In sickness and in health

One fine day last week, I fell ill. Horrendous headache that refused to die, eyes puffed up in pain all accompanied by unrelenting nausea. It had happened a few times before but it was never as bad as this time. And of all the days in a year, Dr. V was in Delhi for just one night and all of us had to meet up and show him a good time. And so, despite being almost blind with pain, I drove down to the mall where all of us were meeting.

It was over hot coffee at Starbucks that Dr. V looked deep into my eyes, which was strange since he is a very shy guy, and nudged Dr. A,"hey, I think she has Pterygium...or something. What do you think?"

Now Dr. A looked deep into my eyes,"it's quite possibly conjunctivitis."

I protested,"what's this 'Terri-jim?' Is that some fancy word for a squint?" 

Dr.V, being ever helpful, explained the term to me and how I could lose my sight if left untreated and all due to an extra layer of skin growing on my eye balls. "Would I be able to blink my eyes sidewise?", was my concern. Dr. A quietly informed me that though he loved me dearly, I was not being funny and though he did not think it was anything serious, I should make an appointment with an ophthalmologist ASAP. That is what I did and that's how things went spiraling downward quickly.

After spending my entire Saturday with dilated pupils and the resulting blurred vision, the doctor told me to get an MRI done and to meet a neurologist soon to rule out Papilloedema. Shit just got serious. I rarely fall ill!

When I told Dr. A about what the ophthalmologist had written in his report, he pooh poohed the idea. "It's just conjuctivitis. I'll come with you for the MRI tomorrow and we'll clear this out, okay? There's nothing to worry about."

"You'll come with me for my MRI?"

"Yeah. I'll call Dr. Gupta and get your MRI done quickly and then we could go for lunch as well."

"Tomorrow? On a Sunday? You will take me for my MRI?"

"Yeah, tomorrow. What's the matter?"

"It's your day off! Your only day off in the week."

"So? This is important. I'll ensure that they know what to look out for."

I felt grateful.

Next day, at the hospital, he not only filled out my forms but had me listed as a priority patient. As we waited in the quiet VIP lounge, he asked,"had I not been here with you today, would you have come alone?"

"I would have had no choice but to come alone. Dad's busy with all that finalizing the house and all and mom needs help to move around, which makes me more tense and, hence, is of no help. Anyway, it's just an MRI."

He nodded quietly. 

Something about saying it out loud really hit home. I was all alone in sickness. While I was being my parents' support during their illnesses, my parents were not always in the best position to help me even if they wanted to. I truly was alone. How often can one rely on friends to be there when you have fever and are probably too weak to function? What if you pass out at home and nobody knows. That time is approaching when my parents will move into their own house in a different city while I stay back. I shuddered a little thinking about it.

Then Dr. A said the most wonderful thing,"How about we buy a house together? You know, for investment purposes." 

I relaxed knowing that he saw us being together for years to come. It is good to have friends like him when the world turns dark. Now if only I find a straight version of him, I could settle into marital bliss.

And, oh, the papilloedema? The MRI cleared that and a second ophthalmologist confirmed what Dr. A had diagnosed earlier...conjuctivitis.

Woman on the move

The usual gang was meeting up over drinks and dinner and we were talking about Dr. A's upcoming training in Hungary. He was excited that finally his visa had come through and he would finally be off next month for the course he was looking forward to.

"I love the entire experience of traveling and meeting new people. I start talking to people I meet at the airport itself." He said looking at Dr. V, our out-of-town friend who had joined us that evening.

Adi shrugged,"The last thing I want is to chat with strangers. I plug on my iPod and stay that way till I reach my destination. That discourages anyone who is feeling particularly chatty on that trip."

I nodded enthusiastically at Adi. "That's what I do too! I'm not the friendliest person when I'm traveling alone." Dr. A was a bit disappointed. "But sometimes you have a great connection with someone and that leaves you with a great life experience. You miss out on that if you are unfriendly!"

"True," I said,"but that also means I don't have deal with men who would hit on me because they know I'm a single woman who travels." 

"Oh come on!" Dr. A said in disbelief,"it can't be every time plus how would they know if you are single?"

"Hmmm...no wedding ring, no mangalsutra and a big ass laptop by my side that screams 'I'm traveling out of Delhi for some work-related reason.' Those are big clues right there. I can only assume that most men conclude that I might get lonely some nights and I am definitely thinking of balding, overweight, married men when that happens."

