The Sisterhood

I recently saw a magazine cover with a photo of priyanka Chopra and a tag line – ‘women for women’. The description said priyanka Chopra is promoting a sisterhood. It was probably in the context of ‘me too’ movement but that made me think and reflect on how much do we actually support/encourage a fellow woman in our families, neighborhood, friend circles and at work.

Take an example, imagine that one of your friends (a woman) shares her story of how she got a promotion and how she is now working with a top notch company at the management level or shares photos of their amazing holidays in an exotic country. Or imagine your mother-in-law cooks something delicious or does a beautiful painting.

What do we feel? Do we feel jealous? Sad that we can’t share something like this ? Annoyed that she is showing off? Judgemental that if someone is successful at work then she must be neglecting her family?As a woman do we give heart felt praise or do we hold up/ downplay it? Or do we just feel happy and inspired? Firstly let me tell you that these are all normal emotions/actions. Any average human being irrespective of gender can feel any of these emotions and can react in this way.

For example consider jealousy and sadness. These are the most basic emotions of all. You start to feel these as a child right when you are a toddler and when you don’t even know what emotions are. Any child feels jealous when they see another child with a toy that they would like to have. As we grow up our mind is conditioned to hide or dismiss these emotions as soon as we feel it. But it doesn’t work all the time. The result is a lose-lose situation. We end up feeling low and we knowingly/unknowingly transfer that feeling to the other person who is sharing his/her success story.

As a child however our feelings are gender/age neutral. It doesn’t matter who is holding a toy we want. As we grow up bias can get built inside us. There are some studies that showed women take a success of opposite gender better than their own gender. ‘Queen bee syndrome’ term has also been coined in few studies.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41165076

Statistically significant or not my personal observation is lot of women can be overcritical/judgemental about other women. And if this is your observation as well then clearly us women are making it more difficult for ourselves to fulfill our aspirations while putting up against the age old gender disparity that we have to live with.

So what should we do about it? How do we deal with these emotions that are in-built in us but are not helping us. My solution to this is – to build self assurance.

Self assurance acts like a shield. It shields you from other person’s negativity and it prevents you from burdening negativity onto others. But building self assurance is a long process.

I hit the rock bottom in my life in the second year of my university. My father passed away after a long battle with illness and we were financially broke. Unfortunately I came across people who judged me and wrote me off. When opinions are narrated few times it feels like facts. It had a deep impact on me at that vulnerable times. It was not easy to break that mental barrier. Thankfully I had a little voice inside me which would question these opinions. I refused to believe these judgements.

However the journey from self pity to self assurance wasn’t an overnight journey. It took me years and I am still working on it. Over these years I understood that we need to feed ourselves the ‘right content’.

So what is the ‘right content’? The right content is anything that reminds you of your journey in your life so far. From where you have started to where you are at present. The successes and the setbacks you have had to overcome e.g. completing education, going through a tough pregnancy, fighting an illness, progressing in a job. But there is an important caveat, while doing this you must not gauge and categorise these in a small or a big success. Such categorisation is not fair as it is always done by comparison with some other person. We do not compare bird’s ability to fly with fish’s ability to swim. So why do we need to compare our success with other person’s who’s life journey may be completely different to ours ? You just need plane recollection of the key milestones in your life. How you achieved what you have achieved? What is it that you dreamt for your life – is it to bring the best out of your family? Is it to enable confident and kind children? Is it to be a CEO of a company or to be entrepenure? Or is it all of it!

What is important is that these goals are yours! Not your friends, not your colleagues. Just yours! So when you focus inwards on your life goals it levels out the field. You realise that everyone is running their own track and everyone has their own goal post. That realisation, in my view is the first sign that the process of building self assurance has started.

When this realisation happens you do not feel obliged to meet the standards set by someone else. You do not feel obliged to take part let alone try to win the race which is not yours. Your focus turns into your life expectations which makes you compete with yourself.

