Old age or second childhood??

I wonder why a perfectly balanced, normal person gets transformed into a cribber and complainer when old age and illness sets in. My experience with people in the last lap of their lives tells me that they become worse than children in their pre-teens and dealing with them can be quite exasperating. My own mother in law was quite a handful. I had two little daughters when she became bed ridden. I had never dealt with anyone so sick and there were times when I’d be at wit’s end. Pickle and rice with plenty of gingili oil was her favorite food item. Being diabetic she was always hungry and demanded food at odd hours. But I am glad that I was young and energetic and it was easier for me to handle her. Anyone who knew my mother in law would swear that she was never like that and it was only illness that made her act the way she did.

I now hear of another dear old lady in her 80s who is bent on making life hell for everyone around her. And I cannot believe what I hear. This particular lady was a very pleasant person till about two years back. She had a pleasant smile and was always good humored. I remember a conversation I had with her daughter in law some 20 years back.

“I really wish my husband was a little more helpful” I said. “He has to be told every little thing. When he sees me buzzing around can’t he just pitch in to help? If I ask him to dice vegetables he sits in one place and I have to give him everything starting from knife and cutting board to a clean piece of cloth to wipe the washed vegetables and a container to put them in.

“Mine is just the opposite” said her daughter in law. “I really wish he’d stay out of the kitchen. He messes up everything and I have to do it all over again.”

Deep in conversation we hadn’t noticed the lady sitting just behind us.

“On the whole, neither of you are happy with your husbands” she said in an indulgent voice. “For that matter, I must admit that I too found my husband ‘not so up to the mark’ on many an occasion. It is these little differences that make life interesting.”

I did not know where to look. After all, it was her son who was being criticized. But the woman bore no grudge and simply laughed it off. She was particularly fond of me and looked forward to my visits. Her grandchildren adored her and daughters in law loved her dearly. I hear that she screams at people these days. Her voice is loaded with sarcasm and no one, including her grandsons who are now married, wants to sit and talk to her. They accuse her of being deliberately difficult. Her daughter in law is now nearing 60 years of age and is herself diabetic. She is unable to stay awake at night but the old lady will not allow her to hire a nurse or attendant even for the night. Even when one was hired for a short while she shooed her off and the daughter in law had to wake up and come for her assistance.

I don’t for a moment believe that old people act funny just to grab some attention. They are perhaps highly insecure and feel left out. Or perhaps their internal system is failing little by little and they simply feel restless and are unable to express themselves. An infant acts difficult for the same reason but one does take a child’s behavior to be part of growing up. But when it is an ageing parent or a loved one in one’s care that throws a tantrum, we lose patience. There is one moving experience I can never forget and I wish to share it with you.

My father in law was hospitalized and his days were numbered. My husband was attending to him in hospital coming home just to have a bath and breakfast. I’d visit the hospital thrice a day, taking my husband’s meals from time to time and also to relieve him even if it was for a short time. The nurse had inserted a tube into his nose for nasal feeding but my father in law perhaps in his restlessness managed to pull it off. Reinserting it would be painful and it was very difficult for my husband to see his father in so much pain. The nurses, for their part, would get angry with him for not taking proper care pf the patient. All this upset my husband and he told a friend of his that he could take it no more and wanted to go home.

"The nurses and doctors are here to look after him. After all I cannot do much and may as well go home." He said.

His friend sensed that my husband was very tired and terribly upset. He pacified him and took him out for coffee. My father in law could not speak but in the 15 minutes that followed, he kept questioning me and all others present with his eyes if his son was upset with him and had actually gone away. I kept telling my father in law that he would not go home and would be back soon. And the relief I saw in his eyes when the son returned cannot be adequately described in words. He looked up to my husband for support and security just as a child would look up to its parent.

I don’t really know why some are patient and others throw tantrums when their health fails. But I do know that all of us going to reach that stage sooner or later and difficult though it may be, one ought to deal with an old person with patience and kindness. We cannot take away their pain or insecurity. All we can do is to treat them with the love and affection that they’ve always showered on us and if due to our busy schedule we are unable to give them the required attention at least let us not be critical of their behavior. Let us accept it as the second childhood in their lives and understand that if growing up was difficult phasing off is not easy either.

Accidental Deaths??

