IgnoRantus

Just as I reach the crescendo of fretting about gender play at work and the related dynamics I hear about the New Zealand bird called Kea. Keas are clever birds that bend rules and create their own to adapt to the constantly changing world. The strategy seems fair, but unless it is tried and tested in a particular work environment one can never tell. It’s tough being a woman at work. And an ambitious one at that. An ambitious woman is almost an oxymoron. How dare she be ambitious? Does she not care for her husband and children? Does she not know what is good for her? These are not openly proclaimed, but implied in every deed and word.

The very fact of being female closes political doors, I am completely at a loss as to decipher the hieroglyphics on the walls or to decode secret languages. I am rudely shoved into unfamiliar terrain, nobody sympathises because this is what is in store for ambitious women. A young male is equally a novice in office politics but is clued on earlier into the dynamics of male interrelationship because that is what, unfortunately for me, a present day workplace largely is.

I am picking up, though. And fast. In time I fear I will be so much an expert at playing slick smooth political games that I might end up hating myself. A large part of career progression is about histrionics. Men do that, women hesitate to do that - I think. Arse licking is something that men do discreetly, going out for a drink with the boss and doing small and big favours for him and generally getting to know him socially and collectively leching at other women, which form the cornerstone of male camaraderie and bonding. Women are denied that window of opportunity to interact thus. Those who do go out for a drink with the boys run the risk of being seen as easy and willing to sleep to the top. And though one may care two hoots about what others think, such an image is a sure fire way to career suicide. If one is serious about reaching the policy making levels, ie.

I do not know if I am ever going to reach the policy making levels. I am not happy with the trillion restrictions I place on myself, but when I try to think outside of those restrictions my mind screams at me to get a life. The very notion of being a servile, sycophantic hyena who gnaws on discarded bones to start with and just waits for an opportunity to ease into the charmed inner circle of the jungle king is anathema to my soul. Career is slavery. You are a slave to all the bosses, but you swallow your ego for the paycheque and for the sake of future opportunities, and take it out on your subordinates when it gets too much. And therefore the restrictions that cut blood flow to my normal real person life for the sake of a career seem meaningless and soul selling. I do not know if men feel this way at all. Or are men so conditioned as to ignore such things at work? Just as women are conditioned to compromise and adjust? And maybe such conditioning is good?

By the Sea (1)

The wind, with its salt precipitate, tangles tiny knots in my hair. You sit across me, no words are spoken, thoughts are lost amidst the ruckus of inebriated table mates. You are lost in polite conversation. I sit looking directly at you. Every so often you glance at me, your eyelids seem weighed down by those heavy, black lashes. When I am with you, I do not mind the taste of beer, I gulp it down and the aftertaste is like I have chewed on a mouthful of straw. Conversation drifts to your new mobile, you explain its features, all excited, your fingers fly over the keypad. “Look at the picture clarity”, you say, and pass the mobile around for inspection. At my turn I politely flick through the photographs till it stops at hers.

My face must have drained itself of blood, for you crane your neck to see what I am looking at and as your eyes meet mine I see a thousand words in them, but I am suddenly stripped of the ability to read. My hands tremble and the phone clatters down. Nobody notices. Except you. No one knows. Except you. I stay the required few moments to maintain the semblance of normalcy and then step out of the shack. The sea is black, the wind stings, there is salt on my lips.

My shoulders are slouched and my head is bent. I walk with hands in my jeans pocket to keep them from trembling. I reach the edge of the ocean and I stop, the surf dies at my feet. Tears stream down my face and my despair is absolute. I don’t wince, I don’t sob, I can’t even decide if I feel anything, yet grief wells out from my eyes as if from a spring. I don’t question why. I am just overcome by the impurity that another person’s shadow cast on us. Now, we will never be perfect, we have been sullied, we are not pure. Then my soul starts screaming your name and I picture myself running along the shore, wailing.

