In spite of the various women empowerment programs across the nation, married women in India, are seemed to be settled down as only two social groups – either working women or homemakers. Maya Krishnan meets them personally to see what happens to these multifarious range of girls after marriage, in order to shrink into merely two sections.

“No written law has ever been more binding, than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.”

This statement evolves out as a solid fact, if we travel along the length and breadth of India, where the conservative concepts are still fervent. Though India has accepted globalization with all its pragmatic effects, most of the Indian communities are still seemed to be dogged on the orthodox wheels of the patriarchal world order.

The most valued thing in Indian culture is motherhood. It is honored and glorified along with the subservient vestal wife-hood, to hood wink the age-old male domination. This ideology is being inculcated and passed on to generations through anecdotes and grandma stories and recently, through the TV serials. (Besides, the nation itself is personified as a woman, a mother.)

Women, especially the married ones, in India are still hemmed in this traditional pattern worked out by some cantankerous ancestry, at a time when physical strength helped the survival. This system has curtailed her ability to pursue a career and clogged her in a role dictated by the custom than her personal choice. As there is no written law she has nobody to argue with except her own self. The prevailing custom kicked them upstairs with the traditional rules of thumb.

The Working Women

These are the most desolated segment of the Indian society. Even though, the social and economic status of the women folk in India had a rocketed leap after the nation’s merging into the global village, a steep decline in the personal life of Indian women cannot be ruled out. Here her professional commitment verses her personal responsibilities. Achieving a perfect balance between work and family is far from easy. If you happened to come across with a working woman quite happy, she would tell you the amazing support she gets from her family. But such incidents are very rare.

Unlike in the West, Indians are far more family-oriented. For every Indian, family is a private domain, where the nation’s cultural values are nurtured and reproduced. And the family is oriented around the pivotal central point of a mother or house wife, who is sustained to be the illuminating lamb inside. As the joint family system is fading, we can perceive the struggles with which each and every nuclear family tries to adapt to the changing ambience. The nucleus of the family, the woman goes out for the job leaving the kids in the play house or at home, closing all the doors and windows. And as Gold Mier stated, ‘at work she thinks of the children she left at home; at home she would think of the work she left unfinished’. Such mental conflicts unleash multifarious problems inside the home. This is applicable to the women in the lower strata like, artisans, house-maids etc, who survives on their associations glued to some political parties.

When work places demand more time, energy and commitment, she has to yield to the problematic situations inside the home. Mobile phone rings all the time, index finger takes off the patting pose and places either on the TV remote or PC mouse. Family ambience is changing….Career woman perplexes balancing their own needs and others.

It is said and

spread that modern Indian woman has stepped out into the open air at par with men in all spheres of life. Yes, contemporary time witnesses a massive change in all zones – in relationships, in values, in social setups. But the nucleus-the woman-she dabbles along multiple roles, being simply a pooh-bah and becomes a pessimist at the eve of every mess, irrespective of the field with which she works.

The social fabric of India is changing like never before. Earlier, the entire family was depending upon the male one who goes out and work hard, the kitchen-fed female was supposed to yield with full willingness before them, who had the established upper hand in the family. Now along with the political and social empowerment Indian women have procured a self possession of independency at least economically. They augment the family income by their contributions and there by the family is able to afford luxuries and nice things, which they might not have been able to, otherwise.

But on the other side, these women are toiling away in these mindless and tiresome jobs. They are often torn by the divided priorities. They try to give the best to both home and office (working place), find themselves burdened by guilty conscience. Mentally, physically and emotionally they get drained at the end of the day.

If she is to succeed in managing her two roles, she will have to get rid of the guilty feelings. She will have to be ruthless about setting apart some time for her – to relax, to chat with a friend, to enjoy a TV show, to listen to a melody and like. She will have to nurture independency and flexibility.

To be or not to be

But is it possible for a segment, adorned as the light of the home and skirted inside the kitchen walls as the feeding machine for the family? When gets at a square peg in round hall, she starts to think of a harmless compromise, where the only way left is giving up the job, if it is financially possible.

In one way this is some what a prostration to her whole entity. Because India is still said to be having a support system as far as the family ambience is concerned. We have parents and in-laws who are happy and willing to baby-sit. Today’s parents prefer employed girls for their sons. When asked about the new trend of school syllabus and extra curricular activities of the children, they quote the recent researches of the University of Texas showing the children of employed mothers are at par in the social and intellectual development, language skill and intelligence, with the children of the stay-at-home-moms. They push her to go for the job and she unwillingly admits as she is aware of the draw backs of the granny-sits, in a world of competitions into which her baby grows.

To be a home maker or a career woman, or somebody competently complied with both, a tri polar ambiguity reigns her mind.

In financially settled families, women are awared of these facts that they have the luxury of taking time off and they tend to experiment with other areas of interest.