I don’t really understand why I think of death and dying these days. Dying is the only sure thing in this world and yet the very thought puts one off. But somehow the process of ageing and dying of natural causes seems acceptable. But when young lives are lost sometimes for no reason or fault on their part one does feel depressed. I recently heard of two young men, newly married and sole bread winners of their family, who lost their lives in road accidents. Both were driving motorcycles given to them as part of the dowry demanded by their parents. Both belonged to the lower middle class. One worked as a daily wager under a contractor and the other sold dosa, idli in a push cart. After the release of Dhoom and Dhoom-2 rash driving has become a fashion among young men. But in the cases mentioned the former was driving at full speed in a highway and failed to notice a sharp bump and was simply thrown off. He was at least responsible for what happened. The second man was crushed to death by a speeding lorry trying to turn at an intersection with a golchakkar (roundabout).

We in India always look for the easy way out. I don’t know about other states but definitely in Jharkhand and probably in Bihar passing a driving test is not mandatory and license is often issued without the candidate ever setting his eyes on the issuing officer. Till some 10 years back the motor training institutes charged an additional fee for the license and once the 2 week’s training was over it was assumed that he/she automatically qualified for the license. Thankfully the practice has been stopped and a kind of mock test is conducted and I haven’t heard of anyone’s application being rejected or of a person who failed the test. I sometimes wonder whether accidents would be reduced if issue of license were not so easy.

Then there are train accidents. I do not doubt the efficiency of our engine drivers. They are responsible for the safety of passengers and are properly trained. But as in the case of a father ferrying his son to school in a jeep who did not exercise caution while crossing an unmanned railway crossing, we Indians are always in a hurry. Signals annoy us. We do get a kick out of overtaking from the wrong side and ignoring traffic rules. Smooth flow of traffic is an alien concept and I saw it for the first time in USA. No honking, no overtaking and all commuters kept to their lanes. Pedestrians are treated with care and motorized vehicles stop at intersections whether there is someone crossing the road on foot or not. I went to a Labor Day sale and my daughter found a parking space with great difficulty. Such was the crowd. But people were relaxed. No jumping queues or any such thing. It took us 45 minutes to pay the bill at the check out counter but we did not hear any one grumble or mumble.

Is over population the cause for our insensitivity towards rules? Why are we always so hyper? Even at the doctor’s clinic we wish to push ourselves and are allowed to go first. Are not the others patients too? Young lives are lost due to this tearing hurry, rules are broken, palms are greased but lessons are seldom learnt.

Then there is the other kind of accident. One in which the stove bursts and a young bride is burnt to death. Or a young girl with a promising career is found hanging from the ceiling and the law finds her husband innocent. And another girl equally beautiful and with an even better career marries him. Parents in their haste to get rid of their burden – read daughters – don’t even bother to verify the details of the first wife’s death. Social boycott of the boy and his family is unheard of. It is whispered that the girl was somehow at fault and we all tend to believe the boy’s version. Some 20 years back a girl known to me died of a mysterious cause. She worked in a reputed company and her colleagues insisted on a post mortem. The girl’s father backed out saying that he had 2 more daughters to get married and he could not afford to antagonize his son in law who had connections in high places. Another girl from the same town married him and walked out of the marriage saying that he was schizophrenic and it was impossible to live with him. The man later committed suicide and the family admitted that he was indeed mildly schizophrenic. Proper treatment could have saved him as well as the girl married to him. I don’t blame the boy as much as I’d blame his family and the parents of the girls who married him. It is generally agreed that an alcoholic, gambler or anyone with personality disorders would be okay if they got themselves a wife. The truth is that with a wife to bear the brunt of his behavioral problems others in the family can breathe easy.


Sorry to sound pessimistic. I cannot help it. Young lives are not only important to their families but to the nation as a whole. We lose them to accidents, illness and insensitive social practices like dowry. When they manage to survive we let them become terrorists and anti socials who in turn take away more lives. And we accept all this as fate or destiny.

