Father

“I am at the hospital, they want me to stay back. Will keep you posted” Read the message on the screen of his phone.

For the first time in his life, he had begun to panic; he could even hear his heart beat as he booked himself into the first flight to Bombay. But it was hard not to be excited; he was going to be a father.

Father, the word sounded so alien, yet so familiar. Although he adored children, both he and his wife had consciously chosen not to have any: they did not want any distraction in their flourishing careers. But today, he realised why the world, or most of it, wants children. He sometimes wondered how did he, the self-confessed pragmatic; manage to turn into such an emotional fool. But then, love can make you do anything.  

Ria and him were not supposed to fall in love. They were not even supposed to meet. But a flight that they boarded together changed the course of their lives. Although as different as chalk and cheese, they took an instant liking for each other; it was hard to tell when the liking transformed into love. Or if it was love at all, or just comfort – the comfort of sharing their roots. Their comfort was evident that day too, in his bed; when he had made love to her all through the afternoon, well into the night. It seemed as if they had always known—and loved—one another. As they lay together afterwards, she had casually mentioned how he was only the second man to have touched her; he could not say the same though.

A few weeks later she had called to inform him of the baby, “let me keep it please, I assure you, it will never be a hindrance to you” she had pleaded. It took him no time to give in; he suddenly wanted to be a father too. True to her word, Ria had never complained about being on her own. She managed everything, from the morning sickness, to the check-ups and now she was alone in the labour room struggling to birth their dream.

It was raining when he landed in Bombay, the traffic and the rain had made a mess of the roads and it took him almost two hours to reach the hospital. He paced to the labour room only to be told that Ria had already been shifted into a room, excitedly he ran towards the ward; he was just about to enter, when, from the large window, he spotted Amit, sitting by Ria, holding the little girl in his arms.

In his excitement of becoming a father, he had completely forgotten about Amit, Ria’s husband. Together they made a pretty picture – Ria, Amit and the baby – a picture that had no space for an outsider like him. He hurriedly turned away and walked home.

The Writer's Block

The date stamp tells me it has been forty one days, I know it has been much longer (the last piece I wrote for the blog was almost two months ago, but had posted it a few weeks later).

It is perhaps easier to write when you have only a few thing happening around you: you can focus of any one of those and put together a piece in no time (in my case one night), but when you have multiple things happening, you lose track of your own thoughts, let alone write. And in the last two months, there have been many things happening around me -- some significant, others not so much but all good enough to elicit a post, but then why have I not been able to blog? The reasons could be many, some genuine, rest just excuses.

One important -- and genuine -- reason has been travel, not the kind of travel that you can write pages about, but the kind where you just sleep and eat, and what better place to do that than your mother's and your brother's? So there I was -- complete with my two devilish children -- enjoying a lazy summer, first in Lucknow with my parents and sister, and then in Bombay with my brother and sister-in-law. In short, I was playing the quintessential daughter and proverbial sister-in-law for close to a month.

Although both the places gave me ample time and things to ponder about and put on paper, most of them, however were such that would have led to the same old nostalgic notes: of how I was once a school kid looking forward to going to my granny's in Lucknow to how I now take my school going girls to their granny's, also in Lucknow. Or how my brother and sister-in-law play the perfect uncle and aunt, spoiling the girls to the hilt just like our uncles and aunts did many, many years ago. But how long can you romanticise the past and how much? 

Then there was the writing itself. The fact that some part of what I have been doing -- and have always wanted to do -- had finally started to see the light of the day was surely something to be glad about, but writing about it would have not only made me sound conceited, but could also have very well been a case of premature celebration: I have, after all, only a handful of published pieces to my credit.

Talking of published pieces reminds me how I have, in the past few months, given up the most brilliant story ideas a miss. Not because I could not have developed them, but because all of them would entail at least one young -- or not so young -- woman, and her story would most likely be presumed to be an episode from either my life of from someone else's. And that 'I know who you are writing about' look on people's face is not what I like very much.

There are my thoughts too. Not many months ago, this blog would only have a reflection of how I felt and what I felt, but over the months, the space has become a little less about what I want to say and a little more about what others would want to read. That, according to me, is the natural progression of a writer. I now think thrice before putting my thoughts out for people to read: why should they care about my opinion, anyway?

I won't be lying if I say that I am tempted to delete this post, it is after all nothing but a rant. But I will let it be; publish it even, who knows this might just cure my writer's block.
 

