The Dilemma of A new suit this Diwali

I also am guilty of the same like numerous women, I need new clothes always, I mean I look at the closet and I have nothing to wear. Always never anything appropriate. Sometimes, the color isn’t right, the suit is old, its not the right style, or plain old something is missing in the suit. You know the zing isn’t there.

So, I went visiting to my local haunts, where I get my suits done. All over town, the banners beckoned and seduced me like the houris of heaven promising style, élan and sophistication and promised to make me look like a million bucks. I went to my old Masterji with some material, and he looked at me and said Bibi you’re too old fashioned, and belong to an old era. I only make clothes for women, who wear tight fitting shirts with pajamas or those ugly stretchy leggings. I looked at him wondering where had style gone. All that was on display was bright neon colors as if a nursery kid had gone loose with primary colors. And on top of it the work and the embellishments.

I made my excuses and went to the next tailor master on the list. He welcomed like a long lost prodigal daughter and showed me the latest designs hung on the racks. All I could see was huge tents of billowing material with small slits cut aka Batman style, with some sarvowiski. I asked hesitatingly what were these?  Master cleared his throat and said these were the latest, straight from Middle East and they ensure complete proprietary. I looked at him trying to understand, dumb like a deer caught by dazzling taillights. He explained slowly again and told me nowadays, he made burkhas and hijabs, because the clothes he used to make previously were a sin. And women, wearing them enticed, and goaded men to act in a way in which they were not responsible. Why even his favorite singer Yesudas had said this that women should not wear jeans and should not dress inappropriately.

Now I knew masterji had lost it and joined the gangs of the sexist and was doomed. He did make the best trousers and I was getting frantic now. I had lost my two old chappies to extreme fashion and regression in the mind.

The next stop was this shop where dreams would come true by wearing their creation. And I decided to make them come true this Diwali. Oh, the sight and splendor made me miss a beat. I was lost in an alien dream like shop where gowns out of a fairy book were being sold. It made me gasp , it was as if it was a make believe world out of Grimms fairy tale. Gowns with net tulle, satin finishes, pearls ,fake flowers , gowns with trails ,off shoulder, on shoulder, with no backs and some upheld by a strategic button ( those were a marvel in defying gravity by the way ) .

I smiles, and looked at the sales assistant who said that these were the latest in fashion and the trends were the shades of pink. Also, if I so wanted they would make a same to same outfit for my daughter. She also told me about the free offer. They threw in a net duppatta to be worn when Lakshmi Puja was being done.

I made some polite noises and left the store, wondering what had happened to the simple old salwar kameez for people like me. Master ji was indeed right I was a throw back and didn’t fit in. Empowerment means for me being independent in the mind to know what I want and no be dictated by the hollows of the society. It means to be confident in the national character and not to be swayed by clothes that don’t let you breathe (too tight )  or clothes that are worn because some misogynist man decided we tempted him ( loose billowing tents).

Be yourself and lead the way this Diwali .

And, I think I will wear something out of the closet that is me, than being a Cinderella or a tent with cut out eyes reminding me of Batman or a suit that is so tight and plunging that is claustrophobic and if I breathed a bit too much well everything would tear and pop out .. we don’t want that happening !

Happy Diwali ! And May the festival of light ;light our minds rather than being an empty ceremonial festival where we want our coffers full with money .

The well behaved bahu

I opened the paper on a lazy Sunday with a cup of tea and I’m flipping the pages and then suddenly this big bright advertisement all highlighted in a black border looks at me. It’s a matrimonial ad. An alliance is sought for a young girl and she is a well-behaved, educated, lucky religious and cultured and on top of it very beautiful. She will only respond to prospective grooms who are well-educated, handsome smart, well-behaved and cultured family. The keynote here is the similarity that the bride and groom are well behaved.

It made me laugh and made me sadder a bit more. The marriage mart certainly knows how to sell the bride and groom. Can you imagine the world has to come to selling a girl as she is lucky as her prospects are good for business and there is no fault in the stars (sorry hijacked shamelessly from the book)?  She is educated, that much I can understand as she has the requisite degree to teach the next generation of yuppie kids. She is religious, the epitome of cultured dignified beauty. What stumped me was well behaved; do they mean she is a docile girl?

