A Message For Indian Women: Break Those Rules...One At A Time!

Hi there,

My blog is mainly about how I go about my life, doing whatever, taking pictures along the way. I tend to have clear views about society and its absurdities, but I normally keep them to myself. As long as I am the queen of my own home and world, I am at peace, trying to make you see how little things add most value to life while you girls are searching the internet for answers on small issues like 'can girls wash their hair on amavasya?' (because that makes this My most popular post). Nah, do not feel bad. I have been there too! So I know these small issues can really add up to become a huge problem in our lives. 

If you are an Indian woman who is resourceful enough to find a computer with an internet connection, educated enough to type those words in English and smart enough to look for the answer on the internet, please understand that you are very fortunate, a gazillion times more than the average Indian( including all genders) to have all these resources, i.e. money, brains and time. Now the responsibility lies on you girl, to use them to do something worthwhile and productive. 

Yes, of course you can wash your hair on any day if you want to. It is your own hair. Believe me, the sky is not going to fall. God has better things to do than punishing someone for being hygienic, and if He (or She, who knows!)  is ever in a bad mood, the world has no dearth of criminals roaming on the streets. 

If you still have doubts (which you have, i know), here I am. I have done it all. I have experimented with my own hair and washed them on every single day of the week, and bam! nothing happened. I put to risk my own jars of homemade pickles and touched them with my bare hands, during my periods. Those jars are doing just fine. I also touched my plants and they are still green and flourishing.

By the way, I can be almost sure, if you have typed this question to reach here, you are a woman. I have never seen any guy who is ever bothered about this. Getting my point? You cannot go backwards and forwards at the same time. So set your priorities, whether you want to move ahead with everyone else, or let such ridiculous stuff pull you back.

And just chill. Shake off the notion that the gears of the universe run upon the amount of grease in your hair. If you really have to ask, ask correct questions which we all can be proud of. All the best to you.

Cheers!

Man, Woman and Religion - Part II

When it comes to fasting, nobody can beat Eastern UPites and Biharis. As it is dates on a Hindu calender look and sound like something sacred, as if there is some event/fast/festival everyday. Sample this: Parva (i.e 1st ), Dooj (2nd), Teej (3rd), Chauth (4th) etc.  For our folks, there are dozens of fasts each year, nearly all of them meant for husband and/or sons. It is also quite interesting that almost all of them require women to fast for 24 hours straight, some even longer without even drinking water.

When Karvachauth is in the air and someone expresses her worries about how she is going to cope up with fasting whole day, I laugh heartily (and secretly). For she does not know she is blessed to not have to cope up with Haritalika Teej,  a 24 hour-without water fast in a hot and humid August-September, as opposed to Karvachauth which falls close to Diwali, at the doorstep of winter, and you get to eat in the evening. I have grown up watching my mom do Teej every year with ease. (I admit that I liked it, so much that I secretly wished to get married soon and do it. And I do it!)

Fasts are actually meant to cleanse one's system physically as well as spiritually. Only if you do them properly. But some women take them so seriously that they would ignore health issues, doctor's advise or worse, their own babies. I have heard my mom often telling me how she used to put wet cloth over the bellies of her many 'Bhabhis' who would be either carrying or would have small babies who needed to be breastfed. Imagine not eating or drinking anything in that condition for 36 straight hours.

Though my mom-in-law is strict stickler to 'husband-and-son' fasting, I have heard her complaining about how all our fasts are without water while the more glamorous Punjabis and some others have fasts where they eat more than they would on a normal diet.

And I have never come across a man asking a woman to fast for him. It is the doing of women themselves. How did it all begin? I would love to know.

Continued.....

Man, Woman and Religion: Part I

Time: Early morning

Day: Sunday

Mood: Good

My father in law phones me. The gist of the call was general hi and hello. It also contained the information that my ma-in-law and her co-sister (my husband's chachi) had fasted the previous day as it was Vat Savitri Puja.

My mood suddenly did a U-Turn. Yesterday I had cooked a gorgeous mutton curry and had relished two meals out of it! Could they not tell me earlier? What the.... wait!!!

Why am I feeling guilty? What has fasting or non-veg got to do with my family's well being?

Does this 'fast for a long life of your husband and son' thing happen anywhere else in the world? I do not think so. It is a sole privilege of being born a woman in India that you become the absolute protector of the lives of the men around you. Nowhere else (likely) on earth is a man so weak that he requires his mother, sister, wife, daughter, practically all the females in his family to fast in order to live.

It all looks good and sweet if one looks at it from an angle where it is done out of love (then why don't we do it for our daughters/wives/moms?) and for the sake of tradition & culture (culture has better elements too!)



So much for a son: Chhath Pooja, Bihar's major festival which requires 2-3 days of fasting and many strict rituals. Women (sometimes men too) stand in cold water for hours carrying heavy platters of fruits and other offerings to Sun and Chhath mata.   



Best part is men really don't care about fasts. Heck, they are not even aware most of the times about the upcoming fasts and their 'importance'.