The threshold between a house wife and a career woman is very thin. The two roles are mutually exclusive. Still it is a fact that, a certain segment exists in this marshy society handling both roles with great aplomb. But they themselves commit that it is simply a touch and go.

When public justice v/s private happiness

The urban ladies, when fed up of the scuffles of multi-tasking lives, finally yield to be caged inside the vestal wife-hood and highly adored motherhood. In the long run, they succumb themselves to a deplorable erosion of what they earned and learned. Unlike her grandma, she is not illiterate, she reads Simon De Boure, goes through the news papers, browsing through the informative TV channels. Sitting inside, she wanders around the world, once she done with candor. It gets on to her nerves that some thing has been percolating out of her self. Despite the diverse influences across the globe, the cultural ethics of the inhabitants are under a re-defining process.

The mother hood

Just look around and see… how were the previous days of the present generation moms? They might have missed the seat in a professional college for a whisker. Some times they might be professional graduates. You can see the one who was a fire brand speaker, another one a rebellious extremist, still another, a politically conscious, some ‘a noted naughty’ and like. But once when she became a mother, she herself takes the decision to be with her baby, shedding all the potentials she possesses.

Mother is such a being. Listen to a pediatrician’s words “I meet an average of 50 mothers a day. They come from various zones of life. But one thing is common in all-the anxiety about their kids’ health, habits, education, future and so on. They are seemed to be worried and pondered over these musings almost all the time. There is nothing unnatural about it. In my view mother is not just a woman. It is a phenomenon, a unique truth that can’t be seen any where else.”

If quote Osho, “whenever a child is born, the mother is also born”. If noticed you can find a sea change in the mindset of a girl after becoming a mother. Nobody is tethering her to motherhood. She herself does it, cropping all her potentials only to concentrate everything for her child. That becomes “a loss for the community” as Stendhal stated, if she is a talent or a genius.

An interview with the Founder cum Director of a charitable institution, brought out an emphatic conformity to the afore said thing. A modest lady of 40 plus, a college professor, she told me ‘if I have a kid, my all thoughts and deeds will be revolved around it. Then I won’t get enough time to spend with these hapless ones. So I decided not to have a baby of my own. My husband also agreed with my decision’.

Yes, after becoming a mother, a woman is being taken down a peg not by the laws, but by some intuitions that change her outlooks to some what parochial. She shrinks herself in to a tiny planet that revolves around her Sun, her baby.

“That doesn’t mean she is cruel”, says an IAS officer, now a district collector, “if your career is essential to your personal identity and self worth, I say, you don’t quit your job. It was my long cherished dream to become a District Collector and now I am what I dreamt of. So why should I immigrate on a non working visa………Yes, my daughter is always whimpering “mamma, when will you come out of this collector’s gown?” it is true. I would say my children are adjusting a lot for me”.

What happens to her..?

As the house wife (has got promoted to the position of home maker) is highly educated and enjoying every mode of informative devices, she naturally, thinks a lot. Even while cooking or cleaning utensils, her thoughts take her to a world of apparitions. This leaves scratches and stretch marks in her mind which makes her feel inferior to everyone around. When goes out for a film, or a private visit, the usual question she has to face is, “what are you doing now?”.”Nothing…” is the readymade answer slips out of the inhibitions. Keeping a straight face at such questions force her to sit inside and brood over her hey-days in school and college where she got laurels and applauds. The rusted talents metamorphose into grave ineptitudes. Constant suppression of self conscience and the voluntary tramples of the sprouting musings make her moony and muzzy.

When the babies have grown up to school going children, she begins to feel that she is not an indispensable presence at home any more. And when the same children ask her ‘why are you sitting at home idly, why don’t you go for a job as my friends’ moms do’, her apple cart turns upside down. When loneliness and boredom come knocking, along with the ‘drab and destitute feel’, at times she goes out in search of a job, where her age factor denies the chances. The years she smoldered for the family fall into oblivion and become worthless. No one bothers it instead they would ask,’ who told you to do so?’

“If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?” asked Milton Berle. But mothers, after all women, are conditioned to act accordingly.

That’s why we see a Russian lady doctor married to an Indian doctor, embroidering the pillow covers and taking her little son to tuition classes in auto, through the by-lanes of rural Kerala. That’s why a civil engineering graduate, takes mathematics tuition at her home, after sending her two daughters to school, and waiting for the call of her husband from Dubai. That’s why a university rank holder, a post graduate in Agriculture, toddles with a baby on her hip, another two hung on her either hands, wandering along the festival grounds and vegetable markets, as her husband has no time to spend for such trivial things. That’s why craft workshops and boutiques mushroom across the country and internet offers free ad columns for ‘job at home’ segments.

So let the Indian women make use of these par boiled accretions at their best. Emotionally it may be hurting; but rationally, it is the only right thing left for them to pursue with. Let’s salute, those who surpass  these ordeals and emerge out with colorful wings as the pride of India.