Journey and the Indian housewife

Social learning requires a formal introduction before people can interact with one another. The wait is for somebody to fulfil that role, somebody to set the ball rolling, and if not then not has become usual. A problem arises during travel, in the forced proximity, on a journey, with strangers. People’s focus has become reaching destination, period.  They seem always in a hurry, and the anxiety to get somewhere, turns quickly to impatience. They may push and shove others out of their way in the mad rush to be first to the exits on airplanes, trains and even theatre halls. Enjoyment of the journey itself, and relaxed conversations with others is a rarity.

The frequent fliers I have come across wrap themselves in the protective aura of power and prestige emanating from their organizations. It fortifies them through the many thousands of miles of airplane travel regularly covered in self-imposed silence. In the process, they may earn rewards of free mileage, vacations, and so on. But ask them, and they have no recollection of the thousands of people they might have journeyed alongside. One gentleman tells me he generally pops a couple of pills before he gets to the airport, and once ensconced aboard, sleeps right through the cross-continental flights, shutting off all possibilities of interaction. For shorter distances, being engrossed in the laptop or ipad is enough deterrent to any interaction. 

A far older tradition in certain Tibetan monasteries has been to deliberately rip apart these social boundaries. Before the acolyte formally joins the order, he must know himself. The young men are sent out to face the world with little more than a staff and a begging bowl. The intent is to strip the ego, to experience humility and learn adaptability to changing environments. The given task is to follow the meandering route of a holy river from source to delta, downstream by one bank and back upstream by the other – on foot.  Their return, if or when that is, depends upon the individual survival skills in various social environments.

This practice is, of course, hardly known about or followed amongst people outside the monastery. For the householder, the proposition is frightening. Women of good families, especially, prefer to travel with a group of known faces around them to keep the unknown at bay. Long distance train journeys generally mean more hours of forced companionship with people outside the social circle. If perchance the women are traveling alone, their apprehensions mount. What if I get lost is the plaintive refrain irrespective of age, education or employment. Their social dependence needs assurances ten times over that somebody will see them off at one end and somebody will receive them at the other, and prayers for divine protection en route. Obviously, few perceive any journey as new adventures.

I try to settle in early on the train, to avoid the jostling of late arrivals, and observe the unfolding of new, unique human stories. Many of the people I strike up conversations with, look as if they expect the worst from the encounter. I can almost see the wheels of their minds clicking back to childhood warnings against speaking to strangers. It takes them awhile to return to the present and remember that they actually are adults.

 
A well-dressed lady arrives to take the berth across me on this journey. The several men with her are far too respectful to be family. The boss’s wife, I suspect, accompanied by those lower on the pecking order who have discovered their unwritten duty to ensure her wellbeing - and thence their own. I gather they are Railways employees,  and remember stories told of how wives of senior officials and their entourage behave as royalty on board. Should they have links to political heavyweights their attitudes worsen in reflected glory. Yes indeed, horror stories of some sort of mafia in play. The ladies demand exclusive service from the train staff threatening to get them fired for disobedience. They also harass the other passengers that might protest, with threats of getting them dragged off the train... I wonder what is in store for us!

On this day, the men in attendance struggle with large suitcases while she fiddles with her cellphone. After a while they decide leave the luggage where it is, occupying all the space between the berths. In their overt concern for the lady, co-existence with other passengers seems clean forgotten. I pipe up to remind them of it, whilst feeling it an inauspicious opening to my anticipated encounter! The lady starts up at my interjection, and the men look around in surprise at the sound of strident female tones directed at them. Lucky for me, I guess, that they only try harder to manage the luggage!

With their departure, mission accomplished, the lady busies with the phone speaking with some people, or just waiting for some others to respond. I ask what she does for a living. Nothing, she says with an embarrassed look, just a housewife, as if nobody could possibly be interested in this group of creatures. As she gradually overcomes her inhibitions, she confides that because she is unsure about others’ reaction, she speaks only when spoken to. 

Her story resonates with that of millions of women of this country brought up high on sacrifice, and low on self-esteem. She is married off young to forestall other eventualities, and before she can really find her feet, motherhood is upon her, as is the omnipresence of the mother-in-law.  She strives to be an exceptional homemaker, an accomplished cook and the perfect mother. Her husband’s rising career graph means transfers and late working hours, so she cannot expect adult companionship much of the time. Her children are her treasures, closer to her than to their busy father. While on the way to help one settle house in a new place, she worries about those she leaves behind. All the lives conjoint with hers should run smoothly – let her be the recipient of all their travails. 

The tradition in families is for one generation to groom another to take its place on the hierarchy in the exact same way. The strict tutelage of mothers-in-law put new brides into the same mould that they once occupied in the past. The ritualistic training in customs ensures that women of successive ages, the carrier of the culture, eventually dress alike, look alike, act alike and even think alike in a stream of carbon copies. The sisterhood of sameness is their ordained destiny.  Men in the family adopt a hands-off approach to these traditions of the women’s world, while themselves keeping up with the new technology and so on, of modernity. 

The benefit of the husband’s job  allows this housewife to live in a sprawling suburban bungalow with plenty of space and few neighbours. She gets used to being alone with the children, learns to appreciate Nature, and discovers her green thumb. Gardening becomes a passion, the bonsai technique the speciality she perfects over twenty years. The plants are her personal pride and joy and it will be a wrench to leave many of the little masterpieces behind as has happened before, when they must move away to another new posting as the job demands. 
 

   
Many such women of this country tend to internalize the traditional lack of social esteem for their gender and accept their lot as karma. Nobody in the social organization is concerned with the effect of unsought change on the feminine psyche; the ‘housewife’ is expected only to deliver as others desire. In using the archaic term to describe their life roles, the women devalue themselves, and nobody else thinks twice about doing the same. Because the economic complement is missing in their contributions, they are perceived within the family as no more than glorified domestic labour. Fact is they may be worse off, in unpaid service 24/7, at beck and call of husband, children and extended family with almost no returns of credit or genuine appreciation. 

Although they are the home managers, the enablers of others’ power and prestige, they carry forwards centuries of gender inequality on their back. In this day and age as well, they hide their true worth under bushels of conditioned self-deprecation. A parable relates that the elephant could not be the king of the jungle because their large ears prevented their realizing their own size and strength. The lack of esteem in the Indian housewife similarly blinds her to her own creative potential.