Late one Sunday evening a couple of weeks back, Shaina – a close friend from college came to our house as she was in town from Bangalore on her way to Dubai on work. Nishan one of my husband’s friends happened to drop by, that evening and joined us for dinner. While the two men nursed their drinks, over old Hindi music playing out of the laptop in the study, Shaina joined me in the kitchen while I fried “pakoras” to go with the drinks and finished preparing dinner.
In the kitchen we caught up on each other’s lives and had a heart to heart on our lives as women – Wife, Mother(she has a five year old son), Career woman, Daughter and Daughter-in-law. Both of us conceded that life was indeed very difficult and there really was no choice that we had in the matter. Balancing everything, left us with little time for our-selves but compromising on any of the responsibilities would not fulfill us either .
As we sat down to dinner, Shaina concluded the long conversation that we had been having with “ I am a superwoman !!!.” Nishan who is a divorcee for over a year now after a eight year marriage promptly commented “ That’s your choice”.
Shaina decided that she would rather not discuss the matter further and so fell silent, but I jumped to her rescue with - “ As if we women have a choice”. Now I am very touchy over this subject as I feel I am a “ Super, Super-woman”.
Shaina remained very calm and wore the expression of nonchalance but I set upon this passionate debate on “Choices " and so said “what choice does she have but to play all of her roles as a women to perfection. We work as many hours, if not more than our husbands but is it not our responsibility to ensure that we also have a well wheeled and running house-hold, a well stocked kitchen and refrigerator, regular change of all bed and bath linen, timely food on the table and the responsibility to look after the well being of the family.”
Nishan’s reply to that was “it’s your choice to get married, to stay married, and do the things you do - you make the choice between staying on or leaving”. I was infuriated and thought, now here was a guy who was not only a chauvinist but an impractical, arrogant one at that. What he was truly implying was that all women should either sing songs to their happily married lives or pack their bags and leave. I could not help wondering how one could work out a marriage with those views and though I did not intent to, I landed up saying – ‘‘I don’t really blame your wife for leaving”. Later on the drive to the airport on her way to
After this incident the word “Choice” stayed on in my mind and again and again, I found my-self thinking of all the choices women make. Added to my pre-occupation with the word was also my having watched the movie “Laaga Chunri mei Daag” – literally translated means “Stains on my Scarf(Dupatta)” in which Rani Mukherjee plays the role of a small town girl who goes to Mumbai in the hope of finding work to get her family out of financial crisis.
She looks high and low for work but does not find anything as she has no academic qualifications and has only passed class ten. Finally she gets to reach the interview stage where she is told that the only way she could qualify for the job was if she spent the night with her interviewer. She walks out in a shocked state and calls her mother who was actually counting pennies out of a container, to get together money to pay for her fathers hospital bills, after a heart attack. In the state of mind that Jaya Bhaduri, Rani’s mother is, she tells her daughter to do what she feels is right on being told that she has to sleep with a guy to get the job. Which mother if she had a choice would give such advice to her daughter even at the spur of the moment and how difficult giving such advice is for her as she has to carry the guilt of it for ever.
Rani goes ahead and does just that, but just after she has slept with him she is told that she still does not qualify for the job but is given ten thousand rupees. She leaves the money and walks out of the hotel room and finds her-self being counseled by a worldly wise woman who tells her that instead of being used by men, she should go out and use them in return and be a high class, expensive call-girl. She takes the advice and becomes one.
Here is a woman, who actually had no choice, but a guy like Nishan and most guys I know will say that she did. They would easily say that she had the choice of going back home and starving, being on the roads, having her younger sister stop her studies and in all probability together light their father’s pyre out of not being able to pay for his medical bills. There are so many women in the world who do what they do as they do not have a “real choice”. Like one would say, between the devil and the deep sea which would a woman chose.
Another story which I found very captivating was the story “Eleven Minutes” by Paulo Coelho where he so sensitively describes the life of a Call Girl who becomes one, by no choice of hers as she is picked up from her home town as a child and sold to a brothel far away and always nurtures the dream of someday giving it all up and returning home but gradually with time she actually enjoys what she does and remains to be one as that’s the only life she has known. Can she be condemned for trying to be happy, the only way she knows how to.
How I wish that people like Nishan would realize that often in life a woman makes a choice be it to become a call girl or stay on in unhappy marriages, either because they love their husbands, want the security of a home and family to make the lives of their children secure or simply because they love giving and in return the least they want is understanding and appreciation from the people they do it for like in the case of Rani’s supportive family who acknowledge that she did everything she did for them.
I also hope that there would be more men in real life like Abhishek Bacchan in the movie who marry women like Rani because they see a woman for what she stands for and appreciates the causes, for the choices she makes. Women often take on as much, or more than their strong shoulders can carry and all they want is acknowledgement, appreciation and a hand to hold on to along the way so being Super-Woman is worth the while.
Hi Shuvashree,
- She makes the choice of going to Mumbai for work as opposed to say going to
- She then makes the choice of attending the interview instead of say going to a construction site to scout work as a labourer.
- When she is offered the indecent proposal, she makes the choice of telling her mother about this instead of say asking the interviewer to go offer the proposal to his sister.
- Rani Mukherjee’s mother in turn makes the choice of advising her daughter (Rani Mukherjee) to do what she (Rani Mukherjee) thinks is right as opposed to say, telling her that her (Rani Mukherjee’s) chastity is far more precious than the old man’s life. (I haven’t seen the movie but your description of it sounds like this is the worst screenplay ever.)
- Rani Mukherjee then makes the choice of sleeping with the interviewer as opposed to say let her old man die.
(*) Makes a choice?
See you tremendously contradict your stand on ‘choice’ in that passage. A woman makes the ‘choice’ (to become a call girl or stay on in unhappy marriages – or a marriage) because they love their husbands, want the security of a home and family to make the lives of their children secure or simply because they love giving. So it’s evident that she has desires in life, like ‘loving the husband’, ‘getting the security of home and family’, etc. It’s a situation she wants and hence she makes the above choice over staying single. Her expectation (..and in return the least they want is understanding and appreciation from the people they do it for..) is where it all goes wrong. You should do things because you like doing them.
Adithya
