#Note to Self

#Note to self

Woman’s Day, is being celebrated on the 8^th and the papers today scream out to me in different advertisements.  They even started a hash tag for us #note to self! In fact, that I find it is so interesting that I need a day to remind me  to remember how important and cherished I am. The papers and the over the top bright bling advertisements all scream of the percentages off on women’s product luring me like the mermaids singing the siren’s song. The local snob value nail spas are all advertising nail beautification, beauty spas, hair salon; clothing’s to reclaim the lost woman in me.

Todays Sunday paper is full of things that make me a better, smarter, more sophisticated, polished version. The must have colors, make up trends, boho-chic, baroque, Victorian, classic, bohemian, indo-chic, earthy the labels that have sort of defined you. There are palettes to describe you and skin tone, your hairstyles to frame you to make you a better you! We are given labels to put ourselves into o neat little tidy boxes so society can define, put us in a position and label us like a botanical specimen. Pun intended, big time. This helps them to deal with us, the mysterious we!

From the lowliest of all the under paid, unrecognized, taken for granted home maker, the glue that binds the family, to the banker, to the writer, to the thinker, to the doctor, the kaam wali bai, to the maid to the sweepers, to the woman who just wants to break the glass ceiling, to the woman who just wants to be a pretty woman! We are given these little labels to define my tribe and me. Instead of the clichéd answers that I read and get why can’t we get recognition, loved every single day just for what we are ? Why are we just segregated for one single day? How come men don’t get recognition for one day as International men’s day and have advertisements selling them shirts to make them a more virile handsome dude? How come grooming companies don’t woo them?

Our attitude needs to change. We don’t need to trend on Tuesday on twitter. We don’t need recognition by celebrating woman hood on one single day; it’s a joy every single day. A cousin writes, why discrimination for women, we need to be generous and magnanimous to give thoughtful importance to man by giving them one day, 29^th February.

The day when segregated makes us a minority which we are not .We all need to believe in ourselves and not get duped by this artificial hype created and to divide this man /woman spiel. Just giving us a day, does not give them the right to batter us for the rest of the year or our lives. Geeta, my intelligent illiterate mother of three girls all studying in Gov. School sec 11 says, Kya Madam ji, kaunsa din! It’s the same routine, and even if she earns enough she is never woman enough because she never gave birth to a boy! So, she never is equal to the others in her village in UP.

If my measure is not by the heart that beats in me, the smile that I smile but by the clothes that I wear, the hair I sport, and my perfect nails and that I can make the perfect round roti, well I think I should give this day amiss.

Change the mindset , please . Do not label us by how many  kids we bear , whether they are boys or girls, what we do , whether we can run efficient smooth well oiled properly dusted , laundered homes cooking the perfectly balanced calorific value meals . I don’t think anyone gave me a manual when I was growing up nor did I have a mysterious class like the Harry Potter and his Dumbledore’s Army . Just an ordinary muggle woman , you see.

My resolution for this year is to be true to myself. This celebration is what constitutes a woman’day!