Every one in our country is talking about women’s empowerment. It is a subject that is occupying the minds of millions of Indians and everyone jointly let out a sigh of relief when a woman was elected to become the President of India, albeit lot of mud slinging that preceded it!!
The fact remains that at every level women are facing discrimination and it is they who have to make adjustments or compromises to get on in this world. A girl may grow up with equal opportunities and freedom in her parents’ house as the boys enjoy, but she will have to make tremendous efforts to adjust to a life in a different household as soon as she is married.
I was recently listening to a lecture on The Bhagavat Geeta by a well-known Swamiji and he happened to touch on (with some humour) the subject of adjustments one has to make for a peaceful life. After the marriage when a girl goes to the husband’s house her mother would advise her “Darling, from now on you should think that your husband’s house is yours, and his mother also as yours”. This is a fallacy, the Swamiji asserted! If the daughter takes this advice literally, she would land up in trouble! On the other hand if she were advised that she should use all her tact and charm to please the husband and his relatives, and realised that she was in a strange environment (Not necessarily enemy territory), she would have less problems. The Swamiji had some advice for the Mothers-in-law also. He told them not to take for granted that the new bride would immediately adopt the husband’s house as hers and his mother as her own mother!! She should give a long rope and be prepared for adjustments herself! Mothers-in-law are always forgiving their daughters but not their daughters-in-law!
The problem is always between m-in-l and d-in-l, father-in-law rarely comes in the picture. So, most of the problems that women face in life one should think is because of women only. Men are hardly to be blamed! Interestingly anagram for mother-in-law is “Woman Hitler”!!
Take for example the case of Parvathy, whose aunty of 78 years came to town, lugging along her husband of 85 years driving all of 350 kms, to invite some distant relatives for her grand daughter’s wedding, and not visit Parvathy (who is her sister’s daughter) to invite her for the wedding. The reason? To spite Parvathy and show her displeasure!
The aunty is nicknamed the wicked one by all the relatives because of her jealous and wicked nature. The wicked aunty has had a fairly comfortable life all through but she is a very unhappy woman who is discontented with life and always struggling to compete with others. Why did the wicked aunty spite Parvathy? That is a long story and there are wheels and wheels within wheels.
Parvathy’s sister-in-law, from day one after her marriage to Parvathy’s brother left no stones unturned to show that she did not want to be friendly with Parvathy and made that clear to every one by words and deeds! After almost 20 years of keeping up appearances of a friendly relationship with her sis-in-law, Parvathy gave up and cut her off, when things became unbearable. This was the chance for the wicked aunty to befriend the sis-in-law and attack Parvathy.
Twenty years old, a first class graduate in Maths, having scored 100% in Maths Parvathy was a brilliant girl known as such to all her friends and her teachers. She was the pride of her school and college and her parents. She could have got admission to the MSc Maths course in any reputed University but due to family pressures she did not continue her studies, but sat at home waiting for a suitable boy to be chosen by her parents. She was not only very good in Maths, she was extremely good at languages too. Her command over English language written and spoken was superb. She had studied in an English medium school where she did not have to learn the vernacular. When she left school she did not know how to write or read, Malayalam, which is her mother tongue. But after leaving school her parents wanted her to take Malayalam as second language in college, because they felt that knowledge of Malayalam was necessary for her to communicate with the future mother-in-law who in all probability would not be speaking or writing English. From scratch she learned Malayalam and took her BSc degree in Maths with Malayalam as the second language. During the one year after her graduation and before her parents found a suitable boy for her she studied French language and started preparations for appearing for the Civil Service Exams, though it was only a half hearted effort, in case the parents failed to find a suitable boy!
Parvathy was beautiful and fair in complexion and belonged to an upper caste Nair family and her parents or her relatives never thought that there would be any difficulty in finding a suitable boy for her. She was very smart and learned driving at the age of seventeen and she was known as the only woman driver in the small town where she lived with her parents. Forty years ago, there were not many women drivers in Kerala. Parvathy learned driving because of her sheer enthusiasm and support from her father. As a child Parvathy played football and hockey with boys. Her teachers in school and college were full for praise and admiration for her abilities in studies. From early childhood Parvathy loved reading. She had a huge collection of books. She had also received many books as awards for top performance in school and college.
Parvathy grew up in luxury, carefree and happy and had no worries about the future. She and her parents were pretty sure that she would get a very eligible boy as her husband who would look after her. Parents of many boys showed interest in marrying their sons to Parvathy but due to their horoscope not matching with hers many of the proposals were rejected. Then a friend of her parents told them about a boy who was the son of a high ranking retired Government official who was an eligible bachelor employed in a foreign company in Bombay. Her father immediately wrote to the boy’s father and from thereon matters moved pretty fast and Parvathy got married to Vishnu within the next six months.
Vishnu was an average boy with average accomplishments but the fact that he belonged to a very reputed family outweighed all the other considerations, except that their horoscopes also matched well!! In the ordinary circumstances Vishnu’s qualities and accomplishments were far below the standards Parvathy’s parents had in mind and if Parvathy’s parents made detailed enquiries about Vishnu and his past, probably they would not have considered the proposal. However, Vishnu’s parents who first saw Parvathy and her parents were very impressed with Parvathy and her family and they immediately decided that this was the girl for Vishnu and speeded up the process for the marriage. The young Vishnu had a broken engagement only a year or two before and he had a couple of job changes too and he was generally going through a tumultuous period in his young life when Parvathy’s proposal came and his parents pushed it through with speed, lest some one should throw a spanner in the works!
