Twenty- five Seven

Mumbai Marathon 2015

January 18, 2015

No peaceful Sunday

Well, like most Mumbaikars I was looking forward to a peaceful Sunday particularly after last week’s hectic activity which had me on my toes all the time that I was awake. For many years I used to call my house SK Boarding & Lodging as we always had a floating population of out – of- towners staying over, most of them being business associates. However, for the last decade or so, SK Boarding & Lodging officially closed down when the business moved out of the house and into its own premises, so when I found my house full again, I had to scurry around till I found my feet again and get the house running back like clockwork. This time round it was family that descended on me – two daughters home with minor ailments who needed and demanded my tender, loving care. Alas, with a curious and inquisitive grandson who keeps me busy and alert, a husband whose stress levels needed to be kept under control (thanks to two international delegations visiting the office at the same time) and with my own commitments barely kept in abeyance I’m pretty sure I gave the TLC short shrift. So I pretty much looked forward to a relaxed Sunday this weekend ; but today happened to be the now famous Mumbai Marathon where anybody who is a Mumbaikar worth his salt has to be either a cheerer or a runner.

I got up this morning with strange sounds coming from the front door at 5.30 am and realised Hubby Dearest must have got up to go down and cheer his office team , led by the Boss, in the corporate relay marathon. This in itself was enough to shock me into wakefulness and I quickly joined him downstairs before the Boss, who is a committed athlete and threatened to do 6 km in under 40 mins, zoomed past us, and was slated to pass by at 6.40.

I scrambled out of bed and quickly brushed my teeth, grabbed some clothes and managed to be at a vantage spot, just in time for him to see me cheer him on . After the usual natter with other cheerers, I returned home smug as a bug in a rug with the Brownie points I managed to score for Hubby Dear and was looking forward to spending the rest of the day in relative calm. Sadly, the Universe had other plans for me and our lunch time calm was shattered with the news that one of the corporate relay participants on our team had collapsed, was bleeding from the head and was taken to hospital. Immediately we sprung into action and gathered up all the loose cash we had at home so that we could make the hospital deposit.

We handed over the money to one of the colleagues who had stopped by for the money when we received a call that the money we had collected was inadequate so the only option left was for Hubby Dear to go to the hospital and sign on his credit card. This meant that I had to go along as the car couldn’t be left unattended……….

We reached the hospital just as the boy regained consciousness and was declared fit and fine . It seems that he had an epileptic seizure and was a known epileptic who had hidden this fact from his employers. So once we were assured that he was in safe hands, we went ahead to join the rest of the team at the Irish House.

p.s. The Boss did the 10.5 km stretch in 51 minutes and his team placed 9th among 81 corporate teams.

Mumbaikars on the Go

But it seems that I’m not the only one who found the Standard Chartered Marathon a bother. From the looks of it, this couple carting their luggage were obviously unable to get either their car or a taxi out of their building and take them to the airport or train station!

So I often wonder if it is fair to keep the residents of those buildings along the Marathon route imprisoned for the few hours that the marathoners are running on the streets.

Perhaps next year the organisers may have the Marathon in the Business District of Mumbai which is spookier than a haunted house once the shutters are down and not inconvenience any of the residents who live along the route.

I am also linking this to Write Tribe ProBlogger Challenge
Vive le difference

January 17, 2015

It may sound strange but I’ve never ever felt that I’ve been disadvantaged being born a woman and that too an Indian woman. On the contrary, I feel privileged to have been born the way I am because I feel I’ve had it better than most people. Of course there are times when I feel overworked, under appreciated and even over looked; there have been regrets over opportunities missed but by and large I feel I’m one of those fortunate women who’ve had the better end of the stick.

Long live the difference

More than 2/3 Indian women feel there exists inequality at home between men and women

The other day my little grandson had a friend (who was two years older) over for a playdate. Half way through, the little girl wanted to do pee-pee so she asked her mother to take her to the bathroom. She also wanted her friend i.e. my little fellow to follow suit so the two of them toodled off to the bathroom with their mothers. When both the children were pant-less, the little girl pointed out to my grandson and asked his mother what “that” was and why he was doing pee-pee differently from her! So there you have it – the basic difference between men and women.

This fundamental difference between men and women extends to physical strength and endurance as well. I also think it exists to some degree to intellectual capacities too. While feminists will argue that differences between the sexes are culturally determined, there are some obvious leanings that are natural. Having brought up two daughters and now actively caring for my grandson, I can assure you that my grandson has a natural affinity for all things mechanical and dreams of cars all day long. Not wanting to raise my daughters as typical females, I consciously avoided giving them only girly toys but I do know that they didn’t display the same passion for cars as my grandson is doing at the same age. So ,even though I can change a car tyre more efficiently than my better half (no, not by giving directions or getting some one to do it, but actually doing it myself), I still feel that as a woman it is more tiring for me to do physical work which a man can do easily. Similarly there are some things a woman can do easily and possibly better than a man – so why should we not just accept the basic fact that men and women are different?

Despite coming from a fairly progressive family living in cosmopolitan , urban environments, where most of the women are post graduates, I have seen the boy children being given preferential treatment by their own mothers – the biggest piece of chicken is fished out for the boy of the family and horror of horrors, I’ve seen one nephew being met at the gate of the house so that his mother can carry his bag up to his room while his little sister has to lug her own all by herself! So very often, inequality in the house is perpetuated by the women themselves.

