My First Friends

I saw an instagram reel this morning about how the oldest relationship you will have is with your siblings. My relationship with my siblings has been hot and cold over the years. 8 years and 4 years apart in age, I couldn't exactly bond with them as a child.

There were "older children" games and "girly gossip sessions", that I wasn't privy to. An entire room of children would empty out after dropping their toys, the minute I entered. Perhaps I harassed them. I'm told I was a biter and one cousin still recalls the stories with a traumatised look on her face.

I don't recall any of it though. I wonder how I could have ever bitten anyone. I'm so peace loving, especially when I'm well fed and definitely over the weekends.

Our house had a large compound filled with dogs and my cousin's occassional stray-finds consisting of one-eyed ducks, stray baby puppies, multiple fish tanks and a squirrel from Chennai. The animals got more love and attention than me.

I recall one dog walking up to my brother Arjun's room searching for him, and my sister Sowmia, munching on jackfruit chips straight out of a glass bottle with one hand and her other hand stuffed inside an obese little Dachshund. 

Both my brothers - Swaroop and Arjun would spend their holidays obsessively cleaning the fish tank. It was a whole affair. One boy would bring the green garden hose from one end of the house's compound, the other boy would quickly throw the hose in, after removing the excess water out. Lo and behold, the empty garden house would now be transformed into a little pumping device, that would empty out all the tank's smelly, fishy water.

Sometimes the dogs would die and I'd watch the three of them, making large graveyards around the compound and burying their little bodies inside and standing around the grave sobbing hysterically. I could feel their hearts breaking and felt sorry seeing them that way, as I empathetically munched on golden fried medu vadas or mutta puffs.

On occassion, the three of them would regale me with stories of how I looked like or behaved when I was a baby. My sister Sowmia still calls me "her little doll" and my brother Arjun apparently called me "nice baby" and asked for his toy car upon meeting me for the first time.

Out of the three, I remember my brother Swaroop pampering me the most, but as an 8 year old, perhaps he needed his space too, so he'd promise to come back and play with me but would remain in his room for hours drawing and painting. The maids would ask, "Who are you waiting for Gayu?" and I'd reply in all earnesty, "Swaroop chettan."

These three definitely shaped my childhood along with mutta puffs and kothu porotta. They push me to do better as a person. The advice is unending on all fronts - personally and professionally.

Most times I'm grateful for the advice because I actively seek them out for it. On other occassions, I quietly stuff earbuds into both my ears and smile at them with a big nod, so they think I'm listening.

My love for my siblings is greater than 10 plates of kappa with meen curry and stronger than a kattan. I'm proud of the adults they've become today and the beautiful, warm families they've all built for themselves individually. 

Why Mothers Excel At Work

I finally caught Devil Wears Prada 2 in theatres last night and it felt like I was coming home to old friends. I was in my second year of undergraduation when I saw the first movie with my classmates. 

From then to now, the underlying emotion of the movie, of women wanting to make a difference in the world remains the same. As a 19 year old I wanted to make it big in the corporate world just like Andy Sachs and strike out on my own if I couldn't fit into the Miranda Priestly mould.

And as a grown adult, as I watch these working mothers on screen, still striving for excellence and regretting not spending enough time with their children, that struck a chord with me too.

There's a reason why working mothers excel at work. It's because we know the cost of staying away from shaping an impressionable life and not being able to really get involved in their routine.

So that cost better come at a good price. We better justify that time away from the little souls we've brought into this world. That's the reason why most working mothers just put their heads down and work to excel. There's a hunger in her belly that never gets satiated unless she's perfected her craft and is at the top of her game.

She's not being competitive or aggressive, she's simply fiercely safeguarding her future along with her children's futures who would ultimately reap from the benefits of her hardwork.

She can never have it all and the guilt of trying to make both worlds work in harmony with one another always makes her fall flat on her feet. On the day of a PTA, there will definitely be a meeting with the new V.P who has taken over the team. 

On the day a teacher has asked you to come see her post school hours, is also the day your team and you are working hard to overcome a major org-wide escalation. 

