A Choice of the Feminine

  

It was Women's Day. A house-wife was sitting with her daughter on the diwan cot. The sun was blazing its heat outside, some of it pouring into the house from the half-open door. 

She had finished cooking. The tip of her forehead was dripping with sweat. It decorated the bottom of her scalp like a paapidi billa. That was normal, she told herself. Her body ached with tiredness. That was also normal, she told herself. She was draped in turquoise, a colour that clung to her tired body in the form of a cotton saree. Normal.

 But today was going to be different. After all, it was Women's Day. 

She sat with a quiet expectation, more like a spark of hope swelling in her chest. Maybe today she would be appreciated. Maybe today was the day she didn't need to keep the sunlight out, keep the windows closed, dishes clean, floor spotless, curtains soft, bones working, heart shut out.

You would think she was being forced to overwork. You would think she didn't love her family. Oh no, she did. "Love is the foremost quality that makes a woman gentle and feminine." her mother used to tell her. 

But she had dreams. Dreams bigger than love, bigger than keeping a family fed, bigger than the four walls she was enclosed within each day. Her heart had desires way bigger than keeping the steel plates twinkling, the floors shining, the creases of her saree in place so that it hugged her in the right places. 

She wanted to be a singer. 

As a little girl, she remembered rushing off to the field each morning, singing her heart out along to the old tape recorder her grandpa gave her, and the only audience she had were the lush green trees enclosing her. They didn't feel like a wall, or a boundary, or a restriction, those trees. They felt like a safe space. A space where she could be herself. A space that stayed loyal to her.

And maybe, just maybe, that space was still inside her to this day. And it's not just about the trees or the tape recorder or the fields. It's about the little girl who sang her heart out, the soul that felt truly alive, the tunes she used to get lost in. Lost. Truly lost in her own world. But not the type of lost that made her confused or scared or sad. The type of lost that made her want to get lost everyday. The type that made her wonder was else was lurking behind a happy mind, what melodies she loved the most, what else made her lips smile and her eyes light up in joy the way singing did. 

"Ma?" her daughter called, interrupting her thoughts. 

"Yes, dear?" she replied a little jumpily, as though being interrupted from a deep sleep.

"Ma, what do you want for Women's Day?"

The woman paused. She hesitated, opened her mouth to spew something out, then closed it before it could make any sound. Her daughter continued to look into her eyes attentively, as though urging her to go on.

She didn't know what to ask. She didn't know if she could say that she wanted to sing. Would it be possible? If she focused on that, who would look after the house? After all, love is the foremost quality that makes a woman gentle and feminine. Her mother had taught her that. 

But did love mean abandoning your desires? 

"My dear..." she began, and then her voice trailed off. She couldn't understand what had made her so hesitant. 

And that's when something hit her.

She wanted to sing, yes, but before that, she wanted to feel comfortable and confident with having her own choices and desires.

"I want to feel strong." she said suddenly. "That's all I want this Women's Day." 

Her daughter looked at her a little questioningly. 

"I want to feel as though I have my own choice, dear," she went on. "That's what I meant to say," she said, looking into her daughter's eyes without a trace of hesitation. 

The daughter stared back blankly, until a light smile begin to play at her lips. "Finally recognizing your own desires, are you?". 

She scooted closer on the diwan cot and hugged her mother tightly. The mother stroked her hair with her delicate fingers. She had understood.

"I know exactly how to make you feel that way." the daughter said, bouncing back from the embrace. 

"Feel what way?" the mother asked. 

"Feel like you have your own choice, Ma." the daughter said. She scurried off to the tiny bedroom and began foraging for clothes. She threw every cotton saree on the floor as she continued to search. 

"Baccha!" she called softly, but for once, she didn't want to shout, didn't want to fold the clothes and be the one who had to put them back in place. She let them fall from the dusty cupboards. She watched each one come flying out of the tiny bedroom while her daughter continued to forage. 

The mother waited. She waited in hope of feeling strong. She waited in hope of finding herself again.

Her daughter came back. Not with a tape recorder, or a radio, or a cotton saree. Not with a fragrant rose with dew drops on the leaves, petals falling off delicately onto the floor. No, it was something else entirely.

The daughter stood there clutching her father's shirt. 

Her mother gazed at the piece of cloth. 

"Wear this." her daughter said softly. 

The mother couldn't understand.

"Wear this, Ma." the daughter repeated. "Wear this to feel strong. Wear it to feel like you have your own choice."

The mother stood staring at her husband's shirt before slowly taking it into her hands.

 Why?

And that's when it hit her.  

Her husband had always the one making decisions in the house. And that, according to her daughter, made him strong. He always had a choice of his own. 

It all made sense. The mother's hands clung to the shirt as though it was her anchor as she rushed off to the tiny bedroom. And a few moments later, she was no longer draped in a turquoise cotton saree, but in a dark shade of burgundy with worn-out white buttons. 

It felt right, wearing her husband's shirt and gazing triumphantly at herself in the mirror. "A mustache would complete the look," she thought to herself. 

And then that's when she realized, as she was smoothing out the wrinkles of the shirt, that nothing had ever, ever, felt so wrong.

"No," she whispered to herself, nodding at her reflection in the mirror. "No."

Because why did wanting strength and freedom of choice mean that someone had to be masculine?

Why was standing here wearing her husband's shirt, thinking that she was being strong? Why did a female had to let go of her feminity and be someone else before she could have her own choice? In order words, why did she have to be masculine to have a worthwhile identity?

So she took the shirt off, wore her turquoise saree again, came out of the bedroom, turned on the old tape recorder her grandfather gave her when she was a little girl, and sang with her daughter until the sun set down, the sky turned dark, but the windows stayed open, and they never closed, just like her heart's desires.