Khyati ParekhThings I Did Despite being Specifically Told that I wouldn’t be Able to Do them.
“You will have to cook, of course.”
“I will hire a cook and go to work.”
My reply was smug.
I am not sure if she said I couldn’t work (work is what happens only in offices, of course) or it was a lecture about the joy and necessity of cooking as a skill for a young girl; but my own response is clearly etched in my mind.
I am about 8 or 10 or 12 and this is my conversation with my aunt one never-endingly boring summer afternoon where I have been sent against my wishes, to ‘spend time with my cousins’, and she is trying to coach me in the fine art of being a lady.
In the same conversation, there was also ‘I like my husband to be more powerful than me and to be able to look up to him.’ Patriarchy’s strongest pracharaks, pill-poppers and proponents are of course female and often themselves unaware of being a user and a supplier.
I can’t remember any other instances of being told out aloud what I wouldn’t be able to do.
My parents – both my dad and my mom, in different ways, kept landing the message that I could do it, practically, all. In a deeply patriarchal world, my family had decided to adapt, relatively, its most benign form and my parents, only to the extent it meant acknowledging its very real existence and helping their daughter navigate it.
Even a few short years ago, Papa was sharing articles about Woman CEOs especially in the financial sector. ICICI Bank’s – Chanda Kochhar (then an untarnished name) and Axis Bank’s – Shikha Sharma and SBI’s – Arundhati Bhattacharya. I indulgently smile. He was serious.
There were of course, I am sure, whispers and words about my long hours at work when i got married. But I can’t remember having heard them. Immense power comes from ignorance.
Pa in law and my husband, like Papa, were firmly in my corner on this and so everyone else fell in line. The truth is, some or many battles do become much easier if you have the right people by your side.
The other thing my parents did, was also coach me over and over again on rounding my sharp edges and room reading and the fine art of diplomacy (all super powers I can bring to bear whenever I now choose). Unfortunately, these are non-negotiables in the world.
But here is the thing, if you keep using all your energy in reading and meeting people’s said or said expectations, you will deplete. At a macro level, every parent works hard at teaching their child what they know and have learnt, and to make them capable of piloting the world. And maybe my story is a bit about the things I am doing because I was told or imbibed that I should (and let’s be honest, has worked reasonably well).
I have always wanted to (and didn’t even see an option not to) look like I am on the straight and narrow even while I couldn’t help diverging wildly when no one was looking. Not that I was aiming for these stunts but my internal upheavals, at some level, made it impossible to walk straight.
Simultaneously, I had seen and judged very rightly and early, that the world is easier (almost kind), if you show it the movie it wants. And so I served that.
Somewhere along the way, a great actor was born and grew, side by side, to the person I was. The actor has been dominating and the person (having been reasonably magnanimous for long) is now starting to get restless. Tired of the performance. Suddenly fighting with blunt knives. And sometimes smartly with stealth. If I don’t give it its due, it will now start leaking over the artist’s act.
No wonder I drain so quick – running two lives in one body. And yet I continuously question my draining, giving low to no credit to the dual act I pull off.
Luckily, we live in a time that also rewards some bit of non-conformance as cool. I see now my mother, more clearly in me – in this phase. If I look dispassionately, in her navigation and movement on this spectrum, she has done what any smart person would do. As her daughter, my judgement isn’t as kind. And yet, I remember also, as a kid, I used to myself bristle at why she couldn’t just nod and accept things or do them as all the other mums did. Over correction is one of the difficult outcomes of life. In it, one can probably also trace the roots of one’s great pains. I now sound like a rehash of Gabor Mate and Alain de Botton 😀
Nonconformism isn’t for the faint hearted. Society does and will extract its price for it is built on the opposite bulwark. Like almost every attack, it is a defence.
And yet here we are. Using accumulated points and chips and going trick and treating to have our way -a spot on the edge of both. An uncomfortable narrow. Why am I such a both paths straddler? A to-do box ticker, a list maker, a social ambivert?
Why do I want this and that, both?
Easy to say, pick a side, K. But maybe our bodies know something we don’t.
Refusing to allow us to pick a side. Maybe, one generation is too short a time.
Maybe if a young person asked me, I would not at all recommend picking a side, come to think. So, here I am. Exactly where I think one should be – and tortured by the thought of not having picked a side, where logically one can’t and mustn’t.
