The world is defined as a stage and people as actors. We all play roles, take charge, change to situations, act to advantage and so on and so forth. It’s a talent today, they commonly call it ‘multi tasking’.
I got reminded of one of those typical, laid back and no purpose conversations at home. These happen in holidays when most of us are at home and we talk about old stories. This is a time when everybody talks a lot especially my grandmom. There is something extremely divine about the way ‘grand moms’ look. They have a glow in their faces exuberant of holiness and this terrific immature smile of childishness, as if old age is childhood regained. She was easily in that category. A quick conversation with her, and she drives us down her memory lane, remembering her childhood and life after that. She starts off about her pre independence life and the big job her dad had those days in madras. It was a big deal to own a car and a phone and they were one of the few families who did back then. ‘I Was 14 when I got married’ she recalls with a chuckle and a vague remembrance of the day. While speaking of a typical day during peak life, she said ‘I had 8 kids at home. All in the age difference of one or two years. We normally have at least 20 people to eat. I had to bathe all my kids, cook food for them, pack food for my husband and manage the house work’. She also added in a due pride ‘We had a cook then, we were a little rich.’ I just breathed a sigh. I took a few minutes aside and just recounted what I heard. Having said all this, these are the genre of people who have no regrets in the way they spent their lives whatsoever.
Of course, we now belong to a new age, a different era. We work on modes of redefined aspirations and compete for privileges, rights, act and what not. We are the new age women sans discrepancies and gender bias. We don’t understand the ‘Only men can’ way of things and we thrive in the same space where Anuradha Vaidhyanathan qualifies for Half-Iron man. I wonder if this is what Bharathiyar meant when he called us ‘Pudhumai Penn’. We definitely have come a long way. We have sailed through the beaten torn tracks and swam our way into the safer zones.
But, amidst all this is there something that we still carry from the yester years? Is there something common in you and your grand mom? A vibe that connects both of you? I guess there is. It’s the congenital womanhood, the quality that defines and identifies every woman. It’s that wave that connects us and gets us going in 2 minutes of an ice breaker, the same vibe that lets us be the achievers we are today. I strongly feel that women those days were no less a multi-taskers than any CEO today. Only the way we define success has been changed and we are catering to the new definition. We define the woman of today as someone who plays multiple roles mom, girlfriend, wife, professional. It really isn’t a big deal because it’s just innate in her to do it. That is the way she is made and she loves to live with it. Look around you and there are millions of women catering to every aspect of her multiplicity every day in life. Right from your mom at home to the girl in your adjacent cubicle!
Happy woman’s day!!
I got reminded of one of those typical, laid back and no purpose conversations at home. These happen in holidays when most of us are at home and we talk about old stories. This is a time when everybody talks a lot especially my grandmom. There is something extremely divine about the way ‘grand moms’ look. They have a glow in their faces exuberant of holiness and this terrific immature smile of childishness, as if old age is childhood regained. She was easily in that category. A quick conversation with her, and she drives us down her memory lane, remembering her childhood and life after that. She starts off about her pre independence life and the big job her dad had those days in madras. It was a big deal to own a car and a phone and they were one of the few families who did back then. ‘I Was 14 when I got married’ she recalls with a chuckle and a vague remembrance of the day. While speaking of a typical day during peak life, she said ‘I had 8 kids at home. All in the age difference of one or two years. We normally have at least 20 people to eat. I had to bathe all my kids, cook food for them, pack food for my husband and manage the house work’. She also added in a due pride ‘We had a cook then, we were a little rich.’ I just breathed a sigh. I took a few minutes aside and just recounted what I heard. Having said all this, these are the genre of people who have no regrets in the way they spent their lives whatsoever.
Of course, we now belong to a new age, a different era. We work on modes of redefined aspirations and compete for privileges, rights, act and what not. We are the new age women sans discrepancies and gender bias. We don’t understand the ‘Only men can’ way of things and we thrive in the same space where Anuradha Vaidhyanathan qualifies for Half-Iron man. I wonder if this is what Bharathiyar meant when he called us ‘Pudhumai Penn’. We definitely have come a long way. We have sailed through the beaten torn tracks and swam our way into the safer zones.
But, amidst all this is there something that we still carry from the yester years? Is there something common in you and your grand mom? A vibe that connects both of you? I guess there is. It’s the congenital womanhood, the quality that defines and identifies every woman. It’s that wave that connects us and gets us going in 2 minutes of an ice breaker, the same vibe that lets us be the achievers we are today. I strongly feel that women those days were no less a multi-taskers than any CEO today. Only the way we define success has been changed and we are catering to the new definition. We define the woman of today as someone who plays multiple roles mom, girlfriend, wife, professional. It really isn’t a big deal because it’s just innate in her to do it. That is the way she is made and she loves to live with it. Look around you and there are millions of women catering to every aspect of her multiplicity every day in life. Right from your mom at home to the girl in your adjacent cubicle!
Happy woman’s day!!
2 comments:
haha! this article was really beautiful, i was wondering why you dint put it up here..
:)
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