I have more grey hair than the AAP volunteers swarming the by poll in Jalandhar and reasonably seem to have reached an age where I consider myself old , but what got me today was being repeatedly told to chill and then to get myself constructively busy . This actually is dedicated to the supremely organised, completely unrecognised power figures of every Indian home-the housewife.
No one prepares you for this , you take on the mantle straight put of college , lulled by romantic delusional dreams all fuelled by SRK movies and preparing the perfect meals for family and husband so as to be the perfect Bharatiya Naari and then you take it forward to being Mother India by bringing forth the 2.3 kids battling with midnight feeds , and wondering whether the milk gets delivered and then making sure the chai is ready for the folks and the omelette bread for the pati along with his tiffin packed for his office . This along with having the perfect house, cleaned , washed , dusted and having two perfect Indian meals cooked with necessary rice and salad ( what is the fascination with salad . I might ask? Why do they love the onion and lemon combination with chaat masala ? What sorcery is this?
Does anyone even know how difficult it is to cut onions and to control the tears and the to have them paper thin? No one taught me this in my commerce degree, they just taught us to balance the debit with credit and here I had to learn how to balance the Garam masala to the haldi . Such a delicate balance , I tell you .
You’re supposed to know it all , have it all ( a magical pantry just like Mrs Weasley ) and a Rememeberall like Neville’s.
Never mind , that you are human, the weather changes and they look at you saying oh let’s have pakoras, it gets hot , oh let’s have home made ice cream , oh its getting cold , lets have halwa. Drat it , why not just add and aid the economy and order away !
But , no no then there is a conspiracy along the way where suddenly everything has to be home cooked , vegan , someone wants soy , someone wants coconut /almond milk and then someone just goes. Back to the basic , add the bran , minus the gluten . I swear , we housewives cater to every body’s needs except one’s own .
You clean the house, everything is in place , rest for half an hour and suddenly everyone is back and everything , I mean everything from the oldest chappal to every remote , to the cushions being upside down is outside in the living room and every wrapper of an ce cream ,chocolate , sweet or mysterious namkeen is found. In the sofa.
And, how could i forget , youre supposed to be Oxford rolled into Britannica encyclopaedia and know everyone answers to the homework that is so difficult to understand . The diagrams, charts and the project reports and the numerous documentation is all part of parcel . Then as they get older , you constantly are told to chill as if your ancestors are from the refrigeration family or from Antarctica.
One is dismissed and told to get busy with life that is other than theirs. Suddenly , they are busy to pick up the phone and talk but free to post memes that tell us to live a life.
As a housewife ,unpaid , unregistered, unrecognised, official chauffeur, mender of clothes, a Michelin chef and unpaid cleaner , organiser and part time doctor , handyman , and the only one who can find anything in the house ( we share a gene with Captain Cook ) , we discover unchartered territory and also pet taker and also custodian of childhood toys , and sometimes partner of husband and more so of in -laws and family and agony aunt to all , we are everything rolled into one but as age catches up to us , suddenly everyone tells us to chill .
I know we are in the midst of the largest climate crisis and we are facing unprecedented global warming but no in the history of mankind who has been told to chill and calm down has calmed down . I am petitioning to the Supreme Court that let men take over being a housewife and see how the economy shoots up , and then they can come to know how budgets go all hay wire or how a mother balances every month with the same amount but with rising runaway prices.
Then they tell us to chill , and get busy with life where as all our lives we were busy building yours . Suddenly , one is left on the windowsill figuratively , and then they say please use your constructively . What a double edged sword ! They tell us to keep a pet , cultivate a hobby , as if one was tilling the land or become a philanthropist , I think us we housewives need charity themselves !
In the meanwhile the weather gods decided to chill me this week bringing in cooler temperatures for me , till then my inbox is open to suggestions for constructively keeping myself busy .
A chilled out mom
Ravneet Sangha
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