Ah, Women.........

The gorgeous Marilyn Monroe once famously said, “I don’t mind living in a man’s world as long as I can be a woman in it.” At the very outset, I want to clarify that my intention is not to offend womenfolk in any manner. I am a woman too, and am proud of being one. This write–up is just an outlet for my thoughts in an idle afternoon of this winter, and should be taken up in a light hearted spirit.

Ever wondered how the human mind can traverse such a wide range of just about everything within a few moments? I do not know about the men, but we womenfolk always have something or the other buzzing in our active minds anytime. Some enterprising men prefer to refer to this phenomenon as the result of an empty mind. Others coin the appellation “gossip” to the verbal outflow of our thoughts. But honestly we do have a lot of things going on in our minds all the time. Starting from the grocery, the electricity bill, the unpunctual daily help, the leaking pipe in the washroom, the impending vaccination of the babies, the new stranger in the sixth floor apartment who does not like to mingle with the neighbours (why?), and added to that the professional tensions of a working lady, like yours truly, is indeed too much to handle by the limited grey cells of our brains. We women have one more issue to deal with; to make a mountain out of a mole and keep on pondering about a small issue till it reaches gigantic dimensions. So much so that many of our tribe lose sleep over trivial things and become absent minded in the daytime.

I remember one aunt of mine in Guwahati who used to worry a lot all the time. Be it the neighbourhood daughter-in-law who did not conceive even after two years of marital bliss, or the young boy from the big house who played cricket in the midst of his board examinations, she was always worrying. During one such “worrying” spell, she came running to our home and told my mother that she urgently needed a pressure cooker as she was unable to trace her own, and she was cooking up something special for some guests in the evening. My mother, who is a daily visitor to her place, wondered who could have taken a big pressure cooker from Aunty’s kitchen. She accompanied Aunty in order to help her trace the cooker, and after frantic searching, the kitchenware in question was found in the huge almirah in her bedroom where Aunty used to keep her sarees. In one of her absent minded episodes, she put a cooker full of chick-peas in the almirah!!

A fraction of a delay in the timing of my husband reaching home from his workplace, and lo! My mind is swarmed with all the ugly and horrible consequences possible. Ranging from some road accident to some bomb blast to some burglars stopping the car and harming him fills up the mind. I sometimes wonder if I had put all these imaginations in writing from the very beginning, by now I could have finished writing a novel or some screenplay for an interesting Bollywood flick. I ask my husband if he worries too and thinks about untoward consequences when I am late in reaching home at times, and he gives me this ‘ah-you-women-and-your-petty-worries’ type of look and keeps silent. This sets in motion another train of thought in my mind that with time, he has stopped caring about me and blah blah…..

One other invariable constant trait of many of us (read females) is that we never get tired of worrying and discussing about others’ private matters (gossip). I have heard many a woman declare in public that she does not like to waste time in gossiping and likes to utilize her time in a productive manner like reading. But the moment she meets another person of her clan, the words become unstoppable. I too am a victim of this disease. Many a times, I want my mouth to clam up on its own, but it goes on and on. The pleasure in discussing the lives of others overshadows our rational thinking during gossiping sessions. I hope I can rectify this trait of mine in the new year (though the hopes are quite slim).

But I believe many such gossips carry no malice on reality. Its just what now the young people call “time-pass”. As Abe Lincoln rightly remarked, “A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.”