To my unborn child

You are only an idea in my head, a stirring in my heart and yet my image of you is just perfect. For all my insecurities today, my imperfections, my failings and my doubts, I know that I am being readied for the most important role of my life: your mother. 

I want you to know that life is difficult in the present, but looking back on what you’ve lived it is almost always beautiful. The present is always confusing, muddled and full of complexity. You are never old enough to cope with the challenges of your age. I cannot and will not tell you the life you must live, or the choices you must make because they are yours alone to experience. Yet, know that I will always be there, watching from the sidelines and whether you like it or not I will be a part of your life when you are 2 and when you are 40. 

I want to protect you from the hurtful things that people will say to you, from the people who will cheat you and take advantage of you. But it is only through these things that you will only grow up into the strong person that I want you to become. They will try to break you down, but you must rise.

I will be proud of you in the big and little moments of your life. I will be there at every school concert, sports day and will cheer you on till my throat is sore, when you are the last person in the lemon and spoon race. And when you win the first prize, then too I will be proud of you. For me, your success is only one millionth of the joy I will feel in seeing you try, in seeing you express yourself in every way you can imagine.  

I will love you unconditionally and will never stop loving you, even when you hurt me the most. When I am inadequate and do not have answers to life’s questions, I hope you will forgive me. I promise to be the best I can be, for you.

When women tell me ‘He’s somewhere out there, waiting for me’, I know they are going to fall in love with an alien.

The Soup Lady

She is the woman I want to be.

She loved people, all kinds of people -Family and friends, friends of family and even complete strangers. She did not love them for what they did, their accomplishments or for their exuberant personalities. It was a love at the most primal level, a love because they were human. And her manifestation of love was food. 

Every evening, before dinner she would dish up a delicious chicken broth with those less fascinating pieces of the bird – the neck, the wings, the gizzard etc. It was delicious. This was served with chewy salty chicken bits to munch on. Each mealtime was an occasion in itself with different dishes being prepared for different people. Prawns and dal for one, curry and fish for another, two types of rice and a vegetable. 

Her feet shuffled between the kitchen and the dining room throughout the day. Breakfast flowed seamlessly into lunch, followed by evening tea, a pre-dinner snack over drinks and dinner. I took it all for granted, lapped it up – both the food as well as the coaxing to go for a second and third helping. She looked on indulgently and said ‘When I see you eating, my stomach feels full’. All the while, she was a silent spectator, never thinking of herself but giving of herself completely.

She died just as quietly as she had lived her entire life. There was no fan fare and no overbearing sympathies. Just a love that could never be expressed in words. As I hold a bowl of soup within my hands, it evokes memories of the most beautiful woman in the world. And that all familiar love brews within my heart again.

Are you a WHORE or a BORE?

I’ve been overhearing a lot of male conversations lately and from that there is one thing I deduce: Every boy just wants to get into a girl’s pants. I guess the word ‘just’ is the overarching word here, because women too want to get into men’s pants, except that they expect much more. Women want to be wooed, chased, delighted, surprised, and entertained before they feel ready to go to the next level. Men on the other hand, are ever ready for mission underpants. Maybe that’s why everyone talks about a woman ‘giving’ herself to a man and not the other way round. Even sexually starved women who claim that they have little expectations, and that they just want to get it done with, secretly crave all of the above. 

In a man’s dictionary, if you are not a whore, you are a bore. The boring girls eventually become  life partners. Men want it that way – someone to ‘settle’ down with. The boring girl finds one night stands exciting in romantic novels, but when it comes to real life it doesn’t actually happen to her. One reason may be that she doesn’t let it happen to her. Even though a part of her is seduced into the idea, another part of her finds it too risqué. Being boring is comfortable. 

The whores make men work for them and take plenty before they give a little. They keep men guessing, wanting, hoping all the time and remain non-committal throughout. The whores come with zero emotional baggage, or so men like to think. Don’t we all know women who seem to have the attention of more men they can handle and yet come home to bury their head in their pillow and cry? Many whores would love to actually feel loved and getting screwed just doesn’t cut it. So am I saying that the bores want to be whores and the whores want to be bores? Maybe. 

Then of course there are the in-betweens – a whore on a Friday night where everything about you says ‘pick me up’ and a bore on a Sunday morning, lounging in your old jammies with a plate of fried eggs and greasy bacon. 

Whores are so damn spunky, they could be your idol. If you want to get some, you need to learn from them. Yet in some ways they are like china glass, emotionally fragile because they have been so fucked up. The bores will always be there for you, your agony aunts, observing the other side from the sidelines. The bores are content in their own world for the most part, but possibly a little too content. They need to be thrown into the wild side once in a while. 

Whichever side of the fence you’re sitting on, women, we really have a lot to learn from each other.

The PMS Ploy

You are in the middle of a heated debate with a boy who is both intelligent and funny. You have a point of view which he vehemently opposes and vice versa. How long does the conversation continue before he slyly drops the remark, “PMS?” or God help you if you are an older woman, “Menopause”?

 It is the smartest trick in the book, men have used for decades. What happens is that you get flustered and annoyed and flounder to find the words for a dignified retort. Instead, because you are just so angry, you will sound irritated, whiny and yes - PMS-ey. There…you just let him win. 

Why does this happen? Simply because, by calling you ‘PMSey’ this man has completely disregarded  your ability to think for yourself just because it counters his own opinions and instead attributes everything that comes out of your mouth to some bloody condition in your uterus!

Women, if you think PMS is a perfect excuse to wrap those men in your life around your pinky finger, you are right. And merely for the sadistic pleasure it will give me, I would love to hear stories about how you made your boyfriend your slave during ‘that time of month’. Still, really, please, do not do it all the time. Do not persistently pretend to be whiny and overemotional and depressed all the time because it will become you. I have seen it. Your slow high pitched drawl will turn your own kind (women) fiercely against you. They will call you ‘that dumb bitch’ On the contrary, men will turn to you like magnets and jump at the opportunity to be the alpha male. All that male attention…sounds perfect?

It won’t last forever. The protector, the idol your dreamboy is a class act. It is a ploy to make you emotionally dependent on him and nothing gives him a bigger boner than that. Then, when he knows you have been ‘conquered’, he will look for his next prey, another woman, leaving you alone with your ‘over-emotions’. 

So, when men complain about women being hormonal or PMSing or menopausal I like to tell them to shove it, because we know that secretly it makes them feel like the more powerful sex and they enjoy that oh so much. I also like to remind them that women are not on their period 30 days a month. 

PMS is no longer some bodily syndrome. It is an ‘idea’ that’s become larger than life in the minds of men and women. Women - PMS is your prerogative. Don’t exploit it, don’t let it be exploited.