Three of my biggest fears

You know how we worry over simple things every single day? Will my housemaid come today? Goddamn, my appraisal is near! My laptop isn't working (The sky is falling!)

But there are certain fears which are more real than others. You may not think of them every day but they're there...hiding somewhere in the deep recesses of your mind. The worst part is they're not really fixable...as a friend liked to say "There are certain things outside your locus of control. You can't do anything about it."

Here are three of my external loci fears.

Number Three
Giving birth to a physically/mentally handicapped child
I'm as close to giving birth as Siberia is to Miami. But over the years whenever I see handicapped people, I can't help but fear for the life of my unborn child. It's not that I worry about how difficult it would be to raise him/her but I fear for them. They will not lead a normal life...laugh, jump, play, study like a normal kid. His entire life would be a series of struggles. Bullying, isolation, discrimination. Who wants that for their child?

I had a friend when I was 10. She must be like 5 or 6 years old that time. Cutest little girl but deaf and dumb. Nobody really wanted to hang out with her but I just couldn't say no when her parents urged. So every evening I was stuck with her while my friends ran around and played. In the beginning I was like blehhh...but then I grew to like her a lot. She went to her "special school" and I could see she was very sharp (I played number games with her. I'd point to a number and she'd count it on her fingers) But sometimes we'd both get very frustrated 'cause we couldn't understand what the other person was trying to say. It was exhausting for the both of us. That was my one hour in a day. It was her and her parents' entire life. 

Anyway, do you know there are very few ways one can get a legal abortion in this country, one of them being detection of any physical or mental handicap detected during the pregnancy? Food for thought.

Number Two
Death of a family member or a close friend (or even yourself)
I know for a fact a lot of people sometimes imagine how they'd react if a person close to them passed away. It's a sick sick thing to do but you can't help your mind from drifting, can you? I don't know why we do it. Maybe just to feel an ounce of emotion when you feel you've gotten cold. Or to surprise yourself by your level of anxiety when you imagine a person in particular.

There was a death in my family back in 2007. We were all prepared for it a couple of days in advance so I guess we were rather calm. But when it happens and you find yourself hysterical and trying to hold yourself together at the same time, you start having an out of body experience. Like it's not really happening, like it's just one of them sick dreams, you kneeling in front of a blue body of an 11 year old boy, people all around you wailing like they're reciting a monotonous and never ending requiem in a language you can't understand. Somebody will come out from behind the curtains and say "Smile! It's candid camera!" And then you feel guilty 'cause you feel you didn't cry as much or when there are days you forget it ever happened. I'll stop, let me not make this more morbid :)

Number One
Losing my voice
This is very two pronged. By losing my voice I mean two things - not being able to express myself due to oppression or losing my singing voice due to a physical handicap.

I'm not the most intelligent person in the world. Hell, not even close. But I do believe every voice is important. Informed, uninformed. Rich person's or poor person's. And though society tries to tell us otherwise and I can't lie, sometimes I get swayed by it too, don't let anyone tell you you can't say what you want, unless it's the government and you'd get arrested. Hehe, no, that Kapil Sibal needs to be put in his place.

Losing my singing voice...sigh. Only imagining it kills me. So I don't. All I'll say is...incase that ever happens to me, please admit me to an institution so I wouldn't do any further harm to myself :P

Whenever I get any morbid thoughts, I think of that book The Secret. If you think positive things, positive stuff will happen. Conversely, negative thoughts only bring about doom. Though sometimes we need them, if only to remind ourselves how truly blessed we are that I'm able to write this and you're able to read this.

Delhi

A person with the tag of a 'Delhiite' carries with himself plenty baggage. Our first impression is formed almost as soon as we say 'I'm from Delhi'; the degree of frown on the other person's face depending on what part of the country we're in (Unless of course if you're in Delhi because then you're probably interacting with the neighboring small townies) What's funnier is that we're judged even in the NCR, forget the Madras, the Chinkyland and the Marathi Manusia. Those DPS' and Modern's, I tell you.

