An Ode to a Powerful Woman

It’s that time of the year again. Durga Puja is approaching and being a true-blood Bengali, I am all geared up for it. Some folks do not like to be in Kolkata during the Pujas as they want to avoid the crowds. I, on the other hand, love to be in Kolkata during the festival and watch it transform into a mega carnival. Even if I do not go out, the sights, sounds and smells of Durga Puja give me an immense high.

This time, along with the excited feeling, I am also a little sad. This is the first Puja without my mother. In the last few years, she was not well but the fact that she was there was enough. She would not go anywhere, but I would switch on the TV for her and get her to watch Puja Parikrama on one of the Bengali channels. During Durga Puja we worship Goddess Durga, who symbolizes woman power. So I thought this would be the right time to write about my mother, who was a powerful woman in her own right.

My mother grew up in a highly pampered atmosphere. Her father was a top official in the Burma government and she lacked for nothing. When she married my father and tried to live with his family, she found it difficult to adjust in a large family where there was no privacy or space. She could not stay there for long and soon my parents moved out. Objectively speaking, she might not have been a great daughter-in-law, though I know that she felt guilty about it and spent most of her life trying to make up for not  having stayed with her in-laws. She was however, a fantastic mother. I came along nine years after my parents’ marriage. She had had a son before me who died the day he was born. So I was doubly precious to her.

From the moment I was born, Ma focused on bringing me up and bringing me up well. She argued with my father and put me in a convent, as she firmly believed in the value of convent education. She encouraged me to read English books so that I learnt English properly. I started going to a library from the age of six. As the years went on, she also ensured that I learnt dance, drawing and playing the piano. When she realized that my true interest lay in dance, she spared nothing in her quest to make me a dancer. I still remember the day she sold her gold mangalsutra to buy me my dance jewelry. That is just one instance. She sacrificed a lot for me in a myriad number of ways. When my father died, she sold jewelry and furniture, begged and borrowed from relatives to make sure that I complete my education. As I started working, and travelling abroad, she never once told me that she could not stay alone and always said yes, when I asked her if it was ok with her if I went away for some months.

In 2009, she was diagnosed with vascular dementia, wherein she started having major memory problems and hallucinations. It was extremely painful for me to watch such a dynamic and outgoing woman forget who her daughter was. In the five years after she was diagnosed, she had her good days when she would be lucid and remember me, and her bad days when she went into her own past and forgot the present. When I got married in 2014, I was afraid that she and Rudra would not get along. Ma had always been very possessive about me and disliked most of my friends because they took me away from her. Initially, she took a little time to get comfortable with him, but soon they developed a rapport that was very touching to see. I must say that she was immensely lucky to get a son-in-law who left his own home and came to stay with us to take care of her. And take care of her, he did! He kept a strict watch on the food that the attendants served her and would carry her to the bathroom for her bath every morning. When she passed away in November, I feel that she was at peace that her daughter was in good hands. I miss her every day and often when I eat something that she liked to eat, or watch a movie that I watched with her, it is as if I feel that she is right there with me.

Ma, you were a wonderful person and a fabulous mother! I will count myself lucky if I can be half the woman you were. Love you!

The Third Set

I don't really want to become the Danielle Steele of the blogging world but somehow as I go through various stages of this interesting process called life, my blogs are becoming a little mushy. So I apologize ahead of time for this one.

Sometimes I think that my situation is a unique one but I am sure many of you out there have been in or are in similar situations. 

And now enough with the prologue, let me jump right into what I want to write about...my third set of parents. Most people usually have two sets, the ones they are born to and the ones they marry into. Nothing in my life has followed the conventional route, so I have three sets to boast about. :)

If you are curious about the second set, let me brief you about a German couple who were friends with my father long before he was married or became a parent. Years after, one letter triggered a parent-child relationship between a six year old me and them which continued till 2006, when Uncle Heinz passed away. I honestly think this story requires a separate blog, so I am moving on to my third set.

Rudra gifted me with a third set of parents right before my single parent passed away. Baba and Mamoni, in the short time that Rudra and I have been married and even before that have accepted me whole heartedly with all my shortcomings. Rare are the people who act as parents for their prospective daughter in law and ensure that her marriage ceremony is everything it should be. To be fair to my relatives they did turn up, brought expensive gifts and supported me in the ways they could. What floored me however was the way my parents in law welcomed me into their family with open arms  without any qualms.