This inequality is often visible in other forms more subtle like the boy given more opportunities to expand his horizons and prospects with more time and energy being spent on his extra-curricular activities while the girls are left largely to fend for themselves and more attention being given to them only when it is quite apparent that their talent is hard to put down.

So while the mothers are actively indulging their sons, the fathers are indulging their daughters! Many fathers actually feel that their daughters need that extra pampering and spoiling just because they will be leaving them one day and are more willing to pander to their silly whims. I’ve seen some girls being driven to and from various events at school while their brothers are left to fend for themselves.

Only two jobs?

85% of working Indian women feel they have two jobs, one at home and one at work

I am a stay at home mom so I’ve technically had only one job all my life that is making sure my household runs like clockwork. But because I’m just doing “nothing ” all day long, I have to do other tasks like banking, paying bills, collecting parcels that need to be collected, vegetable shopping, designing clothes and getting them tailored, entertaining people who need to be entertained, taking people shopping, arranging entertainment programs for business guests and associates, doing research work for any one who needs to know various things from which bus goes to Nana Chowk from Goregaon and what is the inscription from the Bible that you can find on the UN Headquarters in New York! I also have to plan menus, type letters, write resumes, do the odd jobs, plan holidays , book tickets for plays, journeys and films.

And I’m pretty sure, I’m not the only woman who is doing all this. Most women have to play nurse maid, cook, hostess, agony aunt and a whole load of jobs which most of us are doing for free. Unlike a man who can say that he is tired or needs a break, for most of us wanting to just stand in the balcony for a breath of fresh air is an act of stealthy pleasure.

So for all those who say that a woman has two jobs – I say NO WAY! A woman has a 100 jobs because all women have to do more than just housework and office work – they have to juggle a hundred different things and all at once.

But despite all this, I am happy to be a woman and doing my own laundry!

“I am writing for #IsLaundryOnlyAWomansJob activity at BlogAdda.com in association with Ariel.”
Doing jobs only the way a woman can

January 17, 2015

Re-capturing the freshness and the warmth

76% of Indian men feel laundry is a woman’s job

Monday mornings are blue for a vast majority of people. After Sunday which is normally relaxing and easy, Monday signals another great week of hectic activity. And what I like most about Monday, is that it is my wash day. The first thing I do when I jump out of bed on Monday morning is to strip down the bed and dump the sheets in the washing machine. I then proceed to plump up the mattress and shake out the pillows, clean up the room while the sheets are whirring contentedly in the washing machine. After half an hour or more, when the machine comes to a halt, I open up the hatch and pull out the sheets – smelling wonderfully clean laundry that only clean can smell. And then comes the best part – hanging them out to dry in the sun and watch them flutter in the breeze. Undoubtedly, doing the laundry is one of the better jobs especially when you have a washing machine to take away the drudgery and the hardship of physical labour.

But apart from the mere washing, laundry also involves ironing – another of my favourite household chores. I love seeing the pile of laundry slowly diminishing and the pile of well ironed and folded clothes gradually rising; then sorting out the clothes and leaving them in different rooms so that their owners can keep them back in cupboards meant for them. Doing the laundry brings a sense of order to my life – a job that is done Monday after Monday with a rhythm as regular as the seasons.

On Mondays I do the bed linens in my room, on Tuesday’s it is the turn of the girls’ . Every morning I wash the family wash and once a month I do the curtains. After the monsoons I launder the razais and leave them out in the sun to absorb the warmth that will see us through the winter and once again when summer starts, I start the cycle once again.

Doing the laundry requires sorting out the whites from the non-, the table linen from the regular clothes, the delicates from the rough and tough and the mildly dirty to the really yuck. It involves some hand scrubbing, some spot cleaning, some bleaching and some starch. It is not just dunking clothes in the machine and taking them out. Hanging them too, is an art – making sure that the creases are eased out and the clothes left to dry just so – neither bunched up or stretched out of shape.

So how can this possibly be a man’s job? Unless of course he thinks like a woman and treats laundry like a labour of love and not just another household chore.

Being in the way

73% of married Indian women feel a man prioritizes relaxing over helping with household chores.

While I’m not a glutton for punishment nor am aspiring to be a domestic goddess, I do prefer doing the housework myself. This is obviously because I’m blessed with the option of having some domestic help and a large part of my housework consists of supervising or providing the finishing touches. It also helps that I’m a gizmo freak and have gadgets to ease the hard work but on the days that the machines fail or the domestic help doesn’t show up ( and believe me it happens often enough for me to curse my luck or swear that I’ll never be caught in such a situation again) I’d rather do the household chores myself than have my Better Half help me.

Very often Hubby Dear very sweetly volunteers to help but then I find that the bed that is made is just a lumpy bed with the counterpane spread sloppily over the bed, the table laid with just half the spoons, the clothes dunked somewhere in a corner rather than folded away and even tea that is served ice cold after seven hours just so that I don’t have to do it myself!

In our small kitchen helping with the dishes is just having someone come underfoot so rather than wait with another dirty dish in my hand, I’d much rather do all the dirty dishes myself. When Hubby Dear decides to help with the housework, I often have to spend time showing him where things are or clearing up after him so I’d rather let him relax than help me with the household chores.

Let’s face it, there are some jobs only a woman can do , which are better done by herself.

“I am writing for #IsLaundryOnlyAWomansJob activity at BlogAdda.com in association with Ariel.”

This is my post for WriteTribe ProBlogger Challenge too!