On all those days, I come back home sobbing and all the chocolate cookies in the world don't heal my soul. 

The struggle for work life balance is real and the struggle to perform both parental and professional duties have made me lose so much of my hair, that it doesn't look nice even if I colour it cherry purple.

So Miranda Priestly's cold, "That's all" is perfectly justified because she really doesn't have the time to listen to co-workers and assistants rant endlessly about their problems. Just get your shit together and make it work - both at home and in the office.

To the mothers who simply cannot have it all - I see you, I feel you and I am you. Tommorow is another day. We've got this ladies!

One and Done

For the longest time, I fantasized about having an army of children - an entire cricket team in fact. And my life would be spent in the kitchen cooking multiple meals for them morning, noon and night along with snacks between meals. That fantasy got stronger right after childbirth and my late husband looked petrified each time I mentioned this desire of mine.

"Please find another husband.", "One is enough." and he'd quickly run out of the room. Five years later, that secret desire of mine still burns strong. Each time I take my son for his shot or a fever-induced medical checkup, I drool at the newborns in the hospital and can actually feel my ovaries crying. 

Then I ask my one and only, "Riaan, do you want another brother or sister?", he turns around with a defiant look on his little face and replies, "I already have many brothers and sisters who visit me twice a year. Thank you very much." 

That officially shuts down my salivating and I make peace with my little devil, who has irrevocably changed my life for the better. I hug him a little harder as I wipe the wet boogey off his nose and smell the top of his sweaty little head.

I suppose my mission in this lifetime is to make a gentleman out of just one little monkey. Maybe I'll have my army of animals in the next.

Sigh! 

The Reluctant Pant Wearer

A dear friend of mine and my late husband's whispered in my ears a few days after he passed away, "You've always worn the pants in this relationship, so just continue doing that now. You'll be fine." I know he meant it with pure intentions because as a couple we were very fond of him and he cared deeply about us too.

In that moment, I didn't have a response, I just felt empty and sad that I was truly all alone in the world. Looking back at that moment minus the widow-lenses, it's harrowing to see societal expectations out of a man and a woman post marriage. She has to be the bread winner, the family glue and the caretaker of the house and all it's residents. The man on the other hand, just has to be the bread winner and crack a few jokes now and then.

How is this fair? How is a woman expected to juggle work, children, aging parents and household chores without losing her cool? If this is what makes a woman, "wear the pants in the relationship", that's a very skewed and unfair perspective of women.

Does helping with the baby and household chores make a man, less of a man. Didn't both individuals decide to build that life together? Then why does the responsibility only fall on one person's shoulders? 

So no, I never wanted to wear the pants in that relationship and I don't want to wear it going forward either. I'm officially throwing away those pants, because I've always been a skirt and dress girl.

Boo to patriarchy and cheers to equality! 

My Corporate Family

When corporates tell you "we are one big happy family", as you stuff down the Mutton Biryani during the team-outing you get once a year, you believe it because the biryani tastes so good. Those mutton pieces buried inside the rice are soft and juicy, you can die and go straight upto heaven after that one meal and your soul would never come back down to earth as a ghost, because you're so satiated.

But no, for me across organisations, I truly have found family from one company to the next. I'd like to talk about one special team now whom I worked with immediately after my husband's loss. My crazy levels were on an extra high, even without the biryani. I was all love and hate and happiness and sadness all at the same time. Picture me as a newly born vampire, who had just been bitten and the world looked and smelt different. I was Chandra and Bella and Selene rolled into one. 

This team got my crazy from the word "go". They smiled and nodded along with me, with an occassional dose of kicking whenever I sounded extra loony. 

2 years and 8 months flew by in jet speed. I was so sad to leave them behind, to quit them and move onto bigger assignments. I felt guilty and sad about this huge looming void that could never be filled.

The first team I worked with right after a loss, I'll never forget them and I'll always be grateful to them for just understanding who I was as a person, who I still am infact. 

One glance at my face and they'd know if I was gloomy or happy. They never once reigned me in. They just let me be. I could be loud and noisy and take a 100 pictures around them. Such sports! How can I ever forget this team?