So when people do start thinking of you as more than just an arrogant, swear-words-shooting Delhiite, with a penchant for competitive flashiness, i.e. when they get to know you better, the first thing they ask is "My god, how do you live in Delhi?" (the question targeted more towards the women than the men) as if it's Mars, where water will never be found (see how I insert interesting scientific trivia to educate you lovely readers?)

Do I personally stereotype the women of Delhi? Hell yeah, I do. I have placed Delhi women in the following categories - Swanky & Arrogant, Loves Delhi to Death (South Delhi), New Money, Honey Singh Loving Wannabes (West Delhi), She Takes The Metro To Work!, "Is it really in Delhi?" Practically Noida-ite (East Delhi ME ME!) and Too Unimportant To Analyze aka Who The Hell Knows? (North Delhi)

But I have to say, I have immense respect for all kinds of women in Delhi. I often tell girlfriends from other cities that once you've lived in Delhi NCR, you can survive almost everywhere. I live in Delhi, schooled in Noida and colleged in Faridabad amongst hardcore Jaats so I've seen and heard plenty in my 27 short years to ensure 'thick skin' could be written under the Skills section on my resume. Consequently, Bombay girls can't possibly live anywhere but in Bombay and that's the reason why they love it so much and never want to leave. (I love Bombay for the same reason...more than I like Delhi, so shoot me)

So...respect...yes. It's sort of a daily struggle here really. When my guy friends visit from other cities, they are appalled and abhorred and infuriated by the way men* gawk/lech at women here, while I brush it off laughingly. It must be news to you but we've lived with this all our lives. Woe is you if you're a pretty girl, choose to wear skirts a lot or, what the hell am I saying!, if you're a girl at all. So over the years you kinda learn to tune out. When you're walking on the main road or waiting for a train at the Metro station, you look right ahead or down and bless you dear child that you have music blasting in your ears. When you overhear a guy saying to another Uski chhaati dekhi? #truestory Translation: Did you check out her mindblowingly juicy and inviting tits? Let's rape her with our eyes! as a girl passed those two, you realize the iPod/walkman is probably one of the best inventions ever relevant to a Delhi girl.

I'm not trying to make this a laughing matter, because it is not. I've personally been harassed since I was 9. NINE. A rickshaw-wallah thought I was, at that age, sexy enough to be leered and commented at. The fact that I remember my first time (of harassment!) so clearly makes it, I don't know, significant? When, at 17, I had my first encounter with inappropriate touching, I knew this was going to be a bumpy ride, something that we infact take in our stride. 

Now you'll say Why didn't you raise an alarm? That's not the you we know! Tell you what, when you're in a crowded bus surrounded by men who are trying to press their crotches against every inch of you and you reprimand a man, they laugh at you and tell other men in jest that all women think the men have nothing better to do than what the woman is implying. Those men vehemently agree, only to make you feel even worse. That you brought up the issue, because apparently it's all in your head, is a far greater crime. Try being a Jhansi ki Rani then. Every woman in Delhi must have very similar stories that she has probably never shared with anyone.

But obviously, you can't keep mum all your life. It is so very important that in a place like Delhi you come across as intimidating. That is when men, if only out of discomfort, refrain from all their antics. Last year I was traveling by the Metro and this one guy standing right next to me started staring at me. Generally I would've let it go but that day I was in a filthy mood. So I turned my head towards him and looked him straight in the eye. No words, no anger. Very casual but very I've had enough for one day! After 2 seconds of our eyes meeting he turned his head the other way. But I continued to stare at him for half a minute till it was visible he was getting uncomfortable. It was quite funny actually, my mood did quite a 180. He soon moved away a few steps from me. I found myself trembling, perhaps out of nervous excitement on discovering something so empowering.

Back during my engineering in Faridabad I was only one of two Delhi girls amongst 4 girls in my class of 40. Let's just say I was a better prototype of a Delhi girl than the other. Worse was that I did well in my acads. Some classmates claimed (behind my back) that it was my natural "charm" that made all teachers grant me higher marks than the rest of them, of course discounting my 90% class attendance and extensive class notes. And my rather honest demeanor led them to think they could say anything inappropriate to my face because I ask for it. You talk about porn? You must be a slut. I think I'm digressing into gender discrimination here but rather than saying Why would they judge you? it's more probable that you'll ask me Why would you talk about porn in front of people? But I do believe this is more likely to happen in Delhi than anywhere else in the country.