Then I reminded them if that one time that a 'nice, promising man' I met at the airport last year turned out to be married and a father of a three-year-old girl. I had thankfully found out about it well in time and cancelled our 'date.' Not very shockingly, he tried to woo me by saying how married men are best in the bedroom. After nearly 5 months of trying to get me on the phone, he gave up. In fact I was with Dr. A and Adi a few of the times the call came and as I let it ring unanswered.

I know that it's not just women who face that problem. Dr. A was chased around the train by a very forward woman who tried to ambush him in the train's loo, of all places. And Dr.V (who looks like he's in his early twenties, by the way) told us of how just that very day in the train, a man came to him when he was busy reading his book and started rubbing his hands over his thighs and asked,"is this ok?" to a very shocked Dr. V.

So it is not just women who have to ward off unwanted attention while traveling but it occurs more frequently for us than for men. 

Dr.A usually gets to hear of all my misadventures when I travel for conferences. Like the time a 7-foot tall black guy started stalking me a conference in Hyderabad and kept asking me when I could join him in his room or the time when during a serious business meeting a 75-year-old professor was too busy smiling and looking at me and found it absolutely necessary to let me know that I was beautiful and looked very 'Spanish' except that I was fairer than the Spanish women he has met. Or the professor who was hitting on me even as his 20-something year-old son stared awkwardly at his phone. Or the one where just as the plane started to land, this guy who was sitting silently all this while turns to me and says,"I have a successful newspaper business and I'm well-known so if you need any help while you are in my town, give me a call" and dropped his business card on my lap. Just some of the maddening experiences I have had. No matter how confident I am or how capable I am at work, I feel very opposite when such instances happen. It is attraction and lust that I see in the eyes of these men. Those eyes don't recognize qualities in a woman...just an attractive woman who could be available for a few moments of pleasure. That is what scares me. Has the world always been so cold? 

Conferences are tough time for most working women. It is like being thrown into a cage full of predators. The men who work with us are often thrown into the temporary role of playing knight in shiny armor. They keep a close eye on us and step in at the first sign of distress. I am grateful to my colleagues who rescued me numerous times without me having to voice my fear or discomfort. Even if we are competitors in the market, we unite during conferences. We (Indian men and women) keep a special look out for female Editors and Publishers from other countries who get specially confused on how to react when in a swanky hotel's conference room, Indian researchers in slippers ask them how much they "charge" for a night.  Black men will always come straight to the point with Indian women. At least one black man wants me in every international conference. 

It has sadly reached a point that I have given up getting shocked or angry. I realized that when at the airport some months ago and a guy approached me and asked if I could please click a photo of him and his friends. And after the photo was taken, I held out his camera for him and he asked if 'a pretty girl' like me would like to join him and his friends on their trip to Nepal for some 'fun.' And at that time my first thought was that I probably looked like hippie who would go with the flow if the moment and that I needed to change into something more serious for my meeting later that day. 

Crucial skill: Dressing for work

There is horrible fashion (?) trend that has splashed itself all over my office. I suspect it’s the case with most offices in India. People have been repeatedly spotted wearing horrid, fat, ugly flip-flops to work.  I mean, it truly is ugly and so wrong on so many levels. And it is not limited to a particular gender. It makes me cringe when I see people walking into office in that nasty footwear like they are walking into their bathrooms. I suspect that these set of people also wear crocs when they go to fine-dining restaurants.

Also seen around are: socks with floaters, t-shirt and jeans, shiny/blingy off-to-a-wedding attire, SHORTS (!), micro mini skirt, spaghetti tops, see-I’m-wearing-a-bra-today top and the nasty kurta and jeans look. It sometimes makes me feel like I’m working for an advertising agency where individuality is not only accepted but also encouraged. The organisation I work for is into serious academic publishing and though the company is not inflexible, people are expected to dress professionally and it would seem that the newer crop of employees all decided to ignore the dress code.

Time-to-time, an individual is gently “encouraged” to dress more professionally by their Managers. It gets worse, I tell you. Now I see some women wearing thin stoles around their shoulders when they report to their Managers to make up for the fact that they are wearing a spaghetti/sleeveless top underneath. How did so many people not learn what professional dressing really is?