On The Fringes

The first time I noticed them was when I was around seven, at a wedding in the family: just a few days after the wedding, I had found some strange looking men -- clad in saris and wearing women's jewellery and make up -- singing loudly and dancing awkwardly in our front yard. The young male members of the family had attended them, and we -- the children -- were not allowed outside. Some years later, at another wedding the same thing had happened, by this time I was old enough to realise that they were different, unlike any one else around us, but who were these men and why did they dress up as women? To make money, I was told. Some more years later, by sources such as friends and cousins -- equally ignorant, if not more -- I learnt that these were men who like to dress up as women and were called hijras. "What a strange world!" I had thought.

My first encounter with them happened much later: while in college, I would often travel from Lucknow to Delhi and the train made a customary stop at the outer -- usually one of the smaller stations; that is where they'd get into the train and bully the hapless passengers to pay them, "Ten rupees" they'd say. They would impose themselves on the men -- far too few women travelled alone in those days -- some men gave in while some -- clearly more adventurous of the lot -- would get into a verbal brawl with them. A series of abuses and threats to flash would follow. Although I had no idea why would men flash at men, I would still be petrified and as advised by a friend, would look away, usually out of the window, frantically praying that they don't come to me; my prayers never went waste, in all those trips -- I made at least a dozen of them alone -- they never troubled me. Once in Delhi, I saw them on the roads, harassing people to pay them, usually at the traffic signals. By now, I had learnt to deal with them. Eventually they ceased to matter.

I was reminded of them some weeks ago after the Supreme Court recognised the third gender, and I realised that even after so many years, I knew nothing about them. Just then, as if by magic, the chapter I was reading, led to a long, detailed piece on the community and I suddenly had the answers to all my questions.

In ancient India it was often castration that rendered a man sexless. It was considered the most severe form of punishment, and it degraded the man to such a level that he was shunned by the society in all possible ways. He was not given work and no one would trade with him, such a man would then resort to dancing on the streets and entertaining people to earn his living. The other way was to be born asexual, which in itself was -- and still is -- considered such a curse that the family spares no time in abandoning the child. Since both these groups were not accepted in the society, these men -- or women -- formed their own, alternate society and came to be called the hijras. 

The Muslims however treated the eunuchs with respect: they were considered pious and trustworthy due to their lack of sexuality. They were keepers of the faith, confidantes of the kings and friends of queens, they helped raise children, guarded the harems and were placed as spies. They rose to powerful positions not only within the families but also in the courts, especially during the Mughal period. But that was another era, an era that ended with the fall of the Mughals almost a hundred years ago and with it ended the respect.

Today, a hundred years later, all eunuchs, Hindu or Muslim, share the same fate: ostracisation – not only by their families but also by the society. They are shunned for being born different – in body or in mind -- and are forced to live a life only a notch better than that of a beggar. Those who do not beg -- rather force people to pay up, get into prostitution where they are exploited even more. Years of humiliation however, seems to have made them resilient and perhaps to counter their ostracisation, they have created their own alternate world. They might not have a family but they do live in common households with a guru -- often an elderly figure -- acting as their head. In some cases, they even have adopted children; this arrangement seems as good as a family -- just that the members are not related by birth but by destiny. In that sense, they do not seem to be any different than us -- the men and the women. But they, unlike us, continue to lead a marginalised life.

I am not sure if the new legal status will bring any change in their social status. Adding a column in a form, after all, is one thing -- an act of law. But adding a new section in the society is yet another -- an act of inclusiveness. It has taken us close to seventy years to acknowledge them, accepting them as a part of our own might take another hundred. In the meantime, I just hope we can try to show them some respect.

The Old Boys

One of the first things that we -- my husband and I -- bought immediately after getting married was a handsome steel-grey Sony music system. It came with a multi CD changer which also played MP3s, two cassette players, a Radio, a VCD player and four speakers; twelve years ago it made for an impressive buy, as impressive as its price: twenty three thousand rupees. The amount was almost twice as much as my salary and the only reason we could afford it was the money that we had received at the wedding in lieu of feeding more than three hundred hungry souls. For husband, who loves his music to the point of madness, it was a dream that had come true (until then, I had thought our marriage was that dream).

After much thought it was set up in our bedroom, right next to the window, on the same cardboard box that it had come in. Husband's collection of music cassettes was set up on another carton next to the bed. He would diligently clean and dust them every single day, even maintained a log book with the names of the cassettes and expected me to label and number them, I had obviously found some way to escape. Sometimes it seemed that it was the music system that he had married, not me.

Over the next few months (or was it years?), every Sunday evening was spent at the Music World in Ansal Plaza, twenty five kilometers from home, we would go all the way,  just to buy a cassette or two -- the CDs were too expensive to be bought regularly and were reserved only for special occasions. It is from that store, during that period that the most amazing music made way into my life -- from the little heard Kishore Kumar songs to evergreen Asha Bhonsle, from RDs madness to SDs classics, from Bong Pop to English Rock -- most of the music that I now know -- and love -- is a result of the innumerable hours spent in the company of the music system.