For a while, I do not realize you have followed me, mired deep as I am in what has transpired. You stand next to me, barefoot, arms folded across your chest, body weight balanced on your left leg. Even in the defensive stance, I notice how beautiful your profile is, and become aware of how magnetically drawn I am to the spiky bursts of energy around you, your maleness. And I have lost you, for we are no longer pure, we have been defiled by the name, the thought, the presence of another person.

That does not mean I do not love you. I do. I do love you, but I must leave. Because we have been sullied, we are no longer pure. And before I say goodbye I must ensure I cause you no misery or guilt. So I say, “I’m just being silly. It’s okay”, and stretch my mouth into a smile, taking care that it reflects in my eyes. I don’t know if I succeed. And you say, “I love you.”

I do smile a little now. My sadness is unbearable. “No, I understand. It really is okay”

“I love you”

“You don’t have to explain. It’s not meant to be anyway”

“I love you”

I giggle at that, “See! It’s okay. I am a big girl. I’m okay. Don’t worry”

“I love you”

I go on mumbling inanities and you punctuate each bit of in-between silence with an ‘I love you’. Then I stop, you take my name and say that you love me and god knows how much you want to be with me and that you love me some more.

My love, my love, my heart is a garden over which you love blows as a gentle breeze. I will come to no harm when you are with me. Every ‘I love you’ that rolls from your lips is carried by the wind. If I ever feel sad again a merciful breeze shall gently drape those words around me.

When we leave, the catamarans are motes of yellow that bob along the horizon.

Gah

At the start of his career, he was my favourite. I loved his dimples and his black eyes. I have grown out of the teenager crush, nonetheless I could still be biased when it comes to him. But I have a sneaky suspicion I could be right, for I think I saw immense compassion and understanding in his eyes. Those were the eyes of an honest man who respects and cherishes what he has, a man who can identify with and relate to the evolvement of the same spectrum of emotions in another.

Or am I still such a fool as to be taken in by the charms of a black eyed sorcerer? After all that life has taught me, after such vehement assertions as Ne humanus crede, am I still a patsy for liquid, black eyes? The thought is so depressing I might be driven to suicide. Gah!

Secret Admirer Club

I was once an active member of the said club. Though the thought of it makes me want to crawl into a ditch and never come out, I confess, yes yes, I did admire a guy once - secretly. The works. I was a bloody fool. He never knew I existed. To add insult to injury, during the course of my all consuming admiration, I had never set my eyes on him. To this day I do not know what he looks like.

I was 14 then, and driven by the need to belong to some sort of a clique, any clique, I found myself firmly entrenched in one. I must confess I was never any good at social networking. I was mostly in my own world, but painfully aware of the fact that people around me seemed to quite easily form tightly knit friend groups. I knew I was supposed to be part of one of those too, but lacked the necessary skills and sense of direction as to how to go about it. And so, when a random sisterhood evinced a keen desire to open its doors to let me in, I obliged gratefully.

They were a nice bunch of kids. Fun to be with, but not weird. So as soon as I learnt when and how to keep my mouth shut, we got along famously. We never christened our group, on hindsight I think we should have, after all how often would one have an opportunity to belong to a ‘Famous Five’ or a ‘Svelte Seven’?

S was an established member of the gang. She and I grew especially close to each other because of some special connections; both of us were from the same part of the world, we were both Christians and Catholics to boot. She was very artistic, I remember she made the most beautiful crepe paper roses. She was good with her needlework too, in the craft sessions.

There was a grotto in the school, with a huge tree providing a largish area of shade. We spent lunch breaks under the tree, playing silly hop scotch games and talking nonsense. Shared details about our family, the movies we saw, gossiped about the nuns and teachers and generally whiled away time. At the sacred grotto, one day S announced, “I’d like Ul Rt to marry you. That would make you part of my family, and we can be together forever”. Ul Rt was her cousin brother. Supposed to be quite a dude, from what she told us. Studying in St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore. Single and unattached. Quite a catch.

I was quite happy to acquiesce. Well, I had to get married someday, the sooner the better. And my parents wouldn’t have a problem getting me married to a Catholic doc, would they? How perfect it all was.