A research says that men do not like it when women at home fast. It not only demands their time and effort, it causes much emotional stress also. Test population: 3, My husband, his father and his grandfather. It is women who take up fasts and other such rituals and pass them on. It is also women who guide and goad their husband/son to gather materials required for the rituals and get seriously angry if everything is not done according to their wish. The target of their anger: Those poor souls for who the fasts are being observed.

It seems like in the name of being religious, women keep spinning a web around themselves so that they are occupied in all these 'vrats' and 'pooja-paath' and never really have to think beyond. How convenient!

Continued...

Make God Happy, Stay Dirty on Thursdays!

Being a woman has never been easy. Being a 'bahu' in a traditional family is even more difficult. Women in my 'sasural' do not find certain things surprising/shocking/weird/funny because that is a way of life for them. All of them have been born and brought up in similar environment to live a life typically consisting of 'pooja-paath' and cooking.

During my initial days as a bride, I was most flummoxed by rituals and laws associated with women's hairwash. Apparently, one should not wash her hair on a monday if she has a son. Tuesdays are okay. Wednesday is bad for anything in this family, so no hairwash on that day either. Thursday is Lord Vishnu's day, so no one is allowed to use soap on that day, a married woman washing her grimy locks is necessarily prohibited. On Friday, you should not wash your hair if you have got your periods. Saturday is the day of 'Mahakaal', so no hairwash. Sunday is fine. Now, you should also not wash your hair on a 'no moon day' (amavasya), since you are not allowed to open you 'sindoordan' (the case containing sindoor) and a hairwash means you HAVE to apply sindoor after it immediately. And then there are some other days, known as 'panchak' (I have no idea what is that) which are bad for anything again. So if those are on a Sunday or a Tuesday, you do not get a hairwash!

I, on the other hand have different things to do. I have an office to go to, shopping, friends, parties, long list...hence require more grooming than the above schedule allows. Now, if I am not a smart woman who could sort out this issue, could God create an 8th day in a week!

Edited on 29th January 2015: This was supposed to be a funny post about how I feel about certain rituals. But since it is the most popular post on this blog, and most searched for using the keywords 'can girls wash their hair on amavasya', I now know it is a serious issue for many more like me. Read more here. Hope that helps.

Samosaphobia, Pakodalogy

Mom in law (On a fine morning): How about today we make samosas? That tiffin box from your uncle's has to be sent back.

Me: .... (Scared!!)

My samosaphobia is only 20 days older than Coco. The morning I made samosas for the first time in my life, I got admitted in the hospital at 32 weeks of pregnancy and came out exactly a month later with baby and all!

After that fateful morning, mere mention of a samosa is enough to take the wind out of me, a hard core lover of the triangular savouries.

As long as we are on this subject, I must mention an amusing pakoda ritual I heard about. When I was carrying Coco, two other ladies in the family were expecting as well. There is usually a curiosity to find out the gender of the unborn child, and when you have three children coming, it just adds to the curiosity an angle of betting. Coco's great-granny who is a walking encyclopedia of child-raising and such matters rustled up a pakoda batter and fried some fritters. On the basis of their shapes she declared all three of us were going to give birth to boys.

 

My April Fool special cotton pakodas!

The first two were girls. Great-granny was upset, her pakodalogy had failed her miserably. On the basis of these two cases, she rubbished her own announcement about the third child. After Coco was born, she somewhat regained her confidence in the science of pakodas. After all her science gives one-third correct results, statistically proven! 

Super(stitious) Mom

Becoming a mother has made me see myself in a new light, as a superstitious person. Growing up, I came across many superstitions like don't sleep with your feet towards South or stop if your path is crossed by a cat. These were the common ones and we took them in our stride. I accepted those which had some logic, discarded some others and ridiculed most of them.

 

 After marriage, there were a whole bunch of women in my new family to introduce me to their own set of superstitions. After trying to follow a few of them in order to adjust, I realized that following them all might cause insanity and will make my life difficult. But after Coco was born, I was ready to accept the latest set of myths and superstitions about babies just to keep the peace of my mind. If they were no good, they were doing no harm too.  

 

But I was amused to find the variety and range of superstitions. There always seems to be something new I am yet to find out. They range from outright ridiculous to hilarious. I try not to scream at some and some are simply jaw-droppingly strange. I guess women have been busy making these 'rules' for themselves for centuries, they did not try to do some real work get done! I tried to write down some of them just for fun:

• Do not cry with the baby on your lap.
• There is a particular hair on the baby's head which when touches your breast, you get mastitis.
• Do not leave baby's clothes on the washing line overnight.
• Cross your arms and clutch yourself while drinking water or it will make your milk watery. (Why? How on earth?)
• Do not make Besan Cheelas (crepes) while you are pregnant.
• Do not eat misshapen fruits while you are pregnant.
• Do not go out during an eclipse while you are pregnant.

So awesomely breathtaking, aren't they? More to come...