So you know what I had to do? I had to fight fire with fire. I had to swear like they did. I had to act like a man, so maybe they'll not see me so much as a sexual object. I had to scare my juniors during uhm...their introduction into first year. And put this charade up for 4 whole years. So much so I wasn't sure if it was a facade or I had really become that. Thankfully, I had some supremely awesome male friends who were very protective of me and shooed away unnecessary elements. They made those long years mostly bearable. 

You know, it's only when you move out of Delhi do you realize you were neither "asking for it" nor is it "normal" to be treated like a piece of meat. When I started living in Pune back in '07, I realized that for the first time in my life I was walking with my head up (by up I mean straight), not down looking at the road. My neck almost ached. My head kept turning downwards because of pure habit. I had to mentally scream at myself Look up! LOOK UP! There were no men staring at my breasts, even when I wanted them to! There was no bunch of women huddling up, staring at you, scanning you from head to toe and then whispering to one another. That feeling of liberation is inexplicable. It's joyous, it's a mini victory! You feel like you can do anything in the world. Succeed at the workplace. Travel extensively without fear. And that someday a nice boy would love you for your mind and not just your body. 

Basically, the key to surviving Delhi is to trust your instincts. There are times when a woman should speak up and times when she should let it go to avoid further trouble. The number of men subjecting you to harassment at that given instant, your current location in the city, how crowded or not crowded the place is, if there is someone who's accompanying you or not, time of the day amongst many other parameters should be weighed before you take a call. If you're a young woman driving a car alone at 2AM in Gurgaon and you can see that there is no police around, talking back to men who are racing you to some sort of finish line may be a bad idea. Confidence is one thing, pure stupidity is another. 

It's easy to dislike Delhi but if you're gonna be living here you better open your mind to the various things that would make you love the city too. For the record, the situation is much better than it was only a few of years ago. And I'm not even asking for a throbbing nightlife. I just wish that if I'm returning from a friend's wedding alone late night in a cab I don't have to be on the phone with a friend throughout the course of my journey or constantly look over my shoulder when I'm walking the 100 meters from the Metro station to my house. Simple joys is what we want. We'll take what we can get, one ounce at a time, in the hope that Delhi would one day be the city it deserves to be. 

*not all, only the perverts

Why Marriage scares the shit out of me

I've been a very vehement opposer of marriages or scared of it, whatever you wish to call it. Not that I try and convince people from taking the plunge. Sometimes I genuinely feel happy for some who do, because one can just see them married, like this cousin of mine. I just feel a lot of people get into it for the wrong reasons or under desperate conditions. It's as if all they're looking for is a wedding and a honeymoon, not the marriage. As a person who can't imagine being with the same person all my life without being completely and utterly mad about him every single day for the next 50 years, the thought of a lifetime of loneliness doesn't scare me as much as being chained to a loveless relationship. And if you're left with one kid on the waist and the other holding your hand, and you're kicked to the curb with no income 'cause you left your job to bring up your kids in a justifiable way, I'm sorry woman, you are kinda screwed.

Marriages are hard on women. It's no assumption or a feminist theory that it requires more strength from the woman than the man. I'm not a feminist myself so don't get me wrong. There are women out there who think marriage is going to solve all their problems - parental restrictions, a legal license to have sex (for whosoever who waits till their wedding night these days) and in a way it makes sense. What people refuse to see is that it's not all a bed of roses. For every time you could talk back to your parents for a violated deadline, you need to abide by the rules of your new household (I, by default, assume all in-laws are out to get you. Grrr!) Where your sex life might be exciting in the first 2-3 years, it's bound to get dry and you still have about 45 years of your life, ticking away very slowly while you pack lunch for your husband and child. You can't take that 9PM con-call 'cause you need to get back home to your crying infant, while all the others in office say "She's got such a cool excuse to leave the office early. Why not just quit and take care of her household? Let her be good at something."