In this one and a half years, they have pampered me, stood like a shield between me and Rudra when we fight and unconditionally supported me. Here I must mention my sister in law and her husband who do the same. They also scold me when I I do things wrong, just like my parents would. Rudra is someone whom I love and so do they. He is the pivot on which this piece of pottery is taking shape. However, I believe it is my parents in laws' loving hands who will finally turn it into a masterpiece of love and beautiful memories. Blessed - that's what I am....

My Extra Marital Affair

And this is where I reveal it all.. So prepare to be scandalized as you read on. Early on in my childhood, I had a severe crush on Bharata Natyam. My parents indulged my crush and actively encouraged me to pursue Bharata, sometimes even allowing me to neglect my studies. Bharata was such a possessive boyfriend in my teenage years that I had no other romantic entanglements during that period from teenage to early twenties. Bharata grew from being a crush to becoming a passion and then a lifelong obsession. The sharp edge of the feeling has dulled but always in the back of my mind, is the presence of my first love.

Life never works out the way you plan it – or at least not for everyone. So despite Bharata being my one and only true love, I took the practical decision of getting married to Corporate Job. Arranged marriages often end up being more lovey-dovey than love marriages. God graced me with this blessing. There was that period of awkwardness when I still had Bharata too much on my mind, but Corporate Job was pretty patient. He never gave up. He cared for me and my mother and fulfilled all my dreams of travelling abroad, being financially secure, owning assets and so on. How could I not love such a guy? We settled into a staid marriage and I thought he was my partner for life.

Fate was laughing at me, I am sure. For who would have thought, dull boring Indrani would ever indulge in an extra marital affair while being a respectable married woman? And this time the guy had a human persona – Best Husband and Friend. Would wonders ever cease? I met him and forgot that I was a loyal wife to Corporate Job. We rushed into a whirlwind affair and then as is the case with love mutually felt, we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Therein lay the dilemma. Corporate Job did not merit this desertion. My wild fling wanted me to be a full time partner. How would I ever choose? I took the easy way out. I continued in my marriage while spending every free moment with my guy. And today I have to admit, that my first and only priority is my guy. Corporate Job is something that is slowly losing importance with me, and spending time with BHF is all I think about! What will happen to me?

Freedom of Spirit

Last year I wrote a blog about how the Indian culture was changing. Maybe because of the grey hairs that have appeared on my head since or the fourth decade of my life bringing added maturity I have been thinking a lot about an individual’s freedom to be the way he or she wants to be. Today morning, I was in my favorite place, the Dhakuria lake, when I saw a young teenage girl belonging to a rowing club jogging in shorts and a T-shirt. To me, she looked like the picture of good health and fitness, very attractive in fact. A little distance behind her, a lady in her sixties wearing a saree and sneakers (a ridiculous combination, if you ask me) was staring at this girl with arched eyebrows and a very evident look of disapproval. I surmised the shorts were what had earned the girl “the look”. 

I am ashamed to say that many a time I have caught myself staring at a girl who smokes or does something that does not fit into my idea of how a woman should be.  Nowadays, I have the good grace to scold myself mentally whenever I get such a thought. But when I look around I realize that in spite of all the talk about “women empowerment” and “international women’s day”, a woman’s place in society is still under question.

I was not brought up to be a feminist and I abhor the term. In many ways I am extremely conventional and traditional in my thinking. The height of my ambition when I was young, was to grow up, meet a boy, get married, have kids and have a decent job, not necessarily in that order. Fate of course threw that little plan to the winds. I dislike talking about my struggles so I will not elaborate on that. 

What I observe around me is that the son-in-law is still special and deserves special treatment. Rules for daughters and daughters-in-law are still subtly different, though of course people would go blue in the face denying it. At work, women do certain kinds of jobs well and fail at others – this is the general impression. Women are still judged by the way they cook and clean, no matter how hard they work as a professional, and yes, women themselves are the harshest judges when it comes to judging other women. If that is the case, we cannot really blame men who think a woman’s place is in the kitchen. What women need to do is to respect themselves first in all the various shapes and sizes they come in. And that my friends, is the thought I want to leave you with this Saturday morning.