So does it mean we should be complacent and give up our competitive spirit which is also one of the basic nature of being human? Absolutely not! Complacency does not allow us to use our full potential. It restricts us from taking risks and to push our boundaries. If we really want to live to our fullest ability we must push boundaries and we must look up to others, but as a source of motivation and inspiration. Not as a source of sadness or jealousy. If we feel happy for someone’s success then we feel inspired. And when we feel inspired we push our own boundaries. And when we push our our boundaries we get sense of achievement. This way we transfer positive vibes to other people and that completes the whole circle. That is a win-win situation!

So where to start? The next time you hear your friends/acquantances success, give them heart felt praises, kind words and appreciation. Don’t stop at just formalities of saying ‘congratulation’. At the same time think about how can you take inspiration from it in the context of your own race. What can you do better to achieve your own goal post ? When you do it few times, your brain will get into the habit of feeling inspired and feelings like jealousy will stay at the bay.

P.S. – The cover photo is the beautiful sketch drawn by mother Maya Kulkarni and is her copyright!

As always this post applies certain assumptions on a generic level and is based on my personal observation. I do not suggest that ALL women feel jealous with each others success or that men doesn’t feel the same. Like everything there are exceptions to it.

Navrya Samor thoda kami pana ghe…

‘Navrya Samor thoda kami pana ghe to Jasta Prem Karel‘. I heard this recently in one of the videos on Youtube. I laughed at that time but deep down, in my heart, I felt a profound anger and a strong urge to punch the person saying this.

Statements like these not only reinforce the ideology of a woman as secondary to the man, but also snatch the independence of a woman to express her opinions. They attempt to not just avert a sense of pride from her but also make her feel guilty for being better in something than a man.

Statements like these preach that the only divine objective of a woman’s life is to earn as much love as possible from her man and the only way of obtaining it is to remain subdued and even foolish at times.

Such statements which may appear to be insignificant on the face of it can push us, as a society many steps away from that one basic right all human beings are entitled to and that is the right to be treated as equals.

The irony is that a statement like this harms men as well. It demeans a man to an ego centric person who has a strong biological need to be superior to a woman. It doesn’t matter if it is only a perception of superiority and not a reality. Those men who understand this irony do not support such statements. They are the feminists. Those who don’t, well, they are just grownup babies with huge insecurities.

So what should we do about it, especially that you hear these sort of things countless times during the day? The answer is simple, defeat the purpose of such statements. Don’t feel guilty for being good. Don’t feel obliged to comply to them. Don’t judge the rights and wrongs in your relationship from someone else’s perspective. Be proud of yourself and most importantly don’t hesitate to voice your opinion.

Relationships last on a real feeling of mutal respect and love, not on the pretence of it. If there is a mutual respect then the need to prove superiority vanishes. If there isn’t a mutual respect then the water is already murky and the boat is already shaky. In this case acting on the above statement might work but only for a short time. There is an Irish proverb, nodding the head does not row the boat!

Indian media is Lazy, fake and dramebaaz

Indians have been standing in long queues since the last few days to exchange 500 and 1000 rupee currency notes. Social media is flooded with news, debates, arguments and even jokes. Some political parties are on the streets giving very generalised statements, ‘garib mar raha hai’, ‘ garibo aur Kisano ke halat bure hai’. Those in favour too are giving generalised statements ‘esase garibo ko hi fayda hoga’. Have you noticed one thing in this, these statements that are being said are for approximately 70% of 1.25 billion Indian people. But people who are saying this probably only have access to a minuscule fraction of these 800 million people. I mean what does Arvind Kejriwal know about farmers in Belgaum  or Dharmasthal? Forget that, what does he know about Delhi? I have seen atleast two videos floating around facebook where he has been chased away by people standing outside the bank saying we support the government’s decision.

It is understandable that social media users or even politicians(!) are making general statements. Laymen are only expressing their opinion and for politicians it works in their favour. But frustratingly, media too is not an exception to this. Being analytical, I can’t stop thinking how true this is to the reality? Or is it so easy to generalise any situation? Can you actually generalise anything in India?