I end with the story of my colleague Dr. SP. She was unmarried and lived alone in the top floor of a house in the heart of the city. Her family lived in Ranchi. During Holi we get a break of a week and very often around the same time Good Friday, Easter and Ram Navami are celebrated. So if a few days of casual leave can be managed one can take around 10 to 12 days off. SP had told her land lady that she would be leaving for Ranchi early next morning and would return after about 10 days. So when one did not see her during the days that followed no one really missed her. A week later I came to know through a neighbor that the local papers carried the news of her death under mysterious circumstances and it was only on account of foul smell emanating from her room that people became suspicious. No one had any clue about the motive for murder. The saddest part was that while all of us in college mourned her death, her parents could only think of the amount she would get as provident fund and were glad that just a few months back she had given her father’s name as nominee. When asked to file a case her father politely refused saying that it was not possible for him to attend court in Jamshedpur since he lived in Ranchi, We never heard from him after that. SP was a smart girl with a brilliant career and a bright future. We often think of her although it is more than 15 years since she died. We try to figure out the motive behind her death and miss her in our own way. We heard that she had booked a flat in Ranchi and had drawn some heavy amount to pay the builder and the killer had perhaps been tipped off by the bank staff. But these are just speculations and nothing was proved.

Had the judiciary been faster in deciding on cases such as these people like SP’s parents would perhaps have the motivation to file a case and the unsuspecting public would know the cause and be more cautious.


If only girls are allowed to offer their opinion during marriage negotiations and the dowry menace done away with…………

If only parents thought twice before sending their wards to school in overloaded vans and three wheelers………..

If only traffic rules were drilled into our youngsters and breakers of these rules punished and penalized…………….

If only the state and central governments could ensure education for all children of the school going age…………

If our movies stopped depicting law breakers as heroes……….

If only the value of every life lost in this manner were realized by every one of us………..

Finally if every mother could be like Neelam Katara and fight for justice……….

I wonder if I am asking for too much to happen in too little time.

Gup Shap again.

My husband recently complained that I seemed to be folding clothes all the time.

Folding clothes? With three school going kids I could have been seen folding clothes but with just the two of us occupying two corners of the flat why was I folding so much clothes? Then I found reason to be happy. Take any of these serials and soaps telecast ‘from Monday to Thursday’. The lady of the house, every hair in place and dressed up (read decked up) as if she planned to host a party, seems to fold clothes as if it were her hobby. That the folded items are a treat to my middle class eyes is another matter. Silks and chiffons, with and without zari and zardari in all colors do appeal to a person like me who would feel baffled inside a cloth store. Watching them from a safe distance and betting to myself about their possible price and quality kind of keeps me occupied since the plot or story offers little or no interest. So if husband really felt that I was folding clothes was it possible that my class was being elevated? Did I really belong to the group of ladies who neither cooked nor cleaned but folded clothes all the time?

God is sometimes unkind and he doesn’t let me be so even in my imagination. The truth has to dawn upon me within seconds. Earlier I had two daughters taking care of these things. All I had to do was to collect the dried ones and dump them on the cot and thank God for giving me two very understanding daughters who’d fold and stack them. I have to do all this myself. Or else the clothes would be hanging in the balcony for days together.

That brings me to another question that bothers me. Apart from Kerala we Indians have an arrangement where the son and daughter in law take care of ageing parents. So I looked after my mother in law and my sisters in law looked after my mother and it went on and on. In the early days of my marriage I’d feel that if the Kerala arrangement was followed there may be less of those MIL versus DIL conflicts and life would be a lot more peaceful. Those were days when I looked for my mother in my mother in law and felt disappointed. I would have liked to live on at my mother's place if possible. In Jamshedpur I often see that married girls usually in their teens would stay on with their mother and the unemployed son in law would join her. The couple would have children and the poor father would have to feed not only the daughter but also her family.

“Why did you get her married at such a tender age?” I’d ask.

“Unemployed boys demand less dowry and we have 2/3 more girls to marry off.”

But did they live in peace? Not at all. The mother daughter equation changes once she is married and mother daughter clashes are even worse than the ‘TU,TU main, main of the MIL/DIL group in which women exercise some caution and have some consideration for the son/husband caught in between. There is a woman who sells masalas and other items like soap, detergent etc. I normally don’t buy anything from her but she stops by on Sundays to ask. She actually feels comfortable sharing her problems with me. She has two married daughters staying with her and says that the very girls who shared the same roof till about 2 years back do not want to stay in the same room for more than a few minutes. They fight over the chores in the house, the preference given to one or the other son in law and what not. The woman goes to a school to help prepare mid day meals for the children. The time she is away is the only time that she can think straight she says.

She approached the older girl’s in laws and asked them to be strict and order their son to return home.

“Chase them out” was the reply. “They left of their own accord and will have to return on their own.”

I wonder if they would say this if their son was earning.