While I learnt my music on it, Mishti learnt her motor skills with it. The knobs and switches  acted as the perfect stress buster for the toddler and in her walker, she would walk up to the cabinet to fidget with the buttons and create her own symphony -- of music and lights, it was not only our friend now, but hers too.

Some years later, we acquired an Ipod and a few months after that, a Bose docking station. The new, fancy gadgets became the centre of our attention and the old boy was left for Mishti to play with. And since our return from Bangalore, for the past two and a half years, it had been sitting in the store-room, yet to be unpacked. With two laptops, two Bose systems and an Ipod, we did not need it anymore. In the last few months, on a drive to rid the house of all old and redundant stuff, we had been contemplating disposing it off but something -- don't know if it was love or guilt --  kept pulling us back.

Last Sunday, after making up his mind to give it away, when my husband finally took it out and unpacked it, after many years I saw in him the man who had, twelve years ago, brought home his dream. He set it up with same love and care, cleaned it with same diligence, dug out his priceless collection of RD and Kishore Kumar, of Michael Jackson and Nachiketa with same pride and has since been spending all his waking hours with it -- the same way. While I know they will part soon, for now I am glad to see my two old boys together.

Migrant Musings: Thirteen Years In Delhi

"Tomorrow, you begin a new life, a life totally different from what you have led until now." She had said, trying to look for a place to sit on my bed. Some of my things were still strewn on it, waiting to be put into the bag.  I had a train to catch in a couple of hours, and that journey, according her, was going to be life changing for me. My Aunt, whom I had not known to be a very emotional person until then, seemed to be getting emotional. In the last one year that I had spent with her, she had played my mother: she had cooked for me, looked after me, worried about me, been the perfect host to my friends, had even spied on me to check if I was at my desk studying for the exam or on the phone talking. I, on the other hand, was excited -- the time had come to live the life I had only dreamt of until then.

Delhi was not new. I had been a regular visitor, and in the last one year, since my parents' moving to the city, the annual visits had become monthly and the city much more familiar. Not only that, for the first time I actually had a plan in life: I would get there and settle in, in a few weeks after that I would sit for the IIMC entrance exam; once selected, I would study to become a top class journalist and join some famous newspaper. What I had not known then was that it was one thing to write a few articles for the local supplement of a newspaper, and quite another to get into the most coveted institute of communication, I  had learnt that lesson soon. 

Anyway, bags packed I had left Lucknow happily, it was still home and I could go back anytime I wanted to, plus having moved so many times before, I did not think it will be difficult to do so now. The first few days were spent well. My brother had come to pick me from the station -- something he did every time, not because he was worried about my safety, but because he got to skip school that day. I had reached home to find mother waiting with my favorite breakfast and father getting ready for work -- all was normal, but not for very long. Until then, I had always been a visitor, a guest even in my parents' house, but now, I was a resident, and that had changed everything. Once everyone went back to their routine -- school, work, home -- I found myself  all alone, having nothing to do, nowhere to go and no one to talk to. The excitement had turned into despair; I would cry all night and sleep walk through the day. I missed my life in Lucknow and longed to go back.

My father, sensing my situation, got me to join some classes, his logic being: I needed to learn some computer skills before I got into further studier or even work, having nothing better to do, I went ahead, "I will do something, at least." I had thought. For the next few weeks, I spent all my days travelling to and from the classes in the scorching afternoons of  May, in rickety DTC buses. The reward of the discomfort that I had to go through to reach the centre -- it was in Connaught Place, was the young, good-looking, intelligent Tamilian instructor, who I met there. We soon became friends and he took it upon himself to get me to love his city.

Holding his hand I explored Delhi -- walking through the lanes and by lanes of Janpath on quiet Sunday afternoons, driving past the iconic buildings of Lutyens Delhi on breezy evenings, snacking at the hip fast food joints of Noida, and dining in the classic restaurants of the inner circle. He showed me places I had never seen before and also those I already had. He became my friend and guide -- the only one in this city. Something else happened too: his kindness and good looks, coupled with my loneliness, ensured that I developed a soft corner for him, as did he -- for me. Destiny soon intervened and we went our own ways, but not before he ensured I was comfortable. 