Try expalining this to a non-Indian. What do people in India wear? What food do people eat in India? What is the weather like in India? Can you choose who to marry in India? I have tried to answer these questions and have struggled every time. There are no generalised answers to these questions. To provide a reasonably true answer you will have to explain by categorising people based on economic class, different states, different religions, different casts and even then the answer will be incomplete as there will be quite a few exceptions to this. So if we struggle to answer such simple questions, how can media, whose job is to provide an answer that represents reality, can casually provide a general statement on something so complicated like this? And that too without any supporting data! I confess I only have access to 3 news channels but they are one of the most popular ones- Aaj Tak, NDTV and ABP news. But so far I have only seen people like Rajdeep Sardesai talking to a handful of people standing in a couple of bank queues. He tried desperately to get negative sentiment out of them but failed miserably. He said to the bank manager ‘poor are suffering’. The basis for his statement in his own words is, ‘I send my office assistant to bank so he has to stand in a queue and that’s why I say ‘poor are suffering’. Is this a good enough basis for a conclusion from one of the popular TV journalists? How statistically relevant is this? How true is this? 

I will agree if media provides us survey results like they do in exit polls of statistcally relevant numbers from not just 1st tier cities but also from villages and talukas. Divide the data into salaried population, farmers, low wage labourers and then tell us what people think based on this data. Tell us their real problems. I am sure government will take steps to solve it just like they started ‘micro ATMs that are mobile’. But generating such data is not an easy thing to do. A journalistic endeavour like this will need some level of sincerity, hard work, efforts and logistical planning, all traits which I believe are synonymous with good journalism!

One thing has hit me hard – when Anil Bokil of Arthakranti said if over 50% people are earning less than 200 rupees a day then why is 80% of the total cash circulating in the economy in the form of higher denomination notes?

I ask the media to give us a counter argument supported with evidence. We will agree then. I want to tell journalists, with the way you are reporting things presently, your opinion is as good as a layman’s opinion and although some people may value it, it is not a proof that this is actually happening. 

I want to tell the media that don’t fool people with fake journalism, like you did with the infant death story linking it to demonetisation. Such shameless acts do not go unnoticed. Don’t misguide people by saying, ‘a man died of heart attack while standing in a queue’,attributing the death to note ban. I know someone who died last year while watching TV sitting on a sofa. Should I atttribute the death to the sofa or to the TV or to the show they were watching? Give us facts and not made up stories. Did he die with exhaustion, panic, dehydration and hence it is attributable to note ban? Would he have lived a long life if there wasn’t a note ban? Why no family members or any other related aspects shown about that man? There is a proverb ‘dusro ki chitah pai roti sekna acchi baat nahi’. Atleast be considerate to the man who died. I tell you what, file an FIR against the government for the deaths you think are due to note ban. Let each one be investigated. We will get to know the truth only then and if it turns out that only the government is to blame for their deaths, let’s make them accountable for that. But please don’t just to it for the TRPs.
Show some sincerity towards the job you are supposed to do. Stop being lazy and fake. So until we get a paradigm shift in how media works, this is one more generalised statement from a frustrated indian,’Indian media is lazy, fake and dramebaaz’. Hope you know how it feels now to get painted in one colour.

https://youtu.be/o4sIY9ootOk

A girl with bright eyes!

She was born in gruesome poverty in the family of eight people. Three older brothers,three sisters and her parents lived in a house of three small rooms. Her parents struggled  to make the ends meet. There was scarcity of everything you can think of – space,food, clothing, amenities and the list goes on.

But there was this little girl with beaming, bright eyes and full of hopes, who in stark contrast to the circumstances, was happy! She was the apple of her mother’s eye. She was sought after in the school, always leading in dance,singing and sports from playing chess to flying kites.

She had no regrets. Her life was too busy to complain. A girl who walked barefoot to school because her parents couldn’t  afford a ‘chappal’ was booming with confidence. Her positivity was infectious.

Sports made a deep mark on her young impressionable mind. She found her natural feet in the sport volleyball. Because of her proficiency in sports, the school provided her with amenities that her parents couldn’t provide. She got a pair of shoes! She showed it off to her friends who  didn’t understand why they were so special. 

She grew up to be a fine woman. A woman who defied what others may have thought will be her  destiny. She excelled in volleyball and played at national level championships captaining her team, earning many medals for herself as well as her team. She travelled all over India. A girl who walked miles as there was no money for bus travel, travelled all over India!