Some months back, a newbie complained that she does not like to seem like a run-of-the-mill person dressed in blacks and navy blues all the time. She and I had a lengthy talk about how to invest in some basic pieces of clothing and how to work with colours and prints. She took the advice and personalised her formal skirts and tops with mid-calf boots and scarves, which went very well with her “edgy” professional look...and her short Mohawk hairstyle. Nope, I did not make that up. She does sport a Mohawk. She is a fantastic example of how not to lose your individuality or look boring in formals. Unfortunately, not many people seem to take the clue. I still see people turning up for work in their flip-flops.

The mid- and top-level managers are always dressed in formals mostly because we need to be prepared for sudden meetings or client visits and also since we represent our company. Then are there are some people make the weirdest choices. I know one Manager who is always dressed in formals but chooses to put together the fugliest clothes together. And on the days she turns up in her detergent coloured blue floral top and latte coloured pin-striped trousers, we know she is feeling at the top of the world. No kidding! Add to that her poor social skills and it is not surprising that most clients were under the false impression that I was attending all meetings with my secretary.  And I have had to explain her role in the organisation after 3+ years of interactions with the clients. Most of them were surprised. Yes, people judge you by what you wear. That’s life, deal with it.

Since we are a few businesses functioning together, there is a constant flow of interviewees to the conference room. It is discouraging to see some very capable candidates being turned down because they came in their pyjamas (true story!) or similar inappropriate attires. I mean geez! How difficult is it? For each and every interview or test that I went for, I made a conscious decision to dress in formals irrespective of what the outcome was to be or whether I would be appearing only for the written test and I expect the same from the candidates who appear. Is it too much to ask for?

Though I do hope that someday all this changes and people start taking workplaces more seriously, I want to get rid of all the ugly flip flops immediately. Let’s build a huge pile of nasty footwear and set them on fire. Can we do that?           

Maid and drama

The importance of maids in a household especially in a city cannot be stressed enough. If you get a good maid, you will spend each day in fear that she might leave you someday to better paying household. If you get a bad maid, you will pray to god to give you patience till you find a decent replacement. There is always some power struggle in a household where the maid and the memsahib don't see eye-to-eye and cruel fate has them on lockdown where their personal needs exceeds the desire to break free. 

Ever since my father retired and we started living a civilian life (a little over a year now), I have started to understand why this "other woman" is so important in all houses. I, however, refuse to let them walk around our house with the confidence that we would, as a family, collapse without their services.

Need I even say that all my maids have feared and/or hated me. I'm never rude with them...well, almost never, but I know how to use my words carefully to get the desired action. I'm always polite and firm and that puzzles most of them since they are used a certain amount of pleading and frustrated rude talk from other employers. And since I show no fear about them quitting and walking out, most of them are afraid that my "connections" will ensure that I'm not without a maid for long. They are partly right.

Most of my friends, wait for the time that our maid of the moment is left alone with me. Such opportunities usually come when my parents are out of town for a few days and I don't get the time to supervise the maid's work in the morning since I'm rushing to get ready for work. Invariably, a weekend or a public holiday comes along and the maid's nightmare comes true. I follow the maid as she works around the house...each furniture is moved and dust gathered, I run my finger on shelves and make them re-do the dusting and all utensils are inspected. I make sure that by the time they leave for the day, they have compensated for the shoddy work they did during the weekdays.

Some of them try to gain sympathy from you with a sob story (talks about her hungry children at home but omits to mention that they are 30 plus year old sons), some deliberately do a job poorly just to get you worked up and some test your limits till they understand how to break you. Fortunately, working women like me have an advantage here. We are so used to getting work done from difficult people that we are become almost impervious to their tricks.

For instance, one of the peons in my office has mastered the art of avoiding work. God alone knows how he got the job or what he gets paid for but I assume he's been with the organization for so long that he continues by being barely functional. If given any job, for instance, when asked to get 20 photocopies if a document. He returns after 5 minutes stating that the paper got jammed and he can not figure out what to do or the toner ran out in the printer. Naturally, we then ask him to use any other 5 printers available and he promptly disappears with the document for an indefinite period of time and in the meanwhile all one can do is sob at the desk for trusting him to do something. Some of us figured out the solution, which was to stand and instruct him on how to unclog the printer or tell him which particular printer to use. We showed patience and waited for the job to be completed by him. In some cases, we reported his misbehavior as well. Now he spends his days a avoiding us all together for as long as he can but then that's another story.

