Celebration of the suffering woman

I am part of yet another whatsapp group that adds 1% value and 99% noise to my life. we all have that, dont we?

I have been recently exiting from the ones that give me almost 100% noise - have to say, my life is marginally better.

Smirk all you want, marginally better is still better.

This particular group is that of the women in the nearby apartments. They share a lot of forward messages, and once in a while get together to celebrate stuff, which is good. Life should have some celebrations.

the most recent call for celebration has been for karva chauth, a north indian festival in which the women (ONLY women, not men) fast the whole fucking day, without even drinking a drop of water until the moon comes up in the sky. Reason for fasting - so that the husband can enjoy good health.

Ironic, i would have thought its a better idea to starve the husband so that his digestive system gets some rest and thus improve his health.

but then, what do i know? I am from the south, thats not even India right? thats just where all the anti-nationals live. Anyway, thats another day's discussion.

So a load of 'happy karva chauth' and wishes for this 'blessed' and 'precious' and 'joyous' day lands on my phone. The ladies would be dressing up, make up jewellery et all, and gather to celebrate and wait for the moon.

Fun fact. its a cloudy night in Singapore. it rained almost all day. and they arent supposed to break the fast till they see the fuckin moon.

Ever since I am part of this whatsapp group, i have been enlightened. The calls for 'vrath' (fast from food & drinks) for women and the glorification of the clueless male in the house happens every few months.

There is raksha bandhan - here the sister bows down to touch the feet of the brother no matter how young the boy is and the boy is supposed to vow to protect the girl.

Bhai dhooj - something similar to raksha bandhan.

I hear 'teej' every now and then, this happens more than once a year - again the women fast. its supposed to signify the victory of a wife's love and devotion to the husband. this is just the tip of the iceberg, there are many more.

All in all, you get the drift, it is entirely one sided. the women celebrates the man.

There is not a single vrat that the man observes to win the wife's love or praying for the woman's health. Clearly signifying that it doesnt matter.

Throughout the rituals and festivals, the same singular message gets reinforced. 'a man is important, a woman is insignificant'.

and then when the female baby gets killed at birth or there is female foeticide, we just cannot understand why!

The men and the boys eat first, served by the women and then whatever remains is eaten by the women - served by themselves. the boy gets education and the girl is married off early by giving loads of gold and cash to the man.

The high number of rapes can be no surprise to a culture that treats the woman as the submissive servant.

Out of all this, what angers me most is calling the suffering as celebration. Right now, there are couple of dozens of starving women down there in the common area 'celebrating' and feeling great about their sacrifice.

Congratulations, your husband is not any fitter than he was yesterday, you on the other hand after the 50 times you fasted last year, could have caused yourself irreversible damage.

but that doesnt matter to you, does it? You have been taught and now you fully believe that you dont matter.. if you needed to matter, even to yourself, you should have a penis.

Talent in happiness

Where does happiness come from?

An especially ragged morning... these days it doesnt take much to put me in a ragged mood. just a cup of tea spilling and i can switch to a tragedy queen internally and mourn long enough to even miss the best that life has to offer me that day.

Elizabeth Gilbert said you have to have a 'talent in happiness'. I wrote that down some time ago. I wanted to develop that talent, that was the mission of my life. until the tea spilled or something similar happens.

it wasnt just any tea mind you. it was taj mahal, and had the right balance of ginger and sugar. and i did not get a single drop of it. my flask fell to the ground from a good height, the whole of the tea blasted out on to the white floor. i just looked on helplessly and a little mesmerised.

When you are frustrated, watching things get smashed or destroyed is like chicken soup to the soul. i have experienced this once before, few years ago.

I was wearing a hideous bracelet. i had never really liked it, but it came as a set with a necklace i loved and it also matched a number of my clothes. so i wore it anyway. that day was a very difficult day, i going through something at work for many days and it had reached a peak and this day, had been heart breaking, at the same time i wanted to break some people's bones.

Come to think of it, i dont remember what it was that set me off. its always like this, isnt it - things that matter soo much, over which we get so flustered about, 3 years down the line, you cant hecking remember them!

So anyway, i stepped out of the office, i could not take it any longer. I was out near a small garden, walking furiosuly and something got stuck in my shoe. i ripped it out and threw it away.

in the force of what i was doing, my hideous bracelet slipped out of my wrist and hit a nearby rock with such violence that it broke. it didnt just break, it BROKE. it blasted. in 50 directions. i think it had as many as 25 beads. but it seemed to blast in 50 directions.

i just stood there, time went still. i felt like i saw it in slow motion. every single hideous bead flying helplessly away from the violence of what just happened to them. even the band that held them together, something elasticcy, broke into a few pieces. it was glorious.

about 3 or 30 minutes had passed. passers by stared curiously at me. I could have said 'f**k off' but i didnt. In such times of intense vulnerability, life has taught us to always care about what perfect strangers who matter nothing to us and will not even remember us the next moment thought of us. but in that moment, i could have told all of life's teachings to go fly a kite. but i didnt care enough to do even that.

what i just saw was therapeutic and those people had no idea. and i needed therapy. strangely, the frustration had vanished. in its space, there was... nothing.

so i took in a deep breath with my eyes closed and time slowed again. I wanted to fill this emptiness with something. something useful, something helpful. fast, i told my brain. My brain sprung into action, looking at its archives for memories. finding all sorts. it kept tossing out the angry ones, the sad ones, the bitter ones, until it got to the happy ones.

My son looking into my eyes,
my mother and i on a trip,

I am eating a steaming hot plate of perfect fried rice,
and my lungs had reached its full capacity, my breath was done, now it was time to exhale..

I slowly opened my eyes and let out a long, calming breath of air.
Talent in happiness, here i come.

and to all those people whose bones were spared, my hideous bracelet said 'you are welcome' from the 50 different places its pieces lay.