Life was never too kind to her. It kept throwing challenges at her. Death of her loved ones, looking after her ailing sister whose family gave up on her, the harsh reality of looking after her kids all by herself after the untimely demise of her husband. The ordeals kept coming. She fought relentlessly with an exceptional courage. Life couldn’t defeat her.

Instead of surrendering to the circumstances she chose to live  her life with vigour. Her positivity is still infectious. Her outlook towards life is very inspiring. She independently runs a magazine for women.She is a passionate social worker and has been on the forefront of many key campaigns. 

She taught me one thing, time is precious, you are precious and most importantly you are in this world for a purpose. You must not loose the ambition no matter how old you are! I still see that spark in her eyes when she tries to learn something new. Her life story told me that we always have two options – sit there, complain and feel pity for yourself or  live your life to the full with pride and dignity.

I am indebted to her for many things and I know that whatever I do for her will just not be enough to return back that debt. But if I can acheive even a fraction of what she has acheived in her life then I will think that I have led a succesful life. 

That woman is my Mother – Maya Kulkarni and I am one proud daughter!

Why does it surprise you my senior generation!?

My dear senior generation, whenever there is a discussion about the marriage proposal of your sons, it rarely happens that you don’t mention about those classic expectations from the potential bride.

‘she must be able to cook’ (usually this means that she should be doing all the cooking). ‘She should look after the house’ (usually this means all household chores are primarily her responsibility and my son need not be bothered). ‘She is ‘allowed’ to progress in her career but her priority should always be her husband and children’.These expectations are usually in addition to the normal ones which are – well qualified and beautiful!  You are not bothered if your son can’t  cook or if he is aggressively pursuing his career while giving secondary priority to his family.

We made many attempts to challenge your thoughts. We tried to debate with you on why these are unfair and unrealistic requirements and that you shouldn’t bother yourself about who manages what in the house. We tried to explain that the real requirements for the spouses of both genders are the characteristics that define us as humans. The look we usually get from you is as if I have just eaten a live rat in front of you! As expected the debate always ends like this ‘but our culture is blah blah blah….’

Our senior generation, we still don’t know why it surprises you when we talk about sharing household responsibilities- which we believe is a step towards progressiveness. We are surprised that you – who are the pioneers of progressiveness are surprised. We are surprised because this is not even close to the radical steps (and rightly so) you took towards progressiveness. 

Just three generations before you were born, our ‘culture’ was to enforce the practice of ‘sati’. But your ancestors fought against it. Just two generation before you, our ‘culture’ asked the widows to shave their heads and stay confined within the house. Didn’t you see your grandmothers like that? 

Your mother fought against it. She didn’t get the chance to go to school. She was not involved in any decisions, whether important or not. She lived at the mercy of her husband and his family. But she and many others  of her generation fought so that they can live a life of dignity even after their husband’s death. Something their previous generation couldn’t.

You carried her legacy further. You fought the demons of ignorance. You fought for education. Many women of your generation are well educated and independent. You did what your mother couldn’t do. That is the progressiveness. 

We wouldn’t think the way we think today if you and your previous generations hadn’t taken those radical steps. We wouldn’t understand the meaning of equality if you didn’t acquaint us with the human rights and that a woman is a human too! You made us realise that a woman has dreams, independant aspirations and a concept about how she wants to live her life.

So all that we ask from you is to let us take that small step towards fairness.So that our children can take the legacy we inherited from you further. 

So please my senior generation, don’t think that certain work is not suitable to your son’s status but is ok for his wife to do it. Don’t frown if your son takes a head start in cooking just because he happens to be at home. The house belongs to both and so do the responsibilities. They are equal in every sense. That doesn’t sound that radical does it?

These expectations  have often remained a source of conflict between your generation and us. But we want to live in harmony with you. Because we understand how important it is for our children to have a healthy relationship  with their grandparents. The love and affection that they will get from you, they won’t get from anywhere else. We understand how important it is to get your support if we want to fulfil our aspirations!

So my dear senior generation, next time you search for a bride for your son, don’t be bothered if she can’t cook. Think if she will be affectionate towards you. House can be managed, affection and love can’t be generated.