After having realised that being a Journalist would entail interviewing Saurav Ganguly (as per a question at the entrance exam), and failing to secure a seat in IIMC (I am certain that question spoilt it for me), I decided to let go of the ambition, as I had done with many others before. Since I had a good job at hand, one that I had secured a few months before during one of my visits, I decided to work instead. "In case I don't like it, I could always quit and get back to studies", I had told myself. It turned out to be, perhaps the most sensible decision I had ever taken. Destiny, I am sure, had its part to play in this too.

Work exposed me to a new world. A world of posh offices and stylish people, where women smoked and discussed sex, where casual relationships were normal and pubbing routine. The first instinct was to label the people and judge their character, but after having spent eight hours with them everyday, I realised that  one's habits don't essentially define his/her character. In no time, I became a part of the crowd too -- although, with riders. 

The fondness that I had developed for the city, transformed into a full fledged love affair when I met my husband. The charming Bengali took over from where the endearing Tamilan had left. With him, on his bike, I explored the city some more: the posh South Delhi districts, the congested streets of Old Delhi, the famous paratha walas at the airport, the elite hotels; he showed me every nook and corner -- from the good to the bad, even the ugly. The fiery summer, by now, had turned into a crisp winter and I had fallen in love not only with the city but also with the man.

The discovery of the city ran parallel to the discovery of a woman: from a hesitant, self-conscious small-town girl, I gradually evolved into a confident young woman. My work, and the exposure it gave me, filled the void that my complexes had created. I was no longer lonely and jobless. I made some great friends, I did well at work -- something I never thought I could manage, most importantly, I found love.

Growing up in the not so big cities, I had heard many stories about Dilliwalas -- a term used rather negatively for the residents of the city: they were rude, selfish, ostentatious, loud; they had no social values, and cared only for themselves, the list was long. Experiencing the city first hand and thriving on the kindness and love of its people however, got me to realise that the prejudices were only that -- prejudices. There surely were sections of the society that fit the description but then doesn't every city have a few such people? As if only to prove the point further, the two women who went on to become my closest friends -- and continue to be so -- were pure Dilliwalas.

I became one soon after. In a matter of two years, I was married to the man and also the city. There were parts of it I loved, there were parts that I did not and there were some, I just ignored. In the next few years, the relationship got stronger and the comfort grew deeper. The city had by now given me everything I had ever dreamt of and more.

Too much comfort and exposure however, not only brings boredom, but you also start to take the relationship for granted. It is as true for a relationship with a place as it is for a relationship with a person. After having spent seven most beautiful -- and most productive -- years of my life in Delhi, I longed for a change. The city -- and my life, had become predictable and repetitive. It was, perhaps, the beginning of the seven-year-itch. That is when Bangalore happened.

If Delhi was a happy marriage, Bangalore was a passionate affair. Like any new relationship, it brought excitement and adventure; every day was a new discovery. In a complete contrast to the stressful life of Delhi, Bangalore's laid back attitude rejuvenated my exhausted soul and soothed my frayed nerves. It had also showed me a new world -- the beautiful south of India -- a world where traditions were sacred, where relationships were treasured, where what you wore did not make a difference, most importantly, it taught me never to address a Kannadiga as a Madrasi. It was a beautiful liaison -- Bangalore and I. It gave me the confidence to quit a job that was sucking everything out of me, it also gave me the strength to work on my own, and, it gave me a beautiful daughter. But how long can a relationship last on passion and excitement? Sooner or later, when the passion fades, one longs for the comfort of home. And home was far away, in Delhi.

I remember being sceptical while moving back: would we be able to settle in? Will my daughters be safe? Will they find the place -- and people -- too loud? The anxiety that my friends and neighbours had developed added to the apprehension, "Isn't Delhi unsafe?" "Aren't people there very rude?" "They are big show-offs, no?" "How will you adjust to the heat and the cold?" Their concern had added to my concern and I had forgotten that one does not need time or effort to settle at home, good or bad, home is home, Delhi welcomed me back with open arms.

Two years after my return and thirteen years after I made this city home, my husband, while driving through a congested migrant colony, asks me to write a story on them -- the migrants of the city. I did not have to look far for the subject.

All Too Soon

Time, it flows in strange ways. Sometimes years pass at the blink of an eyelid and at other times, even a week lingers for months. The amazing part is that for the years that pass by too soon, we wish they hadn't and for those that don't we hope they do.

That sunny June morning of Bangalore is etched clearly in my mind. Not because it was a sunny morning -- Bangalore after all, is known for anything but a sunny morning -- but because it was the day the devil was to be tamed. My husband and I had been up early -- a habit that I am glad that we share -- but unlike other days when we enjoyed the peace and quiet of the morning with our respective cups of tea and coffee, we were a little worried. Mishti after all, had to go to school. And knowing the monster of a child that she was -- and still is -- it was only natural for us to be a little nervous.

