SHE
She watched as her brother eyed the unniyappam  in their elder sister’s plate. He was about to snatch one slyly while she was totally immersed in reading a  book.  She called out a warning “chechi…”  He glared at her at having missed the chance to get an extra unniyappam. 

“I won’t give you my shirt and trousers today” he told her.   He relented when she agreed to give him an unniyappam from her plate.  Being the youngest and only son, he had got an extra unniyappam from Amma making her wish she also was a boy. Still the thrill of getting to wear a boy’s shirt and trouser made her barter the unniyappam for the one-time-wearing of her younger brother’s shirt and trousers. Amma did not know of their barter, most of the days she chose to barter her eatables or her window seat in the school bus just to wear her brother’s shirts and trousers.

She chose the brown colour trousers and a red shirt from his suitcase. He was least bothered what she wore as long as he got the unniyappam and also she agreed to play with him. She wore them and looked into the mirror. She did  want to cut her hair short too like a boy, but then Amma would not allow her to.  All females in the family had lovely long hair and she used to make special hair oil at home, with coconut oil and poovankurunthal plant that grew in the yard. It was her duty to pluck them and help Amma grind them on the ammi kallu. She would wander around the yard, her eyes identifying the plant by the shape of the leaf and the tiny white and violet coloured flowers.

She felt the shirt pockets. She simply loved to wear her brother’s shirts. The pockets, where she could stock all the knick knacks that she needed while playing outside their home. It thrilled her. They went out and played until her brother’s friends came and took him away.  They were going to the temple ground to play, he said. She walked back home dejected, she was not allowed to go outside the compound. She fervently wished that she was a boy  and had the same freedom as her brother.  Achan was in the front room buried in his office files and Amma was there chatting with him about his day at work. As she entered home her mother frowned at her dress. Chechi was still reading the book.  She was glad that they were going to their ancestral home  the next day.  School was closed for a week and she was looking forward to meet her cousins.

She joined her younger brothers at play  after she helped grandmother with the kitchen work.  Girls are supposed to know all house work, her grandmother told her as she taught her how to scrape a coconut and grind it on the ammi kallu smoothly, to make delicious fish curry and other curries. She did all that gladly and asked “Ammomma, can I go and play now?” Permission granted she rushed to play with her brothers. 

It was tea time and all of them sat at the table munching homemade jack fruit chips served from a big Lactogen tin.  One of her brothers commented on the ISI mark on the tin.  They were puzzled about the ISI mark seen on that and she offered her bit of observation.   She had been watching her brothers repairing an electric switch the previous day, wishing she also could work like that.  This is not a girl’s job they had teased her and she felt dejected. Again she wished she was born a boy.  She had cleaned up the place after their job was over and she knew that the cover of the electric switch had the same ISI mark on them.  They guffawed. Was there any connection between Milk powder and electric switch, they asked her. They teased her saying she was crazy to think that way. She knew she had seen it there and it was the same symbol that she saw on the tin too. Unable to convince them, she  munched the chips and went to play  with them.

Years passed by and she saw the changes brought about by nature. The slight mound that was developing on the upper part of her body and the curves on her hips,  slowly shaping  her into a woman. That was the end of her trysts with her brothers shirt and trousers. Amma’s frowns grew stronger and she wistfully resigned herself to the fact that she would  also be compelled to wear the long skirt and blouse like chechi. Now she had to sneak out of the house for a game of cricket with her brother or to  try out a bit of cycling.

Slowly she accepted the change. That she was different from a boy and there was no point in brooding.  All she had to do was study and do the house work.  None restricted her studies, no one told her that “studies” was a male bastion. So she happily studied  and obtained the much coveted seat in the best engineering college of the state.  Her father was apprehensive.  His daughter, who would make an ideal housewife, why send her for a course in engineering?  Amma was more supportive talking about the scholarship she won and how there would not be any extra expenses on that count. Or was Amma trying to live her life encouraging her daughter to work, as her own talents lay waste, not allowed to do study further by her elder brothers and her father, who got her married at the age of nineteen?

The thoughts came visiting her again, the wish that she was a boy, as her classmates made study cum pleasure trips to different parts of the state on their own. How could  girls travel with boys in a women unsafe state? Literacy, female literacy was the highest in the state, but safety? Sigh! she kept wishing again.

Undaunted, she kept working.  Girls mug up lessons and get rank, went the common refrain.  She felt proud when she solved problems on her own and stood on par with the boys and landed with a good job within the limited choice she had in her home state.

Workplace also taught her the same. Gender discrimination, subtle and glaring at times.  Still she tried her very best with the very few colleagues and bosses who encouraged her.  After two decades of work she chose to resign.

When forms were filled up, she found everyone mention “ house wife”  in the occupation column.  One day out of sheer curiosity she asked, if a man resigns his job before his retirement age would they write “house husband’ or “retired”? After all she had voluntarily retired from service before the retirement age!

It’s a mans world out there, they say. On the way to celebrate half a century of walking on this earth, she muses about her life. The different roles she played. What she achieved. Maybe she does not have a visiting card that  calls out a fancy designation,  but she looks proudly at her husband who is highly successful. She looks at the two children stepping out into their own life successfully.  She looks back at a satisfying career she left behind.  In her heart she knows she has achieved something  with the limited facilities she had.

 Proudly she says I am a woMAN. 

Achan – father
Amma – Mother
Ammoomma - Grandmother
Unniyappam – a delicacy made with rice flour, jaggery and banana fried in oil
Poovankurunthal – a small herbal plant with tiny white/violet flowers.
Ammi kallu – grinding stone

Celebrating “FemInspiration”