Just. Because I am exhausted

• You know that you’re overworked when you type in a colleague’s name instead of your own username while trying to log into your email account.
• You know what Indians abroad feel like when you move to the suburbs and the real estate agent shows you blueprints of properties and you realise there are spaces marked out for temples and gurudwaras in many complexes whereas the only excuse of a church close by is a service held in a local club.
• You smile in surprise when you move to the infamously chauvinistic Haryana and see hordes of women cycling  around to work, their pallus neatly tucked into their waists. Until you look closer and see the distinctive red and white (pola-shankha) bangles on their wrists.
• You understand how stereotypes work when your daughter says “I won’t kiss you because you’re not pretty” and your son whom you have just snapped at, comes back to you with a piece of chocolate.
• You realise the power of undisguised want and raw honesty when your children shout out Mamma, and you yell back, “What do you want?”, to have them reply with a simple, “Nothing, I just want you.”
• You realise you are bone tired when your head pounds no matter how what you do, your face stays oily and pimply and your back and feet ache until you want to die simply to shed your body and see what weightlessness feels like.
• You learn that no matter how many times you hear people say women are women’s worst enemies, it doesn’t hit home until you experience it for yourself.

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A milestone met

.. by mama.

As luck would have it, I needed to travel for work for the first time since I started working, this week, missing the OA’s birthday, yesterday. *rolls eyes*

I got plenty of pep talk from friends. On how I needed to do this, my kids were 3 and 5 and old enough to stay without me, that my husband is brilliant with them and there was nothing to worry about. That was all very well. It was myself that I worried about. I didn’t know how I would react to leaving my kids and going on work. I found out soon enough.

I spent 2 weeks getting tense over a 2 and a half day trip. I’d feel my chest constrict and my breathing get laboured each time I thought of leaving my precious brats for something as trivial as a job. And it would bother me hugely. But what must be done, must be done. And I’d remind myself to breathe and get on with the day.

Two days before I left I’d laid out clothes for them for each day, sorted out their meals and snacks and basically done all that I could to feel that I was still in charge of their lives.

And then another something started to happen. I began to panic and imagine the worst. After the Mangalore crash there have been a few more near disasters like this and this. I was just not in the frame of mind where I wanted to travel at all.

I told the Brat I was going and he nodded casually and told the OA – “So we’ll go swimming when mama is away.”

The Bean ignored me.

I packed, I am proud to say, really well. All my stuff came into a biggish handbag I own, including a change of footwear, toiletries and gifts for friends. I felt quite professional

And then the morning of my departure dawned bright and clear and I began to get nervous about everything. Basically transferring my misery over leaving the kids to everything else. Thankfully the kids were asleep when I left and that was one less thing to worry about. “What if I lose my ticket? What if I get onto the wrong aircraft?” I asked the OA who grinned, remembering the girl he married, who would travel ticketless, hop off trains and on to running trains, fly around on work and do all of that without a thought, until she gave birth to her brats!

I reached the airport and felt rather lost. I had barely any luggage and my hands felt weird. I gave it some thought and realised what was missing – the kids! I am so used to holding two little hands as I check in that I didn’t know what to do with mine! I looked at my reflection in the window and the girl who looked back at me in black tights, a loose grey shirt and gladiators on her feet didn’t look incomplete at all. She looked just fine.

Reassured, I continued on my way, picked up a book at the airport and plugged in my iPod and gave myself up to the pleasures of Van Morrison’s music. Almost missing my flight. My colleague who was late herself, frantically called me to say she was clearing security and running to the departure gate. They were announcing for us and I of course had missed all the announcements! Damnit  - to arrive an hour early and still almost miss your flight is a bit much! We made it just in the nick of time.

I landed in Bombay and my cousin picked me up and took over where the OA leaves off so that I didn’t need to do anything but get out of the humidity, settle into air conditioned comfort and go back to having someone take care of me!  I had mailed him my tickets and copied him on all mails to friends so he just took me from one venue to another and indulged me while I caught up with college friends I hadn’t met in ages. Ah- this is what family is all about!

The thing with meeting college friends is that you just go back in time and you’re back to cursing that bitch of a professor who flunked your entire batch, the class ice queen, the joker who made it big and so on and so forth. Not too many of my friends are married and its always nice to have them look at me approvingly and say – “Thank God, you’re not like those mothers who can’t stop talking about their kids!” At which point I mentally thank my lucky stars that I have my blog to vent about my kids and my real life conversation is pretty much sanitised of all mommy-talk.