Few days after the marriage Parvathy and Vishnu left for Bombay. Parting from her loving parents and family and starting on a new life with a man whom she hardly knew, was a painful experience but she bore it all very well. Vishnu had rented a one bedroom flat in Bombay, which by Kerala standards was too small for a family but in Bombay it was a luxury because the flat was situated in a very up market locality. Parvathy took to Bombay life with gusto. Before her marriage she never had to travel by buses or go to market for buying vegetables or ironing clothes but she did all these chores and occasionally did cleaning of the house or washing of the clothes when the maid did not turn up. Parvathy did all that without any complaint or grouse. She took charge of the entire household and took great pleasure in doing it. Parvathy used her spare time to go to a near by library and read books by the dozen.
Within about 5 years of her marriage to Vishnu, Parvathy had two daughters and life became more hectic for her. She took lessons in making dresses for the children and became an expert in making beautiful dresses for the children. The children were admitted to one of the best schools in Bombay and Parvathy took great care and interest in bringing up the two daughters. She learned baking delicious cakes and puddings, taking recipes from books borrowed from the libraries. She became a member of the British Council library where she used to spend two or three hours every week reading English newspapers and books on British Royalty!
With two growing up girls, the flat was too small for the family. But Parvathy never complained about the small size of the flat, where she lived the best part of her life looking after the comforts of the husband and the two daughters. Relatives of both Vishnu and Parvathy were visiting them frequently, and when the guests stayed with them, which happened frequently, Parvathy had to sacrifice her personal comforts to see that life went on smoothly. Parvathy used to cook delicious food, deserts and ice creams, which were highly appreciated by all the guests and family members
It was a great shock for Parvathy when her father, who was very close to her, passed away suddenly when she was only 28 years old. It was a great shock for Parvathy’s family because he was a tower of strength for the entire family. Her mother was absolutely incapable of running a household and soon it became necessary for her mother to sell their family house in Kerala and move to Bombay since Parvathy’s two brothers had not settled down properly by that time. Parvathy’s mother was used to a life of luxury from childhood, with servants attending to all her needs and it was difficult for her to adjust to living in a cramped apartment in Bombay. However Parvathy had to sacrifice a lot of comforts so that the children and the husband were not inconvenienced too much. To look after her mother and the little daughters, Parvathy had a living in servant from Kerala for doing all the household chores including cooking. But once the children were grown up and the elder daughter started going to college Parvathy did away with the services of the living in servant mainly due to lack of space in the house.
Unlike Parvathy who had a very sheltered childhood, Vishnu grew up with two brothers and three sisters in a big family with slack discipline and a carefree life style. The traditions and culture of the Malabar region where Parvathy belonged was different from those of the Travancore region of Kerala where her husband Vishnu came from. Even though Malayalam was the language spoken in both regions, the lingo was very different.
With marked differences in the cultures and lifestyles Parvathy had lot of difficulties in adjusting to the ways of Vishnu and his family in the beginning. No one in Parvathy’s family smoked or touched alcohol but Vishnu was practically a chain smoker in the early days of their marriage and loved to drink alcohol! Food habits were also quite different. But Parvathy took it all sportingly without complaints.
Vishnu’s brothers, sisters and brothers-in-law were all regular guests in their house and Parvathy was extremely hospitable to all. Many of Vishnu’s cousins, nephews and nieces were regular guests in Parvathy’s house and Parvathy never grumbled to look after any of them. Vishnu was travelling most of the time and Parvathy had to do everything by herself most of the time. Many times she had to travel long distance to the airport to receive or see off relatives, all by herself.
Her very pleasant nature, efficient working style, organising capacity, enthusiasm, sense of duty and intelligence made her a very special person and endeared her to her m-in-law and f-in-law. Vishnu’s parents loved Parvathy as much as their own their own daughters. After Parvathy’s father passed away and her mother shifted to live with her in Bombay she became closer to Vishnu’s parents. Vishnu’s parents also looked forward to the annual visits of Vishnu and Parvathy with their two daughters on holidays. Parvathy did not seem to regret that life had not been very smooth sailing for her and took great pleasure in all the little enjoyments that came in her way. She did not compare her life with other more fortunate and ostentatious women who took great pleasure in competing with others. She was always grateful that life was not much worse.
Parvarthy’s only regret was that she had gone out of her way to be helpful to others disregarding her own difficulties, but hardly any one showed any understanding of the difficulties she had to suffer. She was particularly sensitive about the fact that her mother had to be put up with her, in the small apartment in Bombay when she had other guest also from her husband’s family. Her wicked aunty was in and out of her house in Bombay all the time but wicked aunty was jealous of her because of Parvathy’s happy disposition. Her brother’s wife and her brother stayed in her house many times but their attitude was that it was her duty to look after their comforts when they visited Bombay. They never felt that there was need to reciprocate and when she once happened to stay with them her sis-in-law behaved in a very unruly manner, which made her decide that she would never again stay with them.
There was no appreciation from any quarters, that she had managed a household in a very efficient manner against many vicissitudes. Parvathy kept her good humour and sanity in the face difficult odds and made a comfortable life for the family and brought up her two daughters admirably and married them off to very eligible young men. She never showed any regret for the things denied to her but enjoyed the most whatever came her way. Unlike Parvathy, her husband Vishnu was not an achiever or ambitious. He was an average person with average achievements, nothing to write home about. But Parvathy never made him feel inferior for his lack of motivation for higher achievements nor complained about the things they did not have. Though she was aware of Vishnu’s limitations she never criticized him about his failures and always projected him as someone with superior faculties and achievements!
One wonders whether Parvathy’s life could be called a success or just a waste of talents and potential for great achievements? On the other hand if she chose to become a career woman instead of a homemaker would that have been a more satisfying life for her? That I think is a hypothetical question and the answer would also be hypothetical!