I use the same patience technique with my maids. They eventually realize that unless they do their job well, I'm going to stand in their heads the whole time. My friends like to believe that I put my maids in their place by dressing up in leather and sitting with a ready whip in my hand. I assure all of you, that is not the case. Nothing works better than seeming unaffected and being polite and firm in your interactions at the same time.

My current maid refuses the place the washed utensils in their designated places. Her excuse? That she was illiterate. I then asked her for the connection between utensils and education. Now she knows how to arrange the pots and pans. She earlier had the habit of asking me for time despite us having giant clocks in every room. I initially indulged her. When I would tell her the time, she would gasp and make a comment like "it's already been an hour (45 minutes/2 hours) since I started working?!" I then offered to teach her how to read time and also reminded her that she could save a lot of time by working faster. She now can miraculously read time by herself.

Beatles' hit song "All you need is love" would have been very different had they written if keeping the Indian maids in mind. With maids here, only patience and spine of stainless steel works.

 

Romance and working women

I have always prided myself for being one of those people who got everything one wishes for. I do consider myself blessed since I don't have to chase them...it all comes to me, neatly on my lap...tied up prettily in a bow. Good job offers, gadgets I have been eyeing suddenly gifted to me, more money, and yet the one thing that has always eluded me is romance.

A colleague once said, when I was feeling particularly low and lonely, "I don't believe a crap you say about not finding love. You have always had gorgeous, interesting, successful men around you. You just don't give them a chance." I wasn't so sure I believed her then but I couldn't ignore the weird tug in my heart that there was an element of truth in what she said. People have told me that I hang out with some really good looking men and that always perplexes me. Good looking men? Who are they talking about? My friends that I hang out with? I mean sure they are good looking and yeah they are very protective (and forgiving) towards me but should I even be seeking romance there? Is it ever okay to sully friendship by coloring romance into it?

I usually prefer to date men I don't consider "friend." An acquaintance maybe. While most women think it's absolutely fantastic to have this two-in-one package of friend-cum-lover, I find it boring. I have this essential need to have a friend to discuss boy troubles with and it is no fun if you have to discuss it with the man in your life just because when you found love, you slowly withdrew from your friends till they become just your drinking buddies.

So this brings us back to the problem of finding eligible bachelors to be acquainted with and to eventually date. This becomes particularly difficult when one is a working woman. A woman who is perceived to be doing fairly well in her career, is independent, and has no time or emotional bandwidth  to tolerate nonsense. Add to that the laziness to play pretty girl and go on dates that one has no clues where it's leading to. 

A large number of Indian men assume that the point of dating is to have sex and if you are an independent woman, surely you are not the stuck up sorts who wants to wait until you are married. All that is fine, I say, but what about romance? Where are those breed of men who send an embarrassingly huge bouquet of roses for you at work or plan special dates that does not include sexy lingerie and an agenda to see you in them? 

I know a very nice guy who had been asking me out for a long time. Problem was, he is younger than me and I did not even know if I wanted to go out with him. We planned to meet a few times and each time I cancelled. He is married now so it doesn't matter anymore. Maybe I was over thinking at that time but I have started seeing relationships as investments. And seeing that at some point his family is likely to object to him dating an older woman, it just sounded like a shaky deal that would leave me heartbroken and even more determined not to waste my time on a guy. And I do intend to find love and marry hopefully all done in a non-messy manner.

So this ought to mean that an arranged marriage would be ideal for me, right? No. Not really. Most men I met through arrange marriage setup go either way: 

1) "Do you know how to cook? When we start planning a family, I expect my  wife to stay at home because mother's love is important for a child." Very nice, sir. Now would you want me to perform a skit in bharatnatyam or would you like to hear me sing raag Bhairavi while ironing your clothes?

2) "I always wanted a working woman as my life partner. Women who are independent are great assets. I want my wife to be able to handle bank work or get groceries when I can't and not be sitting around helplessly. We should function like a team." Very good, sir. And what would the team colors be? You see, green doesn't go so well with yellow and I don't want people to pass snide comments when I'm running errands and you claim to be at work while you are actually at the pub shirking your end of the teamwork.

*sigh*

It's not easy being a working woman in search of giddy romance. While girls like me wait for a Mr. Right to show up, I'm afraid we will have to be content with one-time romantic encounters to keep our hopes high. You know, like, feeling happy about sitting next to a non-creepy cutie on the flight or making googly eyes at someone at an out-of-town conference. 