The good thing of having a disciplined man for a husband is that you can leave all the dirty work on him, in any case Mishti and I never saw eye to eye, and all crucial conversations with her were made by her father, he had taken the crucial task of getting her up and ready upon himself too (Thank God for Bengali men!), something he continues till date. Since she was being handled by her father, she was quite in control and only when we had reached the school and he had left did her discomfort appear.

What followed was a session of bawling and screaming, so hard that the poor children and teachers of the school were left scandalised. Not only that, the anti social girl of mine, had refused to talk to, or sit with the other children. In the end, I was asked by the principal to shift her to the afternoon slot. "There are fewer children at that time, and we will be able to pay more attention to Lavanya" she had said. I got the point.

The next few weeks were perhaps the toughest. I had quit work only a few weeks before and was expecting to live a leisurely life of a housewife; what I had forgotten was that the leisure entailed living with a monster of a child. She would howl and shout until she turned red and her throat parched; the soft spoken, shy and reticent women of Bangalore were not able to handle her tantrums and would almost be in tears by the time I went back to pick her; I could only empathise and apologise. But their submissiveness and patience paid rich dividends -- Mishti eventually fell in line. And today, she went to class two. The reason why I am reminded of that day however, is not because she has grown up -- I am glad that she has, it has made her a little civilised -- but because today Pakhi went to school for the first time.

"Do you expect her to be as difficult as her sister?", their father had asked me as we got into the car this morning. "Not half as much!" I had replied. The two sisters are poles apart, and today I was confident that things will be smoother -- and they were. As soon as we reached the school, the girl happily went in with the teacher, not even bothering to look back and I was told to come back in an hour, but I decided to stay -- just in case. I had company -- another lady from my apartment block was there with her daughter.

There were more parents waiting: some eager to see their children on the screen, urging the staff every now and then to get the CCTV turned on, the others discussing weather their child ate 'onion' or not, or if he 'vomited' while crying. Then there were those who would, at every given opportunity check on the welfare of their child, "Is my child all right?", as if the child was not in a classroom but in a hospital ward. Yet others seemed more worried about the bag and water bottle than their child, they reminded the attendant to take care of the 'belongings', every two mins. Thankfully, the lady with me was as amused at the entire thing as I was. Perhaps because ours were the only children who seemed to be enjoying themselves. The kids soon started to come out: some crying, some howling and some too dazed to react. In time, our girls came out too -- the last ones to do so -- smiling, not only that, they did not want to leave school at all. It took us all our might to pull them out of the gate.

As I walked back, I was reminded of the afternoon four years ago, when I had walked back with Mishti, after her first day at school. I suddenly felt old. Four years had passed too soon.

 Meanwhile, as I fuss over the four years passing by too quickly, my parents are presently in Amritsar -- the city where they began their journey from -- and I am sure they are also thinking the same: these forty years have passed all too soon.

The Bengali Bou

The signs are hard to miss: there is excitement in the air, chatter in the house, the girls are unusually cheerful and the boy remarkably relaxed; the kitchen no longer smells of zeera and hing but that of paanch phoran and posto bata, the fridge is stacked with sandesh and rasgullas, while the fish -- it has travelled twelve hundred kilometers to be with my husband, hides slyly in some corner lest I discover it and throw a fit. And, the mother in law waits patiently for me to step out so that she can fry it in peace. You guessed it right; my parents-in-law are home.

In the heart of North India, where I grew up, I was surrounded by stereotypes: the mother in law being a devil incarnate and the daughter in law a mute doll, although my family was different and none of the women had to cover their heads or wake up at day break, but I had seen enough of it to shudder at the very thought of being married into such a family. My biggest fear was, and it still haunts me at times: being married into an orthodox joint family, where I am expected to be dressed up like a bride, cook all day and live with dozen other people in the same house. Nothing wrong in it, my father would argue, nothing wrong with that I agree, just that it would have been very, very tough for a compulsively independent person like me. 

I had expected to meet similar fate, and therefore, as soon as I had reached home after my wedding, like a good bahu, I had bathed and dressed up early in the morning and had gone to see my maa in law, who I had never met before. To my pleasant surprise, not only was I admonished for waking up so early but also was asked to remove all the bridal paraphernalia, including the pallu. I was in heaven. For the next few days that I was there, I was pampered to the hilt: after having discovered that I drank only coffee, my father in law, who probably had never bought coffee before, had brought a five hundred gram pack of coffee home, just so I could have one cup. I was not allowed to help with the chores or cook and did not have to do anything that a bahu is supposed to.