Two days were spent on office work and the nights spent partying it up from one restaurant to another and spending time with my cousin and his friends. I think I needed this. Simply because in Bombay, I was just a woman who was down from Delhi on work. Which means the single men are a little more charming than they would be, should you mention that you’re a mother of two. And other girls chat about everything under the sun, unhindered by the assumption that you are incapable of talking about anything beyond your spawn! I  guess 31 isn’t all that old since they kind of assumed I was single too! And I nervously checked my forehead to see if the tattoo saying MOTHER was still there. It seems to have disappeared.

The kids were fine. I thought they’d miss me but the Brat spoke to me very sweetly on the phone. “It’s not Bombay, it’s Mumbai,” he corrected me, little Shiv Sena brat! The Bean refused to talk . “Are you angry, darling?” I asked. No, she said, “I’m not angry, I’m sad.” It’s amazing how early women are in touch with their emotions and how clear they are. The night I left though, was a bad one for the OA. The Brat had a terrible ear ache and it took 3 people to hold him down for the drops. He fell asleep whimpering and soon was out of his pain. At which point the Bean figured it was time to show her father what her mother often has to go through, by throwing up all over the bed. When I called the OA at 1 am, back from the partying, he whispered into the phone ‘Shhh… I’ve just put them both to sleep, cleaned them up, changed the sheets, and now I am pooped.”  I grinned into the phone. The kids have this knack of falling ill each time the OA travels and I go nuts handling them both through the night. It’s good to see they didn’t discriminate!

The trip back was uneventful until the cabin crew locked the door and the captain announced that we were going to be flying lower because of a ‘technical problem’. If I weren’t strapped in and the doors not armed, I’d have bolted right then. What kind of sadist tells you there is a technical problem, as he starts taxi-ing?!

The OA was picking me up and I was hoping to land in Delhi before midnight to atleast wish him in person before his birthday got over. It was not to be. I missed his birthday by a half hour and now I am thinking of ways to make it up to him. Suggestions are welcome.

She is wasting her life – not!

Some months ago a troll left a comment on someone else’s blog about how I no longer get after working moms because I am now one myself. The person whose blog it was, promptly forwarded the comment to me and deleted it. She has no time to entertain personal attacks. Particularly when they have nothing to do with the post in question.

Anyhow, here’s the thing. I never did ‘get after’ working moms. I had an opinion. I stated it. Some didn’t like it, but that didn’t matter. Because thats the thing with opinions. They take a side. And not everyone has to like that side. And it ruffled feathers because I was a SAHM myself, at that time. People don’t like you commenting on them if you aren’t in their boat. Just like I don’t like NRIs telling us how everything is wrong with our country!! Here’s the thing, I still stand by what I said even though I am not an SAHM.

I have been a working mom for a year and a half now. And I don’t like it too much. Let me clarify. I enjoy work  – if I were to look at work in a vaccum. What I don’t enjoy is leaving my children to hired help to take care of entirely. Which is what you’re forced to do by most Indian organisations that keep you in office until 9 pm and don’t want you to have your kids as the screensaver (kidding!). They milk you for everything you’re worth, chew you up and then spit out the remains.

But I was fortunate enough to get an awesome boss. As long as my work hits the table as planned, I am free to exercise my flexitime option. It means I sleep barely 4 hours a night, I am sick as a dying dog and maybe I’ll die at 40, but hell, who wants to be mom to adult kids anyway. This way I get the best of them and leave the OA to handle them marrying unacceptable people

Anyway, my point always has been, that its  good for kids to have a parent around. In my case, as the member earning less, it made sense to quit. I also realise that if I were earning more and our family income had got suddenly halved and we had huge loans to pay off, my decision might have been different. That and the first maid who burnt the Brat’s belly.

So anyway, a few days ago, a friend was talking of a common friend. A brilliant girl. And saying that she felt bad that this brilliant common friend of ours was wasting herself being home raising kids. Now I don’t know where to go with this because she reads my blog (hey you!!)  – but its still important enough an issue for me to want to address.

I know that I felt the same way until I had my kids. You know, what self-respecting, educated woman would sit home wiping noses and washing bums when there are agencies to take care of that thing and you have a world out there to save.  Kids are this homogenous mass of cranky, snotty whiners until you have your own. Who is of course brilliant, adorable and well – so special! You no longer think of it as sitting at home wasting your life.You are leaving your special impact on this child who is special to you. Raising them exactly the way you want.

A few days ago a friend mailed me. She is also a working mom who has her MIL helping her raise the children. Now all due respect to the older lady, but she belongs to a different time and age and hell – most importantly, she is a different person. The kids kept getting conflicting instructions. My friend is now on her own for a while and the kids are much easier to handle because its only one person giving them instructions. Another top business journalist friend quit her job 6 months ago, when her child was 2.5. And now she wishes she’d done it earlier because the child’s behaviour and temperament have undergone a sea change.

