I wondered if the rain washed all the leaves of a tree clean. Could a leaf, unwashed of its dust smear, belie of the rains? I was yards away from my home; I finally broke the silence and asked the cabbie to stop right up. It was raining as one would say with a conventional idiom “like cats and dogs”. I got off the cab, ready with an open umbrella which was evidently insufficient to keep me dry. Mud and dirt reached up above my ankles as the rain splintered them on me. Later, sitting by the window in my room, as I saw the smoke float pass below the bright yellow street lamps as rain drizzled down like flecks of gold!

Onset

What is it of today that strode me to take the plunge again years after, I don't know! It's perhaps the damp afternoon or the lackadaisical passivity that is born out of the sudden pangs of anxiety ahead of an interview.  My certainty, thus, shrouded by the mist of uncertainty, I start afresh to pen my rambles and ruminations. Fluid and amorphous as they may be, my blog will be a mélange in itself. Mélange, Eo Ipso!