While on one hand I was revelling in the love and attention being showered on me, on the other hand I had some uncomfortable encounters too: dal chawal no longer meant arhar dal and basmati rice, it had transformed into masoor dal and boiled rice, something I had never eaten before. I was suddenly being called maa by a strange man ( I later discovered that the strange man was my husband's uncle and that maa is an affectionate way to address one's daughter), but the funniest and the toughest part was to wear flower jewellery for the reception dinner, I suddenly looked like Ramanand Sagar's Sita!  Thank God I have no pictures to remind me of it.

Marrying a Bengali man, in itself was an irony of sorts. Until I met him, I had, for most part of my grown up years, disliked Bengalis -- I found them annoying, overbearing, gluttons even. This of course was based on the very little exposure I had had to the community until then and the trigger was a particular Bengali wedding I had attended where the hosts had served only a dry preparation of aloo parval for the vegetarian guests (that too in a separate enclosure), I had felt like a criminal that day -- all for being a vegetarian. The feeling had only intensified in the years that followed when I had to live in Calcutta, amidst the chaos of the street -- with or without the Pujas, the smell of fish and the stink of sweat. The only exception to this rule had been the men -- the only men I ever found worthy of my fancy were -- and still are -- Bengali.

In the last twelve years however, everything seems to have changed: I have a long list of Bengali friends, I know and love the language, I have fallen in love with the charm of Calcutta, I have converted into being a Durga-Puja fan, and not only do I love Bengali men but also the women. I am, after all, a Bangali Bou.

How Soon Is Too Soon

‘Where do you use stayfree, mumma?’ Asked my five year old as I hurriedly dressed her that morning. We were at Gir and had to shortly leave for Gandhinagar, in the rush of packing and unpacking, the packet of sanitary pads must have been left unattended and she had probably seen it somewhere.

‘I am not sure, I don’t use it.’ I lied and changed the topic. The rush and the confusion that precedes a journey, especially with two young children, ensured she forgot about it soon. But for how long? Thanks to the brand wars, free media and marketing strategies, it is impossible to keep kids away from things that they may be a little too young to understand.

I remember even as a three year old, the first thing she picked up at the supermarket would be pads, ‘badal ke’ as she would call it, referring to the tag line of a famous brand. Full marks to the advertising guys! Her brand awareness and her curiosity had made me so paranoid that I would rush to the TV room to change the channel as soon as there was such an ad. I know I sound old fashioned and stupid, but the fact is: given the nature of our society and social conditioning, such reactions are almost a part of our being. Remember our parents doing the same when we were young?

Soon there was another set of ads that I had to protect her against: Condoms. I mean, what business does a little kid have knowing the flavours and the variety and to watch Sunny Leone pose seductively in different parts of the house. Although in my heart I know that she probably won’t even get the context of the conversation, but I really do not want to take a chance, that I am quite a prude can be one reason, and that I do not know what or how to tell her could be the other.

But being a person whose first ever article to be published in the newspapers almost fifteen years ago was on sex education, I should know better than to be embarrassed or sheepish about it. As a mother, I should be prepared to share with my daughter what was never shared with me, as should all other mothers of my generation. The sooner the kids know about things like periods, childbirth and maybe even sex, the cooler they are with it.

I had told my daughter about how babies were made when my second daughter was due, and when children much older than here would say that their parents had bought the baby from a hospital, she would correct them and point at a big belly to announce that babies are made inside mummy's tummy.

This is when she was just three, she is soon going to be six and looking at the way the children grow these days -- both physically and mentally, I know I need to sit her down and explain her body to her. Although I am yet to figure out what to tell her and how, I am sure I will have to do this sooner than later, lest she comes up to me and tells me about it.

The Guilt -- Of Being A Woman

Many, many years ago, as a ten year old, I had read a column in a children's magazine, it was titled kaash main (I wish), the magazine had invited entries from its young readers and had published some of those in one of its issue. While reading that I had noticed that while all the boys had wished for things like toys, train rides, sports goods, rockets, the works. Girls – quite a few of them, had wished they could be boys. I did not get it. Why would some one want to be a boy? As I grew up, I saw their viewpoint. I saw little girls being discriminated against, I saw women being humiliated, I saw girls being confined to homes while their counterparts, often brothers, enjoyed uninhibited freedom – of word and action.

To me being a girl was – and has never been – a cause of concern, I have never seen it as a deciding factor for anything in my life. The women and girls of our family were loved and respected as much as the men and the boys were,  sometimes even more, but never lesser. The women I grew up with – my grandmothers, mother, aunts – were all educated, independent, self respecting, self-sufficient women. At a time, when women hardly went out of their houses, my dadi travelled alone, around the country, ditto with the other women. They were strong, resilient, powerful. Never meek or weak. Although not many of them went out to work, but work, according to me, is never the determining factor of a woman's standing in her family and in the society. If it were, our housemaids would probably be the most empowered among all the women.