All this makes me infer that lack of money causes problems and clashes occur when one is dependent on another for finances. Wouldn’t it be better to educate the girl and encourage her to have a job or a small business that fetches her money before getting her married? The logic behind getting one’s daughter married to an unemployed man to save dowry has always baffled me. Can this be called logical?

If lack of money was causing problems does excess of it solve them? The ex CM of Jharkhand has apparently siphoned off 4,000 crores during his tenure as mine minister and later as chief minister. The former CM of Bihar is famous for his role in the fodder scam. What do people do with so much money? Poor man Sukhram stuffed currency notes in pillow covers and almirahs not knowing what to do with it. He did not have a friend to advice him about investment options. Compared to the current bunch of politicians, helped by computer savvy associates, the man was a novice and consequently naïve. And to think Bangaru Lakshman of BJP resigned as party president (?)for accepting a bribe of just one crore. They say that the chair corrupts people. I am beginning to believe it too. But that is not my question. Do these guys sleep on currency notes? Do those who own flats in every known metropolis ever spend an occasional day in them? A boy whom I met during a program on AIDS awareness used to work as the actor Rajesh Khanna’s cook in Mumbai. According to him Rajeshji would visit the house once in 4 or 6 months (On a rotational basis perhaps?) but the cook, watchman, 2 dogs and the servant maid had delicious meals all through the month and enjoyed other luxuries too. At least our actors toil in the sets to earn that kind of money. Politicians can’t even see to it that roads laid with the tax payer’s money do not get damaged in the next monsoon season. And they have crores of rupees invested in deals that are of no benefit to the country.

Amassing wealth much beyond one’s requirement is also a mental illness. It hardly matters whether it was obtained through fair or fowl means. If you have money to spare use it prudently the way Warren Buffet did. I have a power point presentation on him but I don’t know how to upload it. But it is very interesting and lifts up one’s spirit. I’ll try putting it up or alternatively I’ll mail it to Suranga or Usha who can put it up in their sites. Let the money generate jobs or help eradicate illness. In short let money be used in an intelligent way by intelligent people and not by a bunch of self centred people who cannot think beyond themselves.

That was a long post and I just remembered that I have clothes to fold. Let me imagine that I am the mother/mother in law in an Ekta Kapoor serial who folds clothes with manicured hands looking as if she has a hundred others to do every odd job in the house.Thanks to Usha and Praveen I've managed to link Warren Buffet's power point. go ahead and enjoy!

The God Factor

I sometimes wonder about to the role a God’s presence in our life. I grew up believing that there is someone up there who is watching us and we need to account for our actions when we finally get to meet Him. It was this accountability that perhaps made me what I am today. Little things like “annalakshmi will cry” or “Saami (God) will poke one’s eyes if one cheated etc. went a long way in training me to be fair minded and to appreciate that we had enough to eat while there were many others who went to bed hungry. It also helped me feel compassionate towards those in need.

Unlike my Christian friends we, in our family, were under no compulsion to pray on a regular basis or go to the temple on a particular day. But we were expected to leave all work and assemble in the room marked out for prayers when the puja was over and camphor was lit. Whenever it rained and thundered we’d close our eyes and pray saying “Arjuna abhayam” meaning that like Arjun of the Mahabharat we were also seeking the blessings of Lord Krishna who was saying ‘why fear when I am here?’ So albeit in a very subtle way, we were being inculcated into believing that our life was being monitored by God.

On growing up and having developed a logical mind I have often wondered whether those who do not believe in God have missed something and also whether the belief actually sustains those who do. I remember a conversation I had with a friend and colleague who had just lost a sister.

“God balances everything.” I had said. “When HE tries your faith by giving you cause to grieve, HE also rewards you by granting you something to rejoice over.”

“How do you say this didi?” she asked. “My mother lost her mother at the age of five and was raised by a step mother. She had a bad marriage and she divorced my father. She went through the trouble of educating us and getting us married. Just when she began to relax, my sister, an air hostess with a great future, was brutally murdered for dowry. The court lets her husband roam free due to lack of evidence and a girl, related to us, marries the man despite knowing the whole story. Where is the divine justice that you talk about?”

Her mother died two years later and I am still looking for answers.

