I grew up in a household where women outnumbered men. There was my bua (my father’s sister), my three elder cousin sisters, my taiji, my late grandmother, and of course, my mother. That amounts to seven women. Men included my father, my tauji (that is, my father’s elder brother) and myself. Women: men = 7:3; the sex ratio was seriously skewed.
My father and tauji usually came home late after work, and therefore, during the twilight hours of the evening, the women and girls of my house assembled for these feminist discussions. I being the little boy, still grappling for my identity, was included in their midst. The discussions ranged from politics, the role of women in India, to their personal anecdotes on womanhood. Very often, men were targeted. Men: the lousy, no-good, egotistical beings, roaming the realms of the earth for gratification of the self; the usual male bashing. I would hear this everyday and once I asked “What about me?” There was silence and then there were the ‘Awws’. The discussion was resumed, oblivious of my very male presence. My burgeoning-ego felt offended. I raised another question “am I that bad?” One of my elder sister slipped the answer, “Oh honey, its not your fault, its just men”. Well that did it. Frigging identity crisis. If I knew the art of sarcasm then, I would have said, “Yeah, that solves all my problems.”
Things weren’t always this bad though; there were ways, through which, my self-esteem was compensated. Once I baked a cake when I was ten: a gooey one, precariously holding itself against the force of bad cooking. I presented it among the women of my family and there were applause, standing ovations, pats on the back and pulling of my rubbery cheek; a parade of pampering. I never knew that my poor culinary skills would be the cause of such celebration, but among women, even my feeble and failed attempts at grasping the world were appreciated.
As things stand, I would be leaving my house, my country soon. Somehow, living among women, witnessing their gentleness and sensitivity and thriving in the aura of their strong-willed feminism, will be missed the most.