As you grow up, you become aware of yourself as a person.

By the way, I am done with “growing up” and am more into “shrinking” these days. Well, that’s life I suppose. For years and years together you grow, and then suddenly the cells of your body receive orders from higher-ups in the chain of command. ‘Enough of it. Maintain status quo till further notice!’ they are told in no uncertain terms. More years pass, and then new orders arrive. ‘Stop! Get started on Operation Shutting Down!!!’ That’s when the shrinking starts. I have already lost a centimetre in the height department, and I didn’t even have enough of it to start with. Sigh.

Gosh. That’s not the point of this post at all. I have notoriously digressed and how!

Anyways, as I was saying, as you grow up, you start forming an idea about yourself as a person. By the time you are an adult you have a fairly good idea about the kind of person you are. You are this, but not that. Of course there are maybes and maybe-nots and perhaps and I-am-not-so-sure and other such dotting the knowledge map of yourself.

But

Even the best knowledge of yourself does not prepare you for what others think of you as a person. Not even if like me you feel you do know yourself reasonably well. Each time I hear someone say something about me my jaw drops. Umm.. Are they really talking about me?

What’s funny (to me) is the dichotomy in these observations made by others. Some think I belong in the kitchen and being from the tribe of women that my brain is incapable of assimilating or understanding the more ‘important’ stuff. The ‘important’ stuff can be anything from current affairs, to how to download and install an app on my phone, or even which masala powder is best. Some others think I am the cat’s whiskers. Not the real kind stuck on a cat’s face, but something that is as remarkable as the original.

Most of the extended family fall in the former category. They simply cannot digest the fact that I have an opinion and am voicing it publicly on the net. She? That ‘housewife’ from a small town in Kerala? What can she possibly know, they think while others ‘helpfully’ voice their thoughts aloud. Isn’t she someone who deals with pots and pans and maybe kettles too, but that’s about it. How can she who grew up in India, know anything? It’s not like she has at least been to foreign shores ahem… like us, seen the world and all that. How the heck can she have a modern outlook coming as she does from a small city down south? Little do they know that living outside India does not automatically confer a broad mind. Nor do the latest branded clothes give you an understanding of or empathy for your fellow beings.

It is no different with my in-laws and their people. They view me as the L&M’s extension. I am just the wife. I have no standing whatsoever other than the prescribed one of following and obeying the husband. In their point of view my knowledge and capabilities, even my very existence is secondary to the other half, the MALE half. The same goes for male acquaintances and even some of the male classmates from college. My field of expertise is supposed to be confined to cooking and cleaning up. How can I have opinions or interests unrelated to home and hearth? What’s sad is that one’s own mother thinks the same. Males rule. Females are second class. Males know stuff, women are dumb.

Coming to the latter, the kind who think I am the cat’s whiskers, they are few, but they do exist (and I have only the net to thank for their existence). Among them are a few friends, casual acquaintances and some total strangers. They are the ones who read my thoughts expressed either here or on other social media platforms and see me for who I am. They are the ones who have taken the trouble to observe and evaluate rather than assume. They are also those who have bothered to have a conversation with me and listened when I talked. They are the ones who did not make snap judgements based on their own self-importance and/or skewed perceptions.

Thankfully, I have many of the latter kind in my life now. This post on my birthday is a tribute to them. Thank you!

Shail Mohan 2023