A friend of mine lost her husband two years back and is yet to come to terms with it and accept the fact that death is the only sure thing about life and it can happen in any manner. She and her younger son who claim to be agnostics take medication for depression but the older son, who is a practicing Christian, firmly believes that his father is in heaven and is watching over him. His attitude is positive.

I do not reject the existence of God outright. I believe that there is god in each of us. The God within us is the voice of our conscience that keeps warning us when we go wrong. The Hindu philosophy, that our actions alone count and that one is accountable for bad karma, has been propounded after a lot of deep thinking. The welfare of society is maintained by this belief and people learn to deal with life’s blows thinking that the perpetrators of misery will have to answer for their misdeeds. They get on with their lives believing that God will take care of things. The same goes with Christian teachings that advices man to ‘do unto others what you would have others do unto you’. It helps one control negative vibes and refrain from deliberately harming others.I am sure that the Koran, Gurugranth and other religious books also say something similar.

But then all this applies to those of us who lead ordinary lives. The politician who siphons off millions and millions of public money seems to think that taxpayers are actually paying for him to invest in appropriate shady deals to an extent that he wouldn’t even remember the number of investments actually made by him. His PA would be entitled to own a dozen houses in posh localities and perhaps his gatekeeper would be a millionaire. The God within them is conveniently drugged and goes off to sleep like Rip Van Winkle.

I have not actually seen God. But I do meet his representatives from time to time. My maternal grandfather and uncle are personifications of God in my life. Thanks to them we grew up like other children without missing the presence of a father in our lives. My husband is being helped by a seventy year old man completely unknown to him till a few years back. This man is not a practicing advocate or a qualified lawyer yet he spends his time giving free legal advice to those who come to him. That he does not charge any fees for his services is one thing, he also arranges for lawyers, who like him are selfless and fight cases in the lower as well as high courts for a nominal fee. My husband’s was case filed in Jharkhand High court and the verdict was given in his favor. All this happened in 2006. We left for America soon after the case was filed and the lawyer took care of everything. My husband returned from America in about 5 months and came to know that the case had been disposed of in his favor. Can you believe that the entire process cost him only Rs. 3000/- ? We have not even met the lawyer in person. We are asked to see God in everything. I am not such a great soul to put this advice to practice. But I do see God in such people who can mint money if they choose to but refrain from doing so.

The God factor is important in that it helps one get past trying times. It enables us to accept unhappy and shattering experiences with equanimity and accept them as God’s will. Very often a shattering experience results in something better at a later stage and the bitterness felt earlier is forgotten. It does not matter which God or mentor one chooses to trust. What matters is that faith strengthens the mind and energizes the spirit. Agnostics and atheists place their faith in themselves which again is like trusting God because the scriptures say there is god in all things and before anything else, one is accountable to one’s own conscience. Life is but a chain of trust and the first link in the chain is the trust one places on him/herself.

STORY TIME

This is a piece that I wrote some 4 years back and it is special because it was my first published work. It was published in Woman's Era in 2005. It was saved in my computer and I was looking for something else and this one popped up. The kids in the story are my brother's daughters who have now grown up into responsible young girls with the older one doing her Dentistry in Coimbatore and the younger one planning to follow her soon. They are both trained in Bharatanatyam and re reading this piece makes me wish to go back in time and enjoy the days when they were kids in their pre - teens. i dedicate this post to their bright future.

As a fresh graduate I often entertained my younger siblings and their friends to a story session whenever there was a power cut in the locality. We would light a candle and form a circle around it and I would narrate to them stories selected from a wide and variable range. I was an avid reader so there was never a dearth of good fiction. These stories would be narrated with such fervor that my young wide-eyed audience would laugh or weep as the situation demanded. The hero, the villain, the step- mother, and all other characters in the story were real people and were critically analyzed during dinner -time. They would go on to suggest a different conclusion or a better treatment of the plot and feel thrilled when their idea was accepted. Those were days before the television made its entry into rural homes and this was a means of healthy entertainment.

My own children never came to me for stories. My father in law was a well-read man and he took charge of supervising their study time and home work each evening and would reward them with a story while I prepared dinner. The children looked forward to their story time and since it was conditional and subject to their finishing the given assignments, their studies were also simultaneously taken care of. For this purpose he would religiously read children’s fiction and fairy tales while I took it easy and thanked god for small mercies.