I don’t think I am levelling any criticism here. Merely saying that anyone with half a brain can see that two people will raise a child in a radically different manner. The OA and I are very different in our approach too. And if we were to divorce each other and keep the kids for 6 months each, the kids would go nuts with the different attitudes (and with the shuttling, I imagine!) and instructions.

Anyway, my point is, even today, as a working mother, I don’t see how I am leaving any significant impact on the world. Which of course brings us to the next point. How do you define significant? Its different for each of us – right? To me, significant means you’ve either found a cure for cancer or the common cold. Or else are working with an NGO or are a teacher.  This is my personal definition. I don’t think too many journalists are doing earth shaking work – myself included. And neither do I think selling more colas or chocolates (even if they are the biggest brands in the world) and watching the numbers sky rocket, is particularly great. You’re just giving our kids extra calories and cavities with no great benefit, so you’re not really my number one role model.

I am much more in awe of the influence a parent has on a child. You spend time with your kid and you’ve just taken one more kid off the streets, smoking something illegal. Again, no disrespect meant to those peddling soaps, cell phones or anything else. Just that I object to a parent taking time off to raise their child, being told they are wasting time or their intelligence.

Lets see what else you’d be doing with that intelligence.

- working your ass off for your company

- making more money for the big bosses above you

- making more money for yourself

- buying a bigger house

- putting your kids into more expensive classes

- higher EMIs on various goods

- struggling to work harder and worrying that you might lose your job and not be able to meet that EMI

- and the cycle goes on.

- or, as some people plan – retire at 40 and sit around doing damn all.

- why not just cut the cycle and the tension and take it easy and sit around doing something meaningful earlier in life?

This is not just others we’re talking of. This is also what the OA and I are doing. I took 5 years off work and now that I am back, we’re finally investing and buying all the things that we haven’t in all these years. A second car, more books, short holidays – but also, also, both of us working, working, working. If it weren’t for the flexible nature of my job, I don’t think I’d be doing this.

It goes on. Everyone I meet these days says, I wanna make big money and quit work at 40. Damnit – quit at 40 and do what?!! Spend your days bumming around? You waste the best years of your life, your youth and your health, stuck inside AC offices with stale air and cold white lighting, and then want to sit around at 40 doing nothing, while your kids are now in their teens and have no interest in you? Strange idea.

Funnily, I hear more men say this, than women. Its like a sudden change has come about when its no longer shameful to say you want to sit around doing nothing, not being socially useful or productive. Isn’t that the charge levelled against SAHMs? What do you want to quit your job and do, I ask all these men and women. ‘Oh, read, travel, garden, sunbathe… play with my cats and dogs, learn pottery.. blah blah” To say nothing of all those investment and mutual fund ads that show men sitting around watching the rain because they’ve retired young. Is retired a more politically correct way to put it? In that case I also retired at 25 and took up a post-retirement job at 30. There, doesn’t that sound nice?

What you’re saying essentially is that its okay to stay home and read a book and do nothing. That doing THAT is not wasting your intelligence and talent. But staying home to raise your kids, leaving your management degree aside for a while is a waste of your time and resources? Particularly if everytime I see you, I realise your kids are healthy and happy, you are health and happy, your husband is healthy and happy.. so then where is the problem?

I don’ t know if this is a feminism problem, but again, it seems to me that the very same choice, is treated differently depending on who is doing it. A man taking a sabbatical to discover himself, read and travel, is oh – deep, interesting, in touch with his innerself yaada yaada. A woman taking a break to raise her kids because she feels this is the right thing for her and for them, is unambitious and wasting herself according to her friends. While her acquaintances are shocked if she says more than Moo.

Sometimes when I give my going back to work some thought, I think of it as a very sneaky choice. One that appeases everyone. Today’s society (because it believes that women should work), my family (because they believe that they educated me so that I work), my kids (because I can tell them what a great example of the emancipated woman I am, you know, I was a working mom who struggled to bake them muffins, do their homework, cut their nails, nurse them through illness, all while holding down a job!), my husband (because I am an earning member who is paying her way) and so on. And the best part is I am no longer as defensive and insecure as I was when staying home. If I had a buck for every SAHM who shrugs self-consciously when asked ‘What do you do?’.. I’d be a millionaire.

I feel terrible that they’re made to feel like such wasters of time and resources. Never mind that some of them volunteer, bake, write, invest in the stockmarkets and fill up all the tiny gaps we don’t even realise exist. And never mind that its a choice that suits them and their family and is really none of our business.

When I get into bed and am alone with my thoughts, I am naked. I see my flaws, my failures, my pride, my mistakes, and I wonder how many of us can stop and say we’re doing something truly unselfish. In a simple way. Not portraying ourselves as matyrs. Not calling it sacrifice. Simply doing something because we feel its the best and not letting others opinions of us, colour the way we feel about ourselves.

