Twenty- five Seven

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!
Oh No! Not another Marathon Sunday

January 16, 2015

I have a confession to make……….No it’s not what you possibly think. Infact, most Mumbaikars are not going to like what I’m about to say or even like me for saying what I’m going to say but I’m fed up of being politically correct.
I hate Marathons! Particularly I hate the Mumbai Marathon.

There I’ve said it.

And I’m feeling relieved that I’ve finally come out and made my stand clear.

Well, why do I hate it?

Basically I hate it because obviously I can’t run. All those who like running or who are fond of athletic activity love running. But I’ve never been one for running and the most vigorous physical activity I indulge in these days is clacking away on my key board. It’s not as if I don’t like physical activity – I actually do enjoy stretching out with Yoga, or having a long leisurely walk especially by the sea side, but I am strictly averse to excessive physical exertion – especially running.

Of course, I’m all admiration for those who can run and those who enjoy running but I can’t understand why a few people’s passion has to hold an entire city to ransom. Imagine this – I have to wake up at 7 in the morning and go down the slope to wave off a few runners who are least interested in whether I’m there or not. Then I have to hang around all through the morning watching people run back – some of them downright tired and fed up of running, some in obvious pain but still perversely, doggedly carrying on, others actually having a good time and telling us to cheer for them………..

At the bottom of the slope there’s a party going on with hot tea and coffee accompanied by jalebis and samosas. Last year the beggars under the bridge got wind of this treat and also stood alongside the other spectators. This obviously didn’t go down well with most of us who didn’t want to share pavement space with the pavement dwellers that we’d displaced so that we could scream and yell our encouragement to those people running on the roads.

And I hate those sleek gazelle like winners who make me feel all the more bloated and lazy, especially when I bite into the hot samosa.

And I hate that the road gets dirty with banana peel and orange peel, whistles and empty plastic bottles.

And above all I hate it when the roads are blocked off and we cannot get out of our building simply because the marathoners need the roads to run!!!

I may have griped before but once my daughter had to go for a PG entrance qualifying examination and we had to walk to the railway station ( because no taxi would come) and take the local train to and from the examination centre. Now to many a Mumbaikar particularly those who travel by public transport every day, this might seem like a petty whine – but no it’s not about the traveling by public transport but the fact that if there is a genuine emergency, there is no way I can get out of my building but just wait it out till the emergency vehicle can come and rescue me.

Having said that, I wish all the Marathoners participating in this event all the very best. They truly are a special breed and I salute their honest dedication.

I am also linking this to Write Tribe ProBlogger Challenge
Kurukshetra – Revisiting the Mahabharat

January 14, 2015

Classification : General & Literary Fiction

Pub Date : Dec 15, 2014

Imprint : Hachette India

Page Extent : 384

Binding : PB

ISBN : 9789350097182

Price : 350

The Mahabharat is one of those timeless stories that resonates in every home, in every epoch and every culture. It is no wonder then that it continues to fascinate authors who re-create the epic time and again. This time Krishna Udayasankar retells the “epic as it was never told before” according to the blurb on the cover page.

The back cover talks of this book establishing Krishna Udayasankar “as a storyteller of formidable power and imagination”. So I set about to find out if this was true.

In the Author’s Note, she tells us that ” Aryavarta cmes to life not as a land of demigods and demons in strife, but as an empire of nobles, commoners and forest-dwellers in socio-economic conflict.” She says that she has simply ” contexualised and rationalised the story “, leaving the reader to “infuse it with meaning and bring it to life”.

The story is set in ancient times in a place north of the Vindhyas and is the third of the series that leads up to the battle. A rather complex family tree links up the various dynasties of Aryavarta and the cast of Characters introduces us to the main people we shall meet in the telling of the tale. Do not skip this part because many of the people she talks about are known to us by different names. An example being – Syoddhan who is the eldest son of the blind king Dhritirashtra who to most of us is known as Duryodhan . It begins in the dungeons where Sanajay, Devala and Suka are presented with Philista, a woman from Dwarka with the idea of finding out about an imminent peace deal being brokered between the warring Kurus. This gory scene actually put me off the book but I plodded on. Panchali or Draupadi has been “violated” Dharma Ydshistir is in in exile. Govinda Shauri wants to right the wrong and asks Syoddhan to give back the kingdom won in a game of dice, to the Pandavas. But Syoddhan believes that he won the kingdom fair and square so the only alternative is to go to war. Thus it is that the clans of Aryavarta take sides and gather together on the famous battlefield of Kuru that is far enough from “civilisation” to wreak havoc upon armies and not disturb the populace. What follows is a wonderful description of the actual battle with the main protagonists discussing and analysing battle strategy with distinctly modern overtones. Every morning the warriors stage a pitched battle which actually ends at sunset. In fact during the middle of the conflict, all the warring grandsons of Bhisma come together around the injured and dying statesmen who fell to Shikhandi’s arrow.

Udayasankar, indeed has an engaging way of unravelling the story and holds the reader spell bound with a freshness brought to an old tale.

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I am also linking this to WriteTribe ProBlogger’s Challenge