My earlier success as a story -teller encouraged me to try the same with the next generation and not realizing their potential I offered to tell them a story. The next generation comprised of my brother’s daughters Shruti and Shweta who were smart young girls studying in the primary section of a reputed school in Mumbai. They belonged to the digital age and had grown up watching TV! The story was from a movie I had watched as a schoolgirl and was the vernacular version of an English movie The parent trap. It was also one that I had earlier narrated to my younger brothers including the father of the two girls.
“A long time ago there were two sisters who were twins” I began.
“But how can sisters be TWINS?” Shweta asked.
“Be quiet! She means twin sisters.” Shruti the older one explained. I could not understand the difference however much I tried. Anyway I was grateful for her timely help and continued the story. “The older one was called….”
“But aunty you said they were twins” this was Shruti.
“She was older by a few minutes” I explained.
“By how many minutes?” interrupted Shweta.
“May be ten or twelve” I replied. “The sisters were called Lalli and Pappi.”
“I don’t like their names. They’re too old fashioned. I’ll suggest new names for them,” said Shruti.
“Me too” said Shweta.
After this I lost track of who was saying what. I just sat through the discussion that followed.
“I’ll call them Riya and Rini”
“Never ever! They’ll be called Anu and Vinu”
“Those are not real names. They’re only nicknames. Any way they sound stupid”
“They sound stupid to you because you’re stupid”
“Aunty! She’s calling me names”
“You started it silly!”
“Why don’t you get lost?”
“Why not YOU? You’re not wanted here any way.”
“Who are you to say it? This is my house and I’ll stay here as much as I want and as long as I wish to.”
“This is daddy’s house not yours”.
The debate continued for what seemed to me an eternity.
I felt lost and inept to arbitrate. My head started reeling and I had to call for their mother’s intervention. My own children had grown up and I had lost touch with children in their pre – teens. The mother knew exactly how to tackle them. She made them suggest a name each and solved their dispute in a minute. I felt like a fool.

The naming ceremony was over but I had no energy to continue. I seemed to have forgotten half the story and needed a cup of coffee to revive my spirits. I did not have the heart to let the children down so I continued with the story. I tried to impress upon them the efforts taken by the children in the story to bring their estranged parents together. The story did not seem to provoke emotions and perhaps the plot, to their minds, sounded outdated. This was a generation of SUPERMEN and SPIDERMEN and the world could be accessed at the press of a button. They may not have found the escapades of characters in the story interesting. I felt a little dejected over my failure as a storyteller. I left home to visit a friend planning to give up story telling for life. After a pleasant evening, spent at my friend’s place recalling our childhood days, I returned home at ten in the evening. To my greatest surprise the two little girls were waiting for me in the front room waiting to hear the next story! They had invited their cousin to sleep over and their beaming father told me that the girls were superb narrators and had since afternoon kept their friends entertained with a modified modern version of my story without destroying its essence. They had animated discussions about the plot and characters, found alternative methods to deal with the villain of the story. Their heroine for instance abandoned the old-fashioned post office route and communicated via e-mail and the villain did not bother to threaten the postman or snatch letters from the servant. He simply hacked passwords and deleted mails. My brothers who had a pleasant reminder of yester years joined their children to listen to yet another of my stories!

The experience however was an eye opener. Children would remain children and they had enjoyed the experience. I had worried in vain. I am now a grandmother and soon my grand daughter will be asking me for bedtime stories. Keeping pace with changing times I’ve asked Shruti and Shweta to update me with stories that the new additions to the family would prefer!

The 'other woman'

Of late I’ve been hearing a lot about the ‘other woman’ in a man’s life. A court verdict has ruled that a man’s second wife/partner is entitled to property rights just like his first wife and if I am not mistaken this applies to a live in relationship as well. I don’t want to go into the legalities of such an arrangement or argue whether such a verdict would or would not act as deterrent to the not so serious flings that men and women tend to have without the commitment that is called marriage. I merely wish to analyze whether it is okay to paint the mistress/second wife black and call her names just because she involved herself knowingly or unknowingly with a married man? Is there perhaps another side to the story? I know it is easy for me to offer my opinion having never faced such a situation but a few cases known to me make me wonder what went wrong and also if those of us who pass judgment are overlooking the trauma faced by the so called ‘other woman’.