There’s a simple pleasure to bathing your child, teaching him to shut the taps tight and not waste water, feeding him while telling him stories of the crow and the fox, teaching him to tie his shoelaces, and my personal favourite – welcoming them home from school (I dont get to do this one often enough). Home isn’t the house – its mommy and her mommy smell and her mommy smile. And who are we to tell those who have chosen to do this, who are privileged enough (and here I don’t equate money to privilege) to have these joys, who hear their child’s  first word, watch her first step and nurse her first bruise, that they’re wasting their lives? They’re teaching their kids the greatest lesson in life, if you ask me. That nothing, nothing on earth, not money, not education, not career, can be as important as a person. And the best part is that this is a thankless, tedious job. One you do only for love of it. It is not a credit on your resume, it doesn’t send you to Goa for an offsite, you don’t get a salary and while there is a lot of personal growth, there is no moving up the career ladder here. Until you become a grandparent which from what I hear, is definitely a promotion!

Here I will clarify that I’m not talking about those who have no choice and are struggling to make ends meet. I am talking about us. The middle class and above. We who can choose to work or not. Where we can manage on one salary. Where we’re highly educated and intelligent enough for our friends to say we’re wasting our resources.

We’ve made a choice, they’ve made a choice. If we don’t want to be called heartless b******s who leave our kids to hired help, we have to stop patronising them and saying that they’re such intelligent women and we’re sorry they’re wasting their brains. Right there we’ve insulted their intelligence by implying that they’re stupid to know what to do best with their brains and their family. Right there. Yes, back up a bit and watch the insult roll off your tongue. Even if you didn’t mean it.

To say nothing of how conversation comes to a grinding halt when you say, ‘So what do you do?’ and they reply ‘I’m home with my kids right now’. Ahem. What does that say about your conversational capabilities if you feel like your topics of conversation are limited now that you can’t talk shop with them? Surely you realise they read and watch movies and catch the news just like you? Why not chat with them, just like you would with me, about what they think of Kasab’s death sentence. I assure you, they’ll have an opinion. You don’t have to discuss the best washing powder with them, you know. Here’s a mostly SAHM who I have grown to love and respect over the years. And another. And here’s another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. And another. I could go on, but I won’t. My respect guys.

And yes, my respect to the working moms like myself too. No disrespect intended to self and others like self Just a reminder. Lets not call it a waste of brains if you’re home with a baby. Not unless we’re willing to stop all the backpackers, readers, writers, travellers and tell them all they’re wasting their life too. And even then – NOT!

There’s probably a lot more to this and so I throw the floor open. What do you guys have to say?

PS: Here’s what Ranjani had to say. And Noon’s post is here.

The OA’s big plan

… is up in the air right now. He wants to set up something of his own but he has no idea what that might be. Now that will take a lot of time and effort and money. And to do that he needs me bringing home the steady bread and butter. I’d really like to, you know. But (A) he doesn’t know what it is that he wants to do and (B) I am terrified of leaving the kids at home while a busy father starts a new business and mother works long hours to bring in the bread and butter.

Reading stuff like this doesn’t make it easier. And this isn’t something new. A couple of years ago the same thing happened in Bombay, with the maid renting the baby out to beggars while the parents were at work. The kind of stories that you imagine are urban legends just until the next case is reported. Shiver.

So for now we’re sticking with an officially flexitime mom and an unofficially flexible dad for when mom is out on late night shoots and stories.

The latest addition to our family

…is slim, black and 10.1 inches in size. And from Lenovo. Before you start wondering!

It’s been the best thing I could do because my damn PC crashed yet again. Anyone who dares to remind me that I should have backed up my pictures and data, is so asking for trouble. I would have if I’d remembered, no?! You think I want to lose all my pics?

Anyway, earning member of this family as I am now, I just went out and picked this up. It’s taking me ages to type this post but I shall persevere. Just to prove my husband wrong because he did suggest that I take the 15 inch one! No thanks to this traitor (hey! I knew him well before the OA did!) who told the OA on a total man to man level, ‘Dude, women will choose colour over specs.’ Err.. thanks, but I didn’t buy the pink laptop after all that! Further inputs were taken from the big burly friend my kids worship who said – ‘Well I’d waste my time telling you what to buy except that you’ll do exactly what you want anyway!’ Err.. okay.

It was rather useful immediately of course because a couple of days ago the Bean fell ill and I worked with her in my lap with the laptop on top of a cushion on top of her. And then finally with her on the floor as I worked. But I’m so thrilled to be able to come out of my room and work in the bright living room that I’m like a five year old in Disneyland!

Both kids have been sick for a week now. We panicked and thought it was swine flu (!!) but it doesn’t seem to be so. The OA and I are working alternate halves of the day from home. It’s also why blogging is slow around here.