Oh,Woman ,you are your own enemy!

Finest Blogs Contest - Aug 2008 - Winner!

The other day ,I had gone to the temple in our complex,a cute pillaiyar temple.Other ladies from the complex also come to the temple and in the evening hours we are free for a couple of hours to sit and chat after going round the temple and offering namaskarams to Pillaiyar.That evening also, I was sitting there and slowly other ladies dropped in and as usual, we engaged ourselves in conversation.
Susheela came.Susheela was the new addition to our housing complex.She had lived abroad for many years and had also spent many years in Delhi where her husband worked before his retirement.Susheela was a modern type compared to mamis like us.Sometimes she would wear salwar kameez and sometimes she would wear sleeveless cholis.That evening she was wearing a nice shiffon saree and a matching,sleeveless choli.She was looking very nice,nobody would say that she had two grown up sons.She sat with us, talked to us for sometime.One or two ladies complimented her on her sleeveless choli and how she could carry off that dress.Susheela left after sometime.
As soon as her back was turned,Mrs.Kumar who had complimented Susheela on her good looks a few minutes back,turned to us and said,”Oh,my God.She looks so yuck in that sleeveless choli,no?Is this the way one would dress to come to the temple?She thinks that she is a beauty queen,but really she looks very cheap to me”
Slowly the others joined her, one after the other.One mami said,”Oh,yes,I also don’t like the way she dresses as if she is a young maiden.”Another said,”After all she has grown up sons.Why can’t she wear decent blouses like us.She is under the impression that she is a model.Hmm…”
My dear friends,I don’t want to sound as if Iam the female version of Gautam Buddha,I too gossip,but the ladies tearing that poor lady to pieces in her absence, really stunned me.If the mamis thought that she should not come to the temple wearing such blouse,they should have either kept quiet, not pay compliments to her or one of them should have had the guts to take her aside and given her a piece of their mind,and be ready to face the consequences.
I was stunned to see the mamis talking about another woman,that too a friend who confided in them,in this fashion.I was disgusted and I just got up and came home.

One of my neighbours have a daughter.She is young,must be twenty two or twenty three.She and I are good friends.When I go for my morning walks, she joins me and we chat about all subjects under th sun.She is a nice,smart girl and dresses up well.She got a job as Personal Secretary to the MD of a well known company and the pay was very good. Her father enquired a lot about the company,the MD,what type of person he was and then only permitted his daughter to join the company.
Three to four months passed.The young friend of mine was enjoying her work and I was happy for her.One day ,when she joined me on my walk,she was unusually quiet.I ased her,”What is the matter,you are so quiet.Are you not well ?”
She looked at me in the eye and I found her eyes full of unshed tears.I was shocked.She gathered herself and said to me the following,”Aunty,my boss travels a lot.When he travels, he is supposed to take his secretary with him to fix up appointments for him,to type letters for him and to generally do what he asks us to do.Normally he never asks me to accompany him,he takes a male secretary with him.But sometimes when the male secretary is not in a position to travel, then I have to travel with him.
He is such a fine person aunty and he gets me a room in the same hotel where he stays, right across from his room,so that I feel safe.He treats me like his daughter.Today,my promotion letter came and was announced to the other staff as well.When I joined the lady staff in the lunch break, as is our normal practice,one lady colleague said to me,”So,Vasantha,congrats,you got your promotion in such a short time”Another lady immediately said,”I knew she would get her promotion,last month only she traveled with Sir, twice,you know?Such a hard working girl”I was shocked aunty,but the others laughed.I felt humiliated aunty,I did not know at that time what to reply”Vasantha almost wept.My heart also wept for her.
I feel only women inflict such pain on each other.
The lady who lives right opposite to my flat came to my house the other day,her eyes had swollen and she looked miserable.When I asked her the reason for her condition she said amidst tears ,”mythili,so and so invited me to their house for varalakshmi nonbu.I should not have gone,or I should not have taken my daughter with me.That woman gave me thambhoolam and kept quiet.I and my daughter waited because,she did not give my daughter thambhoolam and it is not nice to come away without taking it.But the lady did not budge,only then I understood that she will not give thambhoolam to my daughter,mythili.My heart broke,my daughters face became red and I wanted to die at that second,you know.What harm has my daughter done to the society,already we are suffering as a family,why should this woman do this to us?”the mother wept.That mother’s daughter was a divorcee,that’s why the neighbour lady did not give her thambhoolam.This is no fiction,this happened right in front of my eyes.

In families,MILS and DILs have problems,very rarely do DILs and their FILs have problems.A MIL has one set of rules for her daughter and another set of rule for her DIL. When her son in law takes her daughter out,gets her nice things as gifts, her face resembles a lotus in bloom.But when her son puts his arms round the shoulders f his wife,she is not able to bear it.”In our time ,your father never used to talk to me in front of his fater.We were not shameless like you”comes the comment from her.You may think that Iam exaggerating,but Iam writing from my experience.

When a woman’s husband dies ,the next thirteen days become nightmare for the woman who is suffering the loss f her husband.Added to that are the rituals which are thrust on her.She may be eighty years old,she may have been reconciled to the fact that her husband met his end in a peaceful manner.Left to herself,she would prefer to be quiet and mourn quietly .She knows ger pain and she knows how to deal with it.But the relatives mostly women take vicarious pleasure in doing things to her, that has the effect of chilling my blood.I do not even want to go into the details.
Oh,women of the new generation,what the hell are we doing,debating and discussing inconsequential things?.Why don’t we flock together and attack this stupid practice of removing a woman’s thali and tikka and breaking her bangles.
We have pujas,sumangali prarthanai where only the women whose husbands are alive are invited and are honored,they are given sarees blouses etc,widows are a big no,no.Why?Mostly women only take lead in celebrating these poojas.What is the logic in not inviting the widows for such poojas?Her husband died,that is not her sin,is it?

We women have thousand grievances.We say that men are taking advantage of our gender.I would like to say,when we show a finge r to point out those who did or are doing us harm,remember that four fingers are directed towards us.
We are mostly responsible for our own misfortunes.Our worries ie the worries of women will end only when we recognize our weaknesses and correct ourselves.

 

my dear aishu,
Thank you dear,for those wonderful words of appreciation.
I feel that we women must first get rid of our prejudices ,learn to appreciate each otherthen only we can surge forwad.No use in cribbing about othes.
love
mithia kannan

 

happy tat you liked the post.We women have to keep our house clean and remove the cobwebs,we have to fill our house with the fragrance of love,affection,care,patience,consideration for others' feelings .Then only we can rightfully expct support from others.
love
mithila kannan

 

My dear sowmya,
It is a pleasure to read your fbs.
When these religious rituals take place on a man's demise,women(seniors)tell ohthers what to do etc.They insist on carrying out certain rituals.This pracice must go,we should put an end t it.
le
mithila kannan

 

My dear meeta,
It was nice of your mom to invite your widoed aunt to yur marriage.Her words speak volumes about her kind heart.This is what every woman should do.We women can not go about eradicating these superstitious practices on our own.The best way to del with it is ,to stop this practice in one's home.Every one of us should make a resolution that he or she will not allow such practices to be followed in his or her house and be firm abut that.
love
mithila kannan