by Vani Viswanathan
I’m in a café, trying hard to eavesdrop on conversations of a group of six women enjoying an afternoon together. Despite the booming voice of the man right behind me, I have managed to listen in and hear the range of topics (by periodically unplugging my earphones, so it’s not obvious that I’m eavesdropping): their lives immediately after getting married, how the average day pans out for them, what they watch on TV, their children and their weddings, and relationships with in-laws. All are clearly well-off women in their 50s, what with their branded bags, classy, glittering shoes, understated clothes and rich shawls.
I try to imagine what kind of relationships they have with their husband and his family. All of two years into marriage, I see how my partner and I spend hours in quietude, happy to be in each other’s company but doing our own things. What can this be like 20 years down the line? Days going by without much conversation except for the everyday banalities? “Pass me the salt”, “Where is the cheque book?”, “I don’t want dinner”, “We need to buy a gift before we attend the wedding” types?
I cringe inwardly at the thought of a relationship like that. Characterized by long spells of loneliness, soul-crushing taken-for-grantedness.
But it turns out they are rather fond of being left alone. “I wake up only at 10.30!” says one woman, while a murmur of mixed approval goes around the table – clearly some women don’t think highly of such behaviour. “My husband leaves at 10,” says another. “After that, I can watch my serials in peace!”
I feel sad. Yes, I can’t sit through a half hour of an Indian soap without wincing or laughing, but if I like it, bloody hell, I have the right to watch it, no matter what my husband thinks of it! But then she says:
“Until he leaves we track the stock market.”
Ah. So she is on top of her money-making, with her husband. I doubt I can find many women who jointly track their finances and investments. You go, aunty!
When she says this, the discussion around the table gets animated. Some of the women say they just don’t get the stock market, but are happy that it does its job and they continue to make money. I mentally make a note to know what on earth is happening to my investments.
The women then talk about how they felt stepping into another’s house soon after a wedding, about not being able to call your parents to share a small moment of panic or grief but instead having to wait for an appropriate time to call them on the landline. About how life even one week before the wedding was so drastically different and worlds apart. They talk about how much easier it is for their daughters, who could be in touch with their old lives – parents, friends, places – through Facebook and WhatsApp. They hail the technology that allows them to help ease the daughter into her new life, a luxury that they did not get.
I imagine what the first few days post the wedding would have been like for these women, partially extrapolating from my experience. Should you be fully dressed when you get out of the bathroom after a shower or can you wriggle out and dress in the peaceful privacy in your own room? What kind of clothes can you wear for the night? What do you do if you want more food than they have on the table and end up feeling hungry at night? Wouldn’t one hesitate to wake up the husband to tell him she needs a midnight snack, the husband who is as much a stranger as the rest of the family? What would sex have felt like, with this person?!
Obviously, the conversation soon progresses to in-laws. I am pretty sure that these women are about to get real candid now; no hushed tones for odd words and behaviour from the in-laws, no mincing of words. Instead, to my surprise, most talk about their strongly supportive mothers-in-law. Those who hold no bars from letting the women go out and do their own thing. “She’s a darling,” says one, adding how she was happy to go back home to tell her mother-in-law about her day.
Great for them! But I wonder if there is still some reservation about admitting to your social circle the true nature of your relationship with the mother-in-law. I wonder how many of them serve as primary caregivers for their in-laws, irrespective of whether they could afford a full-time nurse, domestic help or a cook. Is this something they willingly take on, out of love for their adopted family and the husband?
As they continue, they talk about husbands, their children’s upbringing, the unspoken devolution of powers, an internalised sense of boundaries on who takes responsibility for what. I hear snatches of negotiations that range from intra-family feuds to financial squeezes to damaging arguments with spouses.
And when I hear this, I realise that somewhere, the politics of marriage and relationships have probably stayed the same over decades. Yes, there’s certainly a stronger push towards equality in the typically upper middle class urban family, with no unreasonable expectations on women to cook or have sole overview on household tasks, and where possible, equal contribution from women and men to household expenses and dads and mums trying hard to be equally involved parents. But somewhere, we learn that marriage is about playing to each other’s strengths, not necessarily stereotypically linked to gender; I’m better at staying on top of grocery purchases while my partner buys vegetables for the week; bill payments are my responsibility while negotiations with the landlord are his – you know, that kind of thing.
And yes, there’s that inevitable sense of comfort (not always positive!) that comes with day-in-day-out living with each other; fights are commonplace, anger-soaked nights are a regular thing and then there is the realisation that you have to move on with your day the next morning, and so the argument is buried with ill ease. Who’s to say this didn’t happen to them and won’t happen after me?
Romance, shomance. It’s all going to be the same, with adjustments here and there. Eating almond caramel cake, I find this my grand conclusion from the discussions and deliberations over the last three hours.
While I desperately try to capture their words and my life-lessons based on those words, the women make several half-hearted attempts to leave the place, but some thread of a conversation keeps bringing them back to their seats. Finally, it is time for a selfie – the waiter is summoned and several angles are explored while one of them dutifully reminds the rest: “Tuck your tummies in!”
Vani Viswanathan is often lost in her world of books and A R Rahman, churning out lines in her head or humming a song. Her world is one of frivolity, optimism, quietude and general chilled-ness, where there is always place for outbursts of laughter, bouts of silence, chocolate, ice cream and lots of books and endless iTunes playlists from all over the world. She has been blogging at http://chennaigalwrites.blogspot.com since 2005.