And then I went to work, where I met an absolutely different set of women: ambitious, career oriented, independent, empowered and often single. They earned their money and spent it too, they lived in their own houses and drove their own cars, paid their bills, travelled alone, spent money on themselves. These were women who lived their lives on their terms, the kind every one aspires to be. A tribe I was proud to be a part of. 

With time, however, I realised that although diverse, the two sets of women had a lot in common: they were responsible, smart, intelligent, loving, honest, ambitious, headstrong, sensitive, independent, powerful, and guilty.

Those who chose to work were guilty of not spending enough time at home, those who chose to marry and stay at home were guilty of not contributing to the household income, those who had children were guilty of having them too soon or too many, those who did not or chose not to, were guilty of not having any. Each one of them had something to feel guilty about. 

Being a woman, I often find myself struggling with the same feeling: for not paying enough attention to family when I have had to spend long hours at work, for being incapable of carrying my first baby through the term, for not spending enough time with the two I eventually had, for not being the best at work anymore, for quitting and living off my husband, the list goes on.

A few weeks ago, I happened to be at the Indira Gandhi memorial, where among many other things, I saw some pages from her personal diary, which have been printed and put up on the wall, one of which read, " I went to live with my father, at the Teen Murti House, The Prime Minister's residence... My father asked me to come over and set up the house for him.... I used to stay for sometime and go, it became more and more difficult to leave. My husband was then working in Lucknow, he did not appreciate my going away.... I was living for about half a month in Lucknow and half in Delhi."

Even the Prime Minister of the biggest democracy in the world, a woman known to be fiercely ambitious and courageous, a ruthless politician and a strong leader, went through her share of guilt. She was, after all, a woman. 

That Sunday Afternoon

Around one - thirty, Sunday afternoon: The sun was bright and hot, but the cool breeze flowing in from the ocean seemed to be apologising on his behalf. I walked into the bus terminal, pulling along a much heavier bag than I had pulled out of the same bus terminal the morning before. The bag, which just had a pair of clothes and some other essentials until then was now full of some fine pottery and other knickknack that I had picked up from some of my most favourite stores, it was perhaps the most potent reason for my being in Pondicherry, at a whim.

 I had expected the bus to be as empty this afternoon as I had found it yesterday, in fact the emptiness of the bus last morning had salvaged me from the shock of discovering its condition: Here I was walking into the bus stop dreaming of a plush two by two bus and I find an old, dilapidated and dirty vehicle beckoning me with great élan. Looking at its condition I had half a mind to take another one but it would have been foolish to expect another one available at six thirty in the morning that too at such a godforsaken bus terminal. It had taken me almost an hour and four hundred rupees to get there -- almost twice the amount of what I had paid as the fare to Pondicherry. So I went along. I was dead tired and slept in no time, and had woken only fifteen minutes from Pondicherry. 

I have this strange habit -- a quirk of sorts: However hard I try I cannot sleep beyond five in the morning whenever I travel, the positive side of this is that I get plenty of time to myself -- to read, write, take pictures and just be, the negative, that I am almost always under rested, but rest is usually the last thing on my mind when I travel. This morning had been no different. I had been up since four -thirty and out since five, I had spent almost three hours sitting by the sea and walking along the boulevard, and after a scrumptious breakfast of idlis, vadas and two cups of coffee at a roadside stall and a lunch of vanilla ice cream at a quaint cafe, I was ready to crash in the bus. I had expected it to be as empty as it was the day before, but when you want something desperately, you never get it, and here I was boarding a bus that was already full, half an hour before its departure time. 

A little disappointed, I looked for my seat and discovered it had already been occupied by a young man, next to whom sat a petite young woman. I politely informed him that the seat 9B belonged to me. He smiled and expectantly asked me if I could take his seat instead and reasoned that the girl next to him had a problem travelling on seats that face the opposite direction of the motion. One look at them and my heart melted: problem or no problem, they clearly wanted to sit together. Although I too feel nauseated if I have to travel in the opposite direction for long, but I did not have the heart to separate them, for I was sure this journey was special to them -- it was written on their faces. I agreed.

My new seat was on the other side of the aisle and facing me sat an elderly couple, about the same age as my parents, they had quite a few bags and even with all the adjustments, there was hardly any space left for my legs, I inadvertently kept kicking the lady's feet and kept apologising each time. The backrest of the seat was way too reclined for my comfort and while trying to adjust it, I discovered that the lever was broken. Next to me was a young girl, equally distressed with her seat and her feet, struggling with her backpack that lay in her lap for want of any space below the seat. The sun burnt the left side of my face and the strong, incessant gush of cold air from the a/c duct right above my head, chilled the other half of my face. Out went my desire to sleep.

