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Women’s Stuff (Coisas de mulher, Portugese): Menstrual Metaphors in the time of Pandemic

Feminist ranting over the phone goes – ‘you know we were talking, this Corona thing feels like one is waiting for the periods. When will it come? Sometimes I think, let it come and let’s be over and done with it.’ And we end up laughing at both Corona and our dwindling pre-menopausal periods.  It has been a long period of waiting for periods. Most often it came and sometimes it did not. Such has life been for many of us. It is amusing that as women we could draw metaphors for these extraordinary times from something most take as an ordinary part of life. Personally speaking, when you have bled for 5 days for almost every month, leaving out the wanted and unwanted pregnancies, for about 30 years of your life, it feels like bleeding through your vagina is as normal breathing through your nose. The only difference was that you did not wear a pad to soak in what comes out of your nose. Even that has been taken care of by now. Is it any wonder that menstruation metaphors decorate our e
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Women’s Day Speech: 2019

Hello everyone, (good morning, good afternoon, good evening) Happy International Women’s Day. My name is Banamallika, today is 8 th March and I am here because it is International Women’s Day. I love IWD because it is the only day when random women like me, get invited to talk on random things related or unrelated to women at random places.   The rest 363 days of the year, women are asked to shut up, keep quiet, not make too much noise. Not that women ever listen to anything they are told to do and that is why we have International Women’s Day. But I am coming to that part of the story later. I am a feminist and one of the few people who have a t-shirt saying so.   Naturally I get invited to speak at many places each year on women’s day. As the second or third option always. It is only when the police officer, the actress, the writer, the journalist or the successful business woman has said she has other commitment is when the call comes to me. Anyways, although I ha

For the people??

I had set out this morning, in peace and calmness, to write bad things about my mother. It was going so well that I felt, perhaps I should actually turn it into a novel. And for people who know what a novel is, you will know that it is impossible to write it in those 45 minutes you have till your 2 year old child wakes up from the last leg of her night long short naps. So I decided to take a break. I thought I would resume writing badly about my mother once I am done with my day and the 2 year old resumes nightly naps. But I made a mistake. I went to two Guwahati Municipal Corporation offices. Yes, you heard me right. TWO. And all you will get is this raving rant about the system once more. For reasons inexplicable logically and logistically, I have started two businesses at the same time. Both of these are things I have dreamt about doing forever – a small coffee shop and a small shop that sell all kinds of cool non-mainstream, environment and socially conscious products.  Fo

The Emperor’s New Coat. The one I do not have change for.

This madness is uncalled for.  I have never heard so much about money in my life. I bump into friends at