I am not ready to give up on romance yet. I just have to chant this mantra 108 times every morning before work.

Sleepless in Delhi

It's maddening sometimes...sleeplessness. It's like my body starts to wake up just as the sun starts to set and is in it's brightest and sharpest by midnight. I toss and turn, try to kill random thoughts just so my mind  calms down. I can't even figure out what's keeping me up. I sometimes blame the extra cup of coffee I had in the office during the day or some horror flick I had seen sometime in this lifetime. I am tired, that stays that way all day. I usually am not sleepy at work either and then there are those days when I am mentally (and frantically) searching for a hidden corner somewhere near my desk where I could slip in for a quick snooze. Hopefully somewhere no one can hear my snores. Yup, I snore, which is why I never sleep in planes. I'm absolutely terrified of being that one person everyone stares at as if in disbelief that a lady can snore like a good old rattling Indian trucks on a bumpy road.

Even now my eyes are heavy and I'm was trying to sleep but it evades me completely. I remind myself that it's almost 3 am and I have to be up at 6 to let my maid into my house. It was the same story last night...and the nights before that. 

I miss being so tired that I pass out blissfully in my bed only to wake up in the morning fresh and ready to face the day. Instead, I shall be greeting the morn like I were face-to-face with a nightmare. The day will pass in a state of strange disconnect. I have now learned the pattern. That is sad. 

I need human contact when I sleep. Could my years of sharing the room with my sister have left me crippled? I am usually at peace when a part of me in touching someone like it needs reassurance that I am not alone in the room. It seems strange now that I have lived by myself in the past and I certainly did not stay up for 7 years! Maybe if I try to solve this mystery of why I'm an insomniac, I'll be able to rest. That's what I'll do now. I have nothing better to do.

Working women and mama's boys

I used to joke earlier that instead of a husband, I need a wife just to have someone who would take care of home while I was away at work. The thought of walking home to Nigella Lawson or Kylie Kwong’s fantastic cooking has always been a somewhat of a fantasy for me. It is a sexist thought, I admit, and despite having positive male role models in my (the one’s who participate in housework to assist their wife), l can’t help but fear the “responsibilities” of a wife that the society expects. Even independent women like me do face guilt brought in by parents, television and society that no matter how much we earn, we are incomplete unless we harassed by thoughts of running a smooth house while juggling career,  clean house, screaming toddlers, fantastic cooking skills and a 30 plus year old husband who is incapable of finding his socks. Being successful continues to mean different things in a man and in a woman’s life.

I have lived away from family for 4 years and I did manage very well when it came to handling housework and bills. I was and still am quite proud at how well I adjusted to a life without servants and I enjoyed every moment of it. So staying alone is never a problem for me; it’s the entire thought of living with a man whose mother did everything for him that repulses me. For those who say, “adjustments and compromises are a part of married life,” I wholly and completely agree with you. The question is how much adjusting and compromising should a woman do?  There’s a joke that I read sometime back that makes a good point here. It goes as this: Guys, to impress an Asian woman, give her equal rights. There is no denying that most of us (I’m addressing Asian women here) would find it difficult to control our tears of joy and, dare I say, gratitude if the man of our life willingly helped us run our household. You know the one who says, “Honey, since you are cooking, let me take care of the laundry/children’s homework/washing the dishes…”

Most of us have grown up seeing our fathers come home from work and mothers rushing with tea and snacks for them. We grew up knowing that fathers are not to be disturbed for the rest of the evening since they had gone to office and had worked hard. Now that women have not just started taking up jobs but also started building careers, we don’t get fooled so easily by excuses of “went to office and hence tired.” Now the scenarios are changing in an average house.

Imagine this, husband and wife come back from work and wife gets busy with a household chore.

Wife:  Hun, could you take care of (insert any household chore)

Husband: but I just got back from work!

Wife: So did I!

Husband: *whimpers* but my mother did this and more all her life.

Wife: She didn’t have a 9 to 5 job like I do.

Husband: *whimpers*

Maybe that is one reason some men don’t like women who work. It means loss of good, warm homemade food, sorting out clothes and bills with the dhobi, being equally responsible in bringing up kids, and weekly trips to the sabzi mandi. For most of these men, the thought of helping the spouse doesn’t occur thanks to their loving mamas who did EVERYTHING for them. Does the current generation of mothers have what it takes to make life easier for the young woman who will share her life with her son?