I miss you like biryani without raita, like chocolate sundae without extra sauce and nuts, like bun maska without maska and like a sky without a rainbow. You are my rainbow - yesterday, today and everyday.

My most favourite team in all these years. Team design and communications. A match made in corporate heaven. 

Team Iron Man

I recently met someone, let's just call him douchebag for now. He told me, "you think too much of yourself and you're Wonder woman." I replied "I don't think I'm Wonder woman, Gal Gadot has already played the part and my ass is not so tight, so no you've got the wrong girl bro."

As for the "thinking too much of myself" part, that bit is entirely true. I've experienced things only senior citizens have in this lifetime and I've survived it with dark humour, sugar free icecream, poetry and good cinema across regional and international languages. So yes, without a doubt, I do "think too much of myself".

Quite frankly, if you don't think too much of yourself, no one else is going to. Trust in your personal brand to deliver to the world at large and your immediate family. Dim out the white noise in your head and from "well-wishers" and blindly believe in your abilities.

"You've got this, you shall overcome, yet again, this is jujubee" (in the words of Rajni), are the words I've permanently copy-pasted in my head. 

I can smell toxic masculinity and feminity, from a mile away because I've been raised by a family of super achievers, who've been humble all their life and have showered me with a suffocating amount of love even when I try to push them away.

So disrespect, unnecessary screaming and forcing down your point of view inside my throat, will certainly not work with me and it most certainly doesn't sit well with my son. If I'm opinionated, he's worse. If I ask 100 questions, he asks 200. If you think I'm stubborn and pig-headed, I wonder what you'd think about my son.

As a package deal, we're loud and in your face, but very warm, genuine and hospitable. Perhaps this very tiny chapter in my life has made me realise that there's only space for kind people in my world. 

If you want to be Doctor Doom, please do that elsewhere, I am and always will be team Iron Man. 

Peace! ☮️

Never Settle

Why shrink your big feelings,

For someone who treats you like an orange peel,

Why shrink your lively personality,

For someone whose moods swing from irritability to more irritability,

Remember who you are,

Slightly bizzare, but definitely a star,

Weird without a doubt, but all heart,

Now if the person opposite you can't look at you like a piece of art,

It's probably best it crashed and burnt,

Yet another lesson has been learnt,

Time to turn the page on this chapter,

And continue being a multifaceted adaptor,

Onto the next we zoom,

There's no place for gloom and doom.

The Cost of Having a Point of View

I met my childhood friend last week in Ooty and was cribbing to him about how tired I am in general with juggling work and mommy duties. He looked me straight in the face, in the middle of my picturesque tea garden overlooking balcony and said, "This is why women marry into rich families or want to become a trophy wife. Go become a trophy wife now." I blinked at him for exactly two seconds and burst into hysterical laughter. He joined me in the laughter and then we continued sipping on our black coffees to keep ourselves warm from the Ooty chill. 

That conversation made me wonder, why are women called "gold diggers", and "sluts" and "whores" while men do exactly the same thing. They want to marry rich too, they want to explore the opposite sex in abundance too and are called "fuckboys" in such a jovial way. And the worst one liner I've heard in my life "Men will be men." What does this even mean? Then women will also be women. 

Why has society posed such double standards for both sexes indulging in the same behaviour? A woman working late hours and sacrifing her weekends for her career is a "bad mother" and not a "good homemaker." However, a man indulging in the same career building activities are termed as "providers", "good husband's, father's and sons". I don't get it, I just don't get it. 

I'm too tired to keep wondering why a colleague of mine who was hired a year after me, at my same designation at a reputed Indian PR agency was given a much higher salary than mine. There was no difference in the work he was doing with mine. 

He was a "Yes man" at work when it came to our boss and clients, while I kept pointing out alternative ways to run a campaign or garner media coverage.

If the cost of having a strong point of view, is the package we earn, that's too high a cost to pay. I'm unwilling to settle for less at this stage of my life and career. 

Here's hoping the next generation of women have a much better time personally and professionally. As for me, I'm just going with the flow and sipping on hot chocolate each time I'm triggered.

Peace! ✌️