But there was one slight problem. I was only 14. And he had just joined St. Johns. We couldn’t possibly get married for another 5 years. S was too young to take a marriage proposal home for her brother. With much anguish, we all decided to stay put and wait for the required number of years to pass before any further steps were taken.

S always promised to bring snaps of Ul Rt, but she brought only one and it was a blurred image of a crowd. She pointed out a splotch of yellow and said, “That’s him. The one wearing the yellow shirt”.

Then we went our separate ways, joined our respective colleges, S and I went to different ones. She got into a place I badly wanted to be in, but I was sent to an all girls college, no undue influences from a co-ed ought to ruin a young impressionable mind as mine, non? I was this devoted almost-wife of Ul Rt, I imagined him to look like a handsome model who appeared in the cheeky Moods Condoms ad of yore. I cut out a picture of him from a magazine and stuck it inside my cupboard, lipstick mark on his cheek. Ironically the ad was of a shirt that portrayed a bohemian outlook and the caption read, “Marriage is an institution, but tell me, who in their right minds would ever want to live in an institution”.

I collected assorted junk in a shoe box, I put in the letters from S in which she proclaimed her interest in getting us married, flower petals, small handmade cards, every tiny little bit of memorabilia, which we were to nostalgically open during our romantic honeymoon. I also sent him secret admirer cards.

Ul Rt,
St. John’s College,
II year MBBS,
Bangalore.

I wonder if he ever got them. I wonder if he ever wondered who this crazy female was. But I know now that if he got those juvenile cards, he would have felt happy, he would have smiled. I know, for I have felt happy, I have also smiled when I got my share of SA cards.

I only wish I had seen him once, just once. Because I still do not know what he looks like.

Woman Pastors? Sacrilege!

This post is dedicated to you, asshole, for your very earnest attempts in cogitation. But, I’d advise, for your sake, STOP! Too much thinking and the agitation thereby might cause the few tiny, deformed grey cells to explode inside the hollow cavern propped on your neck.

Those who watch (or flick through) the GOD channel, would be familiar with Joyce Meyer, the firebrand lady, preaching the word of God towards the noble cause of proselytization. I am not in agreement with the banalities that she utters on TV, I am quite emphatically not on her side in the matters of religion and God. And according to an online article which puts forth extremely enlightened views on whether a woman should be allowed to preach the word of God, Joyce Meyer is blatantly disobeying 1 Timothy 2:12 specifically. Now look at my predicament, first of all she preaches and substantiates the pressing need for ghost worship to save my soul, and to compound that, she has encroached into the purely male territory of preaching bullshit!!! Wonly men are allowed to do that, you.. you woman!

The article in question (written by the asshole to whom the post is humbly dedicated) points out the sacred passage from 1 Timothy 2:12. “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man”. Now what can I say to that, it being the holy word and all!

This is followed up by a woman believer who holds a direct pass to heaven.

She says “1 Timothy 2:11 Let a woman learn by listening quietly and being ready
to cooperate in everything. But I do not allow a woman to teach or to have
authority over a man, but to listen quietly, because Adam was formed first and
then eve. And Adam was not tricked, but the woman was tricked and became a
sinner. But she will be saved through having children if they continue in faith,
love and HOLINESS, with self control.

I am a woman..If God wanted woman
to preach i believe he would have made woman first to be the head of a man..but
instead we were created for mans pleasure...and men were created for GODS
pleasure...so we as women need to keep in mind GOD loves a virtuos
woman..knowing our reason we were created will not only allow us to step aside
and allow GODS work to be done, but will allow it to be done in order. God is
not the author of confusion...But gives us his wisdom”

I am truly appalled by such ignorance and lack of self worth. Even among prawn scum, guy prawn scum are better than girl prawn scum?

I have just three words to say to these losers. Shove it up!

Leash

I was brought up on a diet of all good things that contributed to the smooth running of society. Compromise. Sacrifice. Love. Faith. God. Rules. Marriage. Monogamy. Sanctity. Reputation. What will people say. Everything that a normal, middle class Indian female should ingest and digest.