Why has the world come to look for mindless, docile sheep like women who listen and follow to a T?  Just imagine the world has come to this that a girl is ‘sold’ to being well behaved to toe the line to her in-laws.

Does this mean she has no mind of her own? In a world that is increasingly getting vocal on women empowerment, a world where we want equal rights, where she can speak her mind. Every day in my school, I teach the girls to speak louder, with a confident voice to be heard across. Girls, tremble, don’t even know how to put across what they feel or say. And knowingly we again put them into this cycle where there voice shouldn’t be heard.

A world, that again wants women, to be seen and not heard. We need to seriously rethink , and change our mindset to encourage girls to speak defend themselves and not to quash and quell their voices.

We are not living in a world where we need women with a mute button. She needs to be seen, be heard as an equal partner. A well behaved person is someone who behaves in a manner that the speaker is correct . Are the boys , groom of today looking for cows or sacrificial lamb as life partners?

The particular advertisement has stayed with me and it again makes me wonder of the present scenario. I myself am not well behaved , what would I ask for my daughter in laws? I get it , I don’t need  a daughter who can think or voice an opinion or break out in a dance when the music gets to her , I need a sheep !  Oh ,this marriage business makes me laugh and cry at the same time. We bring up our girls, let them dream , educate them, show them that the world is theirs for the asking  and tell them anything is possible, and then comes the make a marriage moment and then she needs to revert back to being a  docile lamb , frightened , shy and well behaved led to the slaughter !

The slogan of the day is naayi sooch but that is just mere sloganeering !

HOnor amongst thieves

Every day like the sun which shines bright, we have a long queue of interesting visitors standing outside the gates who come forth with their problems, ordinary mundane problems, health issues and the usual attar dal scheme and some come just to gossip and pay respects.

Yesterday, one of them who had just come back from phoren came to pay her respects. She is a young woman who had turned her life around. Nikki (all young girls are called this in Punjab) had been our maid and when she got older she was married off. She has two children but was married to a no good alcoholic, wife beater of a rascal. She eventually divorced him and taught her self ; elementary English and later on enrolled herself into a beauty parlor to learn the tricks and got a diploma. Nikki was very enterprising and ambitious; she also managed to get a visa to work as a maid at Singapore and went on a contract!

This was her visit back and she was wearing the gold bangles, gold chain, a few gold rings and a diamond ring and gold baaliyan / loops that are the trademark of every Punjabi returning back from’bahaar.. Oh, did I mention Nikki is a young fair striking Nepalese Indian citizen so she looks very western in her appearance.

 We kept on talking and admiring her jewelry and even told her to be careful while visiting family in Ludhiana for fear of chain snatching that is very common in Punjab. She then told us, her brother had refused to take her with him, as he knew the groups of boys who were involved in petty crime would target them and  would beat them if they resisted.

What she told me, made me laugh. Actually, these thieves also have honor, and a policy albeit a strange one.

She told us that last week in one of the many streets of our crisscrossed village, a gang snatched off an old woman’s earrings. They threw her down and went away, after a short while they came back and threw the earrings back at her and told her to stop wearing these artificial earrings as that wasted their time! This checking is done at the corner Uncleji’s dukaan that doubles as the village goldsmith too.

They actually came back, returned the earrings and issued a warning in the village cautioning the women to wear only real jewelry and no artificial gold look a like stuff as that wasted their time!

It was such a funny laugh. Imagine, the instructions and the code being laid down by the thieves! Standards in Punjab have gone up and the beggars so commonly found at the red lights of every intersection also do not take alms if they are less than 10 Rs. Gone are the days ,w hen one could appease one’s conscience by just slipping a few coins.Now days, with inflation they also have their standards and need a minimum just like the farmers who need a minimum support price to sell their crops.

Bhagkton, what do you say to this? Honour among thieves ; taking a cue from our beloved neta who has set the standard for the society….

Children and trying times..

