For the Lovely Ladies!

Whenever all the Dutta women meet (usually at a family wedding) they surely end up talking about the love of their life, their darling Mr. Dutta and how inept they are at household chores. To be more accurate, this is the “Dutta Male Bashing Session” and the ladies share a few hearty laughs. Here the boundary of young and old blur and I hear interesting stories about the Dutta husbands from the other older Mrs Duttas in the family.

 

While most of the women in the group have been married for over twenty or thirty years, I realize how in my short 7 years of married life, I have faced similar challenges and issues and unlike the older women in the family who took up all the household chores as their responsibility with a smile, I have often questioned this unequal divide and on several occasions bitterly fought with my husband. I never found an answer to why I should do everything while he gets to sit back and relax.

 

I was also brought up just like him with my parents keeping me away from the mundane household chores and telling me that I must focus on my studies and learn to stand on my own two feet. Academic excellence was the primary expectation from me. Every time I would enter the kitchen my mother shooed me away lest I burn myself and she feared who would want to marry a burnt girl!

 

While I am equally educated, qualified and skilled, as a wife it is expected that I would take care of the house like an expert, cook like an experienced chef, as if I had received some special training and certification to become a wife. I too had a demanding full time corporate job just like him, but that did not mean he would think about the house like me. Probably my only and greatest disadvantage was my gender and the big baggage of expectations that come with it.

 

In my growing up years and especially before marriage I noticed how carefully my mother would lay out the clothes for my father every single day, keep his towel in place and promptly pour a glass of water for him the moment he stepped into the house. She ensured everybody’s clothes were washed, dried, ironed and put back in place daily.

 

Being a fantastic cook her kitchen was always flowing with delicacies and her fridge with Bengali sweets. Her cooking attracted a lot of guests who she hosted with great delight. Home ministry was always hers and she wholeheartedly gave it her all. She took pride in it and hated any interference from anybody on how she runs her kingdom. She did everything with incredible amounts of energy and a smile.

 

Since I had not done any household chores and had never prepared a single meal for two in my entire existence my mother was not sure how her daughter would manage and even went ahead and cautioned my husband about it. However, my mother did miss out on the fact that her daughter had stayed alone and taken care of herself in a foreign land and that her little girl had been observing her role model meticulously take care of every detail in the house for over two decades.

 

In my early twenties, I looked at my mother disapprovingly and confidently told her that I would never fall into this trap and do “Pati Pooja” (husband worship). I even criticized her for placing her husband on a pedestal and spoiling him. I look back at those times and laugh at myself. Now I look up to my mother in awe and continue to learn from her and wonder if I would ever have her skill and patience levels.
 

Have you seen a lioness in the wild? The lioness hunts, protects, feeds and teaches her cubs. She holds the brood together while the lion blissfully sleeps for around seventeen hours a day! Still, what do we call them…A pride of Lions!
 
Bravo Lioness!

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