I have ingested, digested and how. But those that I digested earlier, poisons me now. The others I simply cannot digest.

Isn’t there a limit to how society can fuck one up? Those attempting to get out of the fucked up mess are further drawn into it and badgered to conformity. Unfortunately, so long as establishing rules and boundaries remains the only way to ensure even a semblance of civility, badgering and torturing will also remain.

In a world that is run by Oog the caveman’s faithful descendants, what are women but prized possessions and symbols of Oog’s virility. Cattle. Women. Oil. Guns. Nuclear toys. Servile women pampered like pooches that are given manicures and salon treatments. They also wear visible symbols of ownership on them. Red on the forehead - proud display that she is a desirable woman who has been taken and fucked and since already fucked by one Oog not to be fucked by any other. Miniature handcuffs that masquerade as rings. Rings on fingers and toes and the nose. But the icing on the cake is the Leash that is worn around the neck. Just as faithful, domesticated pets sport collars around their necks – ranging from simple leather belts to diamond encrusted ones for the uber lucky – we women flaunt the symbols of our servitude. And what’s most horrifying is the sincere belief in its glory, purity and power.

Women I know worship the leash by anointing it with turmeric and vermillion. They never take it off their necks. Even educated (virtuous) women wear it proudly and get visibly nervous at the thought of not wearing it even for a day. It reminds them of their warm home, caring husband, family, children, purpose of existence and love. All it reminds me is of a dog. And I am not.

We don't need no Freedom of Expression

O Great Spotted Arses of Elected Representatives, Fart on us kindly, give us only what our tiny brains can process, for our heads are full of shit and we don’t think, receptacles for your bowel movements that we are. We are unable to distinguish between good and bad, unable to choose, so dole out all thoughts and feelings neatly packaged, and labelled in big bold letters. Then, without much ado, we may pry open a label named indignation and may bristle with it, without stooping to tax our precious few brain cells with the trivial matter of understanding the reason for it or analysing or accepting a view different from what you have benevolently labelled right, O Great Arse. Smack Smack.

Womb Poetry

Recently I came across a website called ‘Womb Poetry’ – it’s an online journal/zine (they’re not sure which), and it’s ‘poetry for everybody’, written by women (only). Why the name ‘Womb’? Because they like the word, the etymology and the figurative/connotative properties of the word.

A contributor says one such connotation is that womb is a birthing place. So it has a reference to creativity - create, nurture, which only women can do. A woman, I am made to understand, is born with the fierce and intense longing to find the right mate to create the most beautiful and meaningful thing in the universe – a life. Like the beautiful Natasha Henstridge she scours the streets for a mate who would be the ideal chromosome sharer. She fucks him merely to get his sperm firmly embedded in the womb (those who fuck just for pleasure are nymphomaniacs). I am told that women are driven by that desire (or are supposed to be) and self-actualisation for a woman is when she gives birth. She suffers the most terrible pain in the world to create a thing of beauty, a bundle of joy.

The woman has been revered through the ages as the goddess - patient, kind, benevolent goddess; she suffers in silence for the greater good of humanity. Take for example a typical household, which is run by two partners, the man – the provider, protector and the woman – the nurturer and sufferer. Without such a clear-cut distinction that so lucidly charts out boundaries and roles, the delicate equilibrium called ‘family’ would wobble precariously and plunge to sure destruction. It is the woman who holds the fort up - though the man is and forever will be the Lord and the Master – she is the one who sticks a finger in the axle of a chariot wheel, so it may not collapse. The Master exalts her for such benevolence, and even worships her (as long as she knows her place and remains there).

A woman unwilling to stick her finger in the axle and who does not attain Nirvana while giving birth is a harlot, no doubt.

I mean no disrespect to the eminently capable poets/writers who contribute to the online womb journal. But personally, it is not my cup of tea.

My point of view is that a woman calling herself a Womb or choosing to define her identity thus, is as uninspiring as a man calling himself Testicles.