Every evening since the last two years, I take an extra class for the underprivileged children who cannot afford extra classes or tuitions and help from their parents as they them selves work /toil in the fields and are illiterate. It is a class that started from 3 and peaked to 120, the common denominator being their zeal for life and to soak in anything and everything. They love studying, acting as sponges soaking in anything and picking up small nuances, mannerisms improving themselves.

Be it manners, social skills and how to conduct themselves in the correct manner in public, to moral values and basic cleanliness, hygiene they have improved drastically from uncouth hooligans to disciplined, well mannered children who know their P’s and Q’s and now can speak rudimentary English and also have learnt the lost of respecting their elders.

This change is a start. However, it is a drop in the ocean. They are victims of an obsolete, dead education system that has to learn by rote. They are given free clothes, free books and notebooks but are then told by their teachers to buy the essential guidebooks. Guidebooks are their lifeline. It is by these they pass and learn and learn so well, that they can repeat them ad verbatim. The sad part is the monopoly by these books, you buy a particular JPH or MBD book and that guide will ensure you mark.

Also, the interesting twist is that teachers tell you, in advance what the questions will come, which sums to revise, and what blanks to learn. Imagine being taught in this manner. These children are no different from your and mine and our children but are a victim of a system that pays no attention to them. They are just bothered with results, and board percentages. These children lack simple mental math calculation abilities, simple English and if they learn about science, history or computers its in Punjabi. And, trust me, its downright difficult and even more difficult to pronounce. I am always left embarrassed.

So many times, I have seen them being helpless when they cannot spell or calculate math sums. They hide behind the class or don’t submit their notebooks.

This is what 60% of the population is headed towards. Imagine, a gen-X that cannot calculate or spell or even operate a computer because the keyboard is in English. The board is under impression that being lenient, no failing in the classes and passing them to the next and also having no fixed percentage of attendance leads to a stress free child. However, a balance needs to be struck.

We need to tame the child, to nurture, shape them for tomorrow. I feel, to a large extent it is the teacher who are responsible, they are paid well and as gurus they should dispel the darkness that bogs them down. The parents all send their children with a hope that they will better them selves and their future getting out of the rut of daily wages and working for a pittance. These mothers are illiterate who work day in and day out trying to save their children from poverty, drugs, alcohol and unnatural sexual advances.

It is a sad state and till we don’t completely over haul this system starting from teacher selection (which is also filled with corruption) to the syllabus; that is obsolete, archaic. It’s not the children’s fault that we punish them for being poor or subject them to inter departmental bureaucracy dramas.

Carpe Diem or Seize the moment and change tomorrow and then try to get rid of other evils like alcohol, drugs that all stem from lack of education, unrest and frustration among the youth.

Musings of a 40 year old

Musings of a Middle Aged Woman

Time flies, I didn’t know when where time flew and I am 40 and enjoying it.

Yesterday, read a most interesting conversation / debate where else but face book because I was directed to it. It was a public post. And, I apologize upfront because I shouldn’t have done, as I wasn’t a party of it. The sentiments were all well meant and so forth.

We actually live in a society where we love to confirm aka the women into the stereotypical traditionalistic sati savitri type of photos imprinted into our minds. We think, and yes this is what the population thinks that we need to mellow down when we hit the 40-age bracket!

Why are woman picked upon? After a decade of catering to the whims of an overgrown boy –turned, husband, raising the 2.2 kids, dealing with work pressures, social expectations, and dealing with life, plus being the supermom, super wife and also balancing the monthly budget, a woman finally heaves a sigh in her 40’s.

If she happens to dress wearing tighter than thou clothes, waving a diamond ring, carrying a fancy schmancy designer bag and tries to lose weight, and subjects herself to kamikaze torture exercise to the metabolism going, whose fault is it?

It’s the media, the advertising, and the bombardment of the svelte body that stares down back at us. If we are dark, we lose the man, if we wear Indian clothes; we are Aunty ji, not modern enough.

Why are we judged upon? If we wear tight jeans with a short shirt, we are displaying ourselves. Imagine if you are in the west, an obese 40 year old woman walks at the road, you don’t say anything but here in India, pura bhashan milta hain!

