I drive by narrow lanes called eda
in colloquial malayalam, the walls hoarded with large
posters of Mohanlal and some teenager heroine
(who won the National Award for Best Actress,
I’m told, for carrying on precariously well
as a mother of an eighteen year old, when
she herself had but known eighteen mango- textured
summers) with wisps of curls over elephantine
ears and a big, red bindi on her forehead. The car
rumbles over dead brown leaves, to be
composted; more leaves that’d borne
mid-life crises and just breathed last
beneath the tires and the smell of wet
earth rises to my nostrils. There’s
another smell that’s common in these
towns. The smell of unsmoked bidi leaves
caressed by nimble fingers of women, young
and old, in factories overloaded with
women, for they’re cheaper, more reliable
and don’t drink. All they do, is work
and smile and save money for their
daughters’ and sisters’ weddings to be
held under thatched, nameless roofs
with indistinct tharavad flavors. Their
smiles burst out, like pomegranates when
cut open. They must’ve known my grandparents.
Why else would they smile at me? My city
lips creak open like a two hundred year old
frozen fossil. A scarlet-less smile,
aching to be shed.
***
TWO WEEKENDS AGO, my cousin and I had a girls’ night out and ended up watching the late night show of Rock On. After the show ended, we hailed a cab, hopped in and sang like wannabe rock stars all the way home, between squabbling about who was the hottest man in the movie. She dropped me off with a loud “Rock on!” and a wave and rode away in the same cab toward where she lives with her husband and daughters. It was 2 am. And I came home and realized I should send up a silent prayer that I was safe. 
I FOUND 
THE HIGHEST COMPLIMENT in my grandmother’s book was “What a sweet girl! She keeps her mouth stitched up.” Of course, in Bengali, this has a nicer ring to it but it essentially means a girl who keeps quiet, who is silent in the face of adversity (and torture and ill-treatment), who endures. I grew up hearing this and, of course, consequently thought of myself as a very bad girl indeed. For as a child, I was what is commonly called ‘moophat’ in Hindi, loosely meaning brash and thoughtlessly expressive. Over the years, I mellowed (—or was made to?) and recently, I have sometimes found myself unable to speak even when it is urgently, desperately required. 
WORLD OVER, tax is the highest source of government revenue. Even as the finance minister in India was raising the ceiling on taxable income for women, there was a petition in the Madras High Court questioning this. The petitioner alleged that the provision of taxing women less violates men’s constitutional right to equality. The HC, in turn, asked the Union Government to respond on why tax benefits should favour women. So why should men and women taxed differently? 
WITHIN ME lies a paradoxical divide regarding housework which I’d imagine is familiar to many. On the one hand, cooking and cleaning provide a certain busyness and peace because of a sense of creating nourishment or a tidy environment. On the other hand, there are other hazy feelings leaning towards dislike and fear of “women’s work”. So there’s a conflict between wanting to respect the traditional realm of tasks which women have been doing through the ages and wanting to break free of the shackles and spend time on other things that are (construed) as more rewarding or valuable. 
‘I BEGAN WORKING when I was ten. I used to look after a child for which I was paid ten rupees a month. Today I am almost forty and I continue to work as a domestic maid. The difference is that my bones ache and I do not have the same energy. This is what happens to most of us who do domestic work. This job has no PF or ESI or anything like that. We work at others’ houses our entire lives and are left with nothing at the end,’ Maariyamma is angry but she continues to chop the double beans with great ease. 