Now you'll say, oh Atrisa, you're such an optimist! Hehe. I can't, I just can't see myself meeting the mamas and the chachas and their children and their children's children and remember all their names, present yourself as the perfect wife, perfect mom, perfect daughter-in-law while being the man at the office, rising up the ranks, not just for yourself but also 'cause you want to set an example for everybody who knows you. And your husband changes cities and poof! there goes all your hard work. Let's shift base, let's move to another city, let's find another job, let's start from the bottom. Marriage is all about compromise, yes. How many men do you know who shifted cities/countries because his wife got a better job in another city? I know one. How many women do you know? Hundreds and counting.

How long must we be servile? They say it's all for love, when you're in love you'll do anything. I agree, I'd do the same. I'd shift cities in a heartbeat if a guy asked me to. How is it that a guy never offers to do the same? Why, when we hear that a girl is marrying some guy in the US, we automatically assume she'd have to leave her job and join him there? I would feel so sad for all the times I cried at 2am because I did poorly in some Mock CATs and somehow managed to get through my dream B-school, survived the placement process and it all has to culminate to me leaving my job to take care of my family. The daily trials and tribulations at workplace which made you a stronger, more responsible person, the kind who got a pat on the back at the yearly appraisal...you had a skip in your step on your way back home and told your parents all about it, all just because a few years ago you didn't know where you'd go from your terrible IT job.

Don't get me started on pregnancy. Some women choose to take a sabbatical to see their kid grow only to be asked a year later at a job interview if they "remember anything you did before" But they'll do it. They'll swallow their pride, be honest, get back to work, kick some friggin ass, miss their kid all day, get back home, cook for everyone, be a good lay for the husband and wake up again the next morning at 5. The woman has become a haggard. The husband is bored. She hasn't lost her pregnancy fat, looks like an aunty, and he needs some excitement. He thinks it's ok to have some fun on the side, as long as he doesn't leave his wife.

Sometimes I wonder if my cynicism has been painted on by movies or some real life stories which might just be exceptions but I have been scared of marriage for as long as I can remember. The issue never gained so much importance in my life 'cause I was (am?) young but the whole "marriageable age" thing is making me pee in my pants.

You know what pisses me off the most? Guys assuming that a girl my age would want to get married right away. That any relationship started is for the purpose of marriage. What is wrong with just keeping a boyfriend? OK I admit, we're not at the age where we're like "Yeah, we're just dating casually, let's see where it goes" and yes, I would want to be in a romantic relationship than finding a flurry of one night stands that do nothing for you physically and makes you feel like a slut emotionally, but can't you see the massive difference between a relationship and marriage? What are you blind? Just because I want to have a long telephonic conversation at the end of the day talking about a bad day at work or sharing my hopes and dreams, why is it that my only option at this age is to get married? I'm not ready for responsibility, I'm not ready to make the guy's parents my own, I'm not ready to have a new life growing inside me. If you are, good on you. Do you know how many times I have wanted to be "normal"? Have a husband, tag along with him to all his parties like a trophy, have little identity of my own, crush my dreams to make way for everybody else's or not have any to begin with (OK, I exaggerate) You'll call me weird, selfish, uncooperative, a bad wife, a bad mother, a bad human being, an uncouth woman who spits on everything a woman stands for, a bad apple. Do you know how exhausting it is to explain it first to your own family and now to your own peer group because "it's the right time to get married"? And the more people talk about it, the more you feel you should just give in because god knows you'll be 40 with a stellar career but nobody to share your happiness with. A brand new car with nobody in the front passenger seat.

To tell the truth, I don't really hate the concept of marriage. My dad must be right - there is a reason why people all over the world get married...western society included, given their "progressive thinking" I'm just trying to understand how, magically, people want to dive into this just as you're about to turn 26. Why can't you be ready for it when you're 33? My mom says "Who will marry you when you'd look so old?" Mom, I'll be marrying an "old" guy too no? Who cares for fresh faced wedding pictures on facebook? I might not be as energetic, running around with my kid at 35 as I could've been at 25, but if he'd be loved more at 35 than 25, I don't see how the kid would not have a better life.

So don't look at me with pity when I tell you I'm single, with marriage not even on the distant horizon. Atleast hook me up. Do that. Make me your charity case! :)