 Women like me, you, us just want to chill, enjoy and relax the final years before we start counting medicines, and making doctors appointments. Men, themselves, preen about, start buying flashy cars, and pick a hobby like motorcycling in obscenely priced motorcycles, driving up and down the Himalayas for a break.

What about us, Monsieur? Is wanderlust different for us? Just because we have a few grey popping in the parting of our hair we are old, has been; while a man starts to look distinguished!

I so wonder what would be said of me, a village wale, and 40 yr. old mom of two wearing a stalwart suit with grey outnumbering the black who is old in some manners but is a child in some.

I wish when we were growing up along with the do this, do that, sit stand, cry, don’t cry, and don’t ever express one’s mind, be demure, be ladylike (where did they get his one from?)  They would have given us a secret book to be old and to not be young.  Also, the society then labels us feminist jhola type if we express our mind or have an opinion.

In today’s world, which is growing smaller , by the second and where the media infiltration is so subtle ,that it subconsciously imprints our mind to form opinions based upon the bombardment of images that we pre-judge , and preconceive that it becomes difficult for us simple village folk to match up . we are doomed if we wear the Punjabi suit and damned if we wear modern clothes ; have a heart ! the social pressures and intimidation makes us do all this to blend in !

From the Heartland of Punjab ,

Ravneet Sangha.

The After effects

I am a morning person, and before you take this to mean anything else; it just means I have oodles of energy and I love my routine. You know, the morning walk, just soak in nature and marvel and then the famous calming chai, prepared the right way and strangely enough after I’ve checked what’s been happening in the virtual world. It always seems that something must have happened, earth shattering while I was sleeping but nothing ever does. I zone into the morning kirtan that is like a balm and then as the internal clock tunes in I put on the national news.

It’s as simple as breathing and I have it down to a clockwise. You know the first cup goes down quietly with the kirtan and then the second one starts of after giving instructions to the ever- faithful Nikki and then news starts. Imagine, my surprise, I am watching news and it breaks for the advertisement. Trust me, I never pay attention but today I did.

And, it disturbed me. A man is presumably getting ready for a party later in the evening whilst his date and he are chatting on the speaker phone. A bell rings while he has primed himself and she walks in. Before this, he had sprayed himself with some deodorant. The minute the door opens, we see the lady dressed up with her hair up, conservative and she smells the air and him and opens her hair and tells him, shall we go to the party a bit later? The door opens.

Call me old fashioned, traditionalistic, stuck in the 1900’s, it made me laugh and wonder what is the world coming to. A multi- national is seducing its customers to use its product while promoting and promising sexual favors.

I wish it were so easy to fool us women! And, then the next clip went to the devastation in Kashmir floods.

I feel as if society has changed its standards to such an extent that we are insensitive to what happens around us till it happens to us.

The extent of commercialization of the needs and the wanton display on media has made us prey to the needs of these so called beauty products with which we would feel confident , desirable and more attractive. It’s just not limited to deodorants, it starts with the hair on our delectable heads to the creams to look fair and lovely and to the clothes we wear. Use a particular shampoo and sweep the love of your life banishing away the dandruff, use a particular cream, and become fairer and sickly white to win beauty contests, get a groom to marry you (who had earlier rejected you ). Imagine not being fair makes you not get a job, not win admiration, makes you the subject of every joke in town. And, then if you don’t wear the trendy clothes how many of you are called bhenji or bhaiya .

Increasingly, the society is defining what ‘we ‘ should look like ! Be it the hawai chappal that has changed its image with Hrithik wearing it, using John’s face wash to become fair and to carry a smart phone to impress and win the girl in the club. And, to top it, wear the particular deodorant , you can land her straight to bed.

I think, I’m parenting my boys wrong, what use is an education or values or striving to be a free -thinking balanced individual where the value of a human being is based on the color of his looks, the fair-o- meter and the car he drives.

The after affects of this scent are multiple and when I quizzed my kids who belong to the under- privileged section they all said they use the 2re sachets and five rs cream to look white. The glistening faces, powdered and primped all reflect a color conscious complexed tomorrow. Till, we change, the afternoon news still carried a fluttering sari clad woman humming a tune and being led like the mice in Pied Piper to her lover.