As an undergrad student studying in Trichy some years back when I had neither age nor maturity I remember announcing that if my husband ever had an affair, I’d let him go and have nothing to do with him. There was no point, I argued, in continuing my relationship with a cheating husband. I’d show him the door……. We were actually analyzing the situation in a hit movie and our sympathies naturally lay with the unsuspecting, god like heroine who sang soulful songs to express her agony. She finally forgave the errant husband and the other woman was suitably punished.

My friend agreed heartily but added that she’d show him the door too but only after making life hell for him and his mistress. Others too agreed but suggested punishments like rolling him down the stairs, scooping out his eyeballs etc. etc.

But movies are movies and real life stories are different.

Take for instance the case of Veena (name changed) that took place 40 years back around the time we had the above mentioned argument. She was working in a multinational company and fell in love with her married boss and could do nothing about it. She married him against the advice of well wishers. Her parents in law sided with the first wife and the couple moved to the middle-east. She felt guilty about having wronged the first wife and decided not to have children of her own. Unfortunately her husband died. She continued to support his family-got his daughter married and educated his son. Now with the parents in law passing away, the two women live together and the children love her, if not more at least as much as they love their natural mother. Veena was related to me by marriage and I may be biased in my opinion of her. But I find it equally difficult to be harsh on D…….. who I know only from a distance.

D……. was at the receiving end of life’s blows. Her husband was an irresponsible sadist who troubled and tortured her day in and day out. She found solace in the company of a family friend and finally walked out of her marriage and married him who agreed to look after her daughters as well. She was of course highly criticized and I am afraid I too agreed to the view that walking out of an abusive marriage was one thing but marrying an already married man and disturbing his family life was quite another thing . I agree, hers was a marriage of convenience. I noticed that she had to be fiercely protective of her daughters and could not trust them to remain alone with the step father. Nothing in her life was easy. She educated her daughters, got them married and looked after their children while they went to work. She never for a moment kept them under the illusion that her husband was going to support them, the way a natural father would. There was an invisible line drawn and the girls rose to her expectations. It is not easy for grown up girls to support their mother under the circumstances but they did. She is no more and her husband has gone now back to his first family. The girls are happy attending to one another’s needs. They hardly have anything to do with their step father.

I sometimes wonder if she was happy with her choice. Wagging tongues and prying eyes notwithstanding, she perhaps wanted some protection from her first husband both for herself and her daughters. But even after marrying someone known to her she had to worry about their safety and could not bring herself to trust him. Somehow I am not as critical of her as before. One does not know the circumstances that led to her decision.

What are the circumstances that lead to extra marital relationships I wonder? We see highly educated qualified women agreeing to marry men who are already married and never accord them the same respect that they give their first wives. AG married D soon after her graduation. Her father sensed that all was not well and encouraged her to do her Masters and later to appear for the National Eligibility Test for lectureship. Educating girls and encouraging them to work was unheard of in her family. She realized that her husband was having an affair with a divorcee and walked out of the marriage with her children and took up a job in a new town. Today the second wife is insecure and keeps calling her to know the whereabouts of the husband! And despite the misery she caused, AG is inwardly sympathetic towards her. For all you know the man may be having an affair with a third woman, she says.

I can go on and on. It is easy for one to sympathize with the wronged woman. She deserves all the support that can be given to her. But what about the ‘other woman’?
She is neither respected nor supported. Her needs could have been emotional but who cares for her emotions? She is a home breaker and that’s it. Does anyone ever stop to think of the insecurity she may be experiencing? No one seems to criticize the man who abandons his first wife for whatever reason.

‘Men are like that only’ is the famous refrain. Either the first wife was not smart enough or the second wily, crafty and what not. No one seems to think that both of them cared enough for each other and were willing to face the outcome by marrying against all odds.

I hope I am not giving you the impression that I endorse extra marital affairs. Far from it I feel that in the unfortunate event of falling in love with an already married person, one should insist on proper divorce proceedings. Again I say that it is easy for me to sympathize with the women, having never faced the situation myself. Those who have, know the sorrow that inevitably follows and the sense of inadequacy that one feels for having let one’s husband go. This is not a black and white situation and there are several shades of grey that fall in between.

Gup Shap again

I know it is late but Happy Diwali all the same. I hope you all had a nice and safe Deepavali.I reached home just a day before Deepavali so we made it very, very
simple.