Now, there is something that not many people know, and those who do, don't believe: As harsh and rude I appear and as arrogant as I seem to be, I am actually an emotional fool. And therefore with all this discomfort that I had inherited along with the young man's seat, I was adamant not to disturb them, for they were in a world of their own: Smiling coyly to each other, exchanging glances, talking in hushed voices. I wanted to let them be, only if I could just be, myself. 

The bus was almost out of the city now and the people around had started to snooze, the gliding of the bus, the warm sun, the cool air and the sight of all about me sleeping had intensified my desire to catch a nap, but with my feet lost somewhere in between the floor of the bus and the bags of the elderly couple and my back totally destroyed by the backrest, sleep was a far fetched dream. I looked out of the window to find peace but failed -- the road was all too familiar and boring, moreover to find peace you need to be in peace yourself, which I clearly wasn't. 

I looked at the young couple again: The man would have been around twenty-five, he was tall and big built and had a cute boyish charm about him, especially when he smiled to reveal a slight dimple. The girl looked younger and by her facial features you could tell she was from the east. Both were simply dressed, the man wore a tailored shirt with contrasting trousers and a pair of floaters -- a sure shot sign of a South Indian man, though he did not look like one, while the girl wore a white kurta with a grey churidaar, a grey stole and floaters, both had a backpack each. They made an unlikely couple -- but were they a couple at all?

In times when people find pride in displaying their affection and fondness for each other in public, these two were unusually reticent. Although their eyes spoke, so did their faces but the caution with which they conducted themselves made it hard for me to guess if they were in love already or in the process of falling in love, the later seemed more probable. 

My back had started to trouble me by now. The lack of sleep in the last three nights and the travelling through the last three days had taken its toll. I had to sit properly, if not sleep. After much deliberation, I finally told the young man that I was very uncomfortable in his seat and would like to sit at my original place. After a little confusion and a whole lot of adjustment that followed, I found myself sitting in front of them while both of them now faced the opposite side of the motion, the discomfort of the young woman notwithstanding (although all through the three hours that I spent looking at her, I had found no sign of discomfort whatsoever).

The joy of travelling alone and being reluctant to strike a conversation is in observing the co-passengers -- their habits, obsessions, behavior -- one can find numerous characters and string several stories sitting in a bus or a train. I tried too, to imagine their story: Were they colleagues or class mates or maybe just lovers? Did both of them study in Pondicherry and were travelling to Chennai? Or did they live in Chennai and had come down for a weekend? Were they in a relationship already? Or were they just beginning to discover their fondness for each other? It was hard to tell. But they sure shared something special which reminded me of simpler times. 

The young woman had now dozed off, hesitantly resting her read on the man's shoulder, the man although awake, glanced into nothingness. The romantic in me hoped and prayed that he put his arm around her but he did not, even when her head almost fell off his shoulder and she woke up with a start. I was disappointed, had a man done this to me, I would have kicked his backside. The girl did not seem to mind though and they got back to their music and banter and exchanged an occasional, meaningful glance.

All this while, The Bay of Bengal had been running along the road with just an occasional building here or there, but as the stream of ugly buildings started to make their presence felt, I realised we were close to the city. I turned to the man sitting next to me to find out which bus stop would be closest to my place of stay only to find myself answering his questions: Where did I live? Was I in Chennai for work? Did I have family in Chennai or Pondicherry? If not family, did I at least have friends? His questions did not seem to end. He found it difficult to imagine that a woman could be travelling alone, two thousand kilometers away from home, just for the sake of travelling. In the process, I found out that he was new to Chennai too and was unsure of where to get off himself. But he had taken it upon himself to help me -- a woman in distress. He took out his newly acquired smart phone, complete with google maps and GPS and struggled with it for almost half an hour to find me an answer, but could not. Only after he gave up did I ask the young man, who told me that I could get off at the same place as them. My neighbour was now satisfied -- I had someone to look after me. I went back to explaining the purpose, or the lack of it, for my trip to him. Thankfully, he got off soon.

In the next one hour that followed, the sights and sounds of Chennai and its traffic kept me distracted. Also, by now, I had lost all hope of getting to know anything else about them. Crawling though a sea of cars and buses, we finally reached our destination, the young man helped me pull my heavy bag down and the woman smiled at me. As I stood at the bus stop, waiting for an auto, I saw them hold hands and beam. I smiled too.