It has been a long time since I posted anything on my blog. I think I am going through one of those lethargic phases when one just does not feel like doing anything. The trip to the south was exhausting and made me pledge never to fit in so much of travel in future trips. Considering the accident prone world we live in I am glad to have returned to my niche in a single piece. In Karnataka it appeared as if the rains followed us giving us just enough time to leave a place before creating havoc there. Unfortunately we were unable to enjoy the natural beauty of the western ghats since we were holed up in a hotel room most of the time.

I had high hopes of meeting Suranga, Usha, Aarthi, Srijith and Riti during this trip. Lack of communication was the only reason for missing out Suranga and Srijith who live within walking distance of the place I was staying in Mumbai and Chennai. As for Srijith I felt lousy staring at an apartment complex near Balaiyya garden bus stop and wondering whether he actually lived there. I must have crossed the place at least twice a day but I did not have his phone number and I was being punished for my laid back attitude. Sorry folks, there will be a next time and that is a promise

Coming back to Jamshedpur feels good. Where else can one leave home at 10:15 AM and reach one’s workplace before 10:30 AM? Where else can one go on long winding walks for an hour and return all set and fresh to take on another day? I can hear my brothers and sister both natural and by marriage call me a ‘pattikkadu’ (villager) unaccustomed to smart city ways. True, we all get used to a particular life style and claim it to be the best. Every time I meet my folk I am under a kind of dilemma as to whether I should continue in Jamshepur after retirement or move out to Chennai, Bangalore or Mumbai. But city life baffles me and finally I decide that our good old Jampot is the best place for an ageing couple to spend the final lap of their life on earth.

Post retirement I need to take up an assignment and absent myself for at least 5 hours each day. Or else my husband is going to drive me nuts and I’ll be churning out sob stories in my blog. I had copied out a piece on ‘Golden Retirement’ 3 years back and like the lady who authored the piece I think I am going to have him velcroed to my hips if I dared to stay home. Can you imagine the areas in which he awaits my response are?

I’d have returned from college and would be relaxing in my bedroom with a magazine in hand.

HIM: I am going for milk.

ME: Okay.

HIM: I am going for milk.

ME: Please do. And take the keys with you. I may doze off to sleep

HIM: What did you say?
I ignore the question. He has almost reached the door and comes back just to ask if I had said something. I could not have asked for a cuter husband but I really wish he could just go and get the milk instead of waiting for my approval in matters that don’t matter at all.

Jokes apart, I don’t blame him. There was a time when we had to worry about so many things. A child’s admission, hostel bills, father in law’s health concerns etc. etc. There now seems to be a sudden void in our lives. That brings home another realization. When a person has nothing to look forward to, one’s life becomes monotonous and boring. That is exactly why his concern touches my heart.

Did you take your medicines?

It is getting cold. Why not wear a half sweater?

I am drawing out my quarterly interest from the post office. Shall I deposit a part of it in your account?

The questions continue and they are important because they sustain us. The phone rings and I pick it up.

He appears at the door.

Who? He gestures.

My friend. I reply.

He goes off nodding his head.

To those of you leading a busy life these things may not matter. May be not yet. But to us it reiterates the fact that we need to remain fit and well if not for ourselves at least for the other person. We have made ourselves so very interdependent that very often he says something that I was just about to say. This brings to my mind another malaise that seems to have inflicted society of late - couples opting to separate in the twilight of their lives. I recently heard of a person known to me with grown up and married children opting out of marriage. They may or may not go for a divorce but they certainly prefer to lead separate lives. Each one says that the other is free to come and stay with him/her but on his/her terms and conditions. When I discuss this with friends they say that people are more honest these days. Why put up with an arrangement that is no longer agreeable? There is some logic in this argument but is this the right solution? Like one says that children earlier put up with their parents since their common property generated the income that was required to support their families. It no longer holds in a society where parents see to it that children reach dizzy heights saying that their children should never go through the hardship they once faced. Parents too have set aside enough to lead an independent life post retirement. There is no question of anyone adjusting with the other person. But isn’t it taking things too far when a wife or husband refuses to be part of the other’s life at a time when there is an acute need for meaningful companionship? I’ve known children supporting the mother and abandoning their father. Perhaps they feel that a mother’s presence in their homes would be more useful to their working wives than their father’s who would do nothing but occupy the front room reading the day’s newspaper.

Be it as it may I still subscribe to the view that old age is meant to be spent together whatever be one’s differences in day to day life. As for me I cannot imagine life without the domineering presence of my old man so what if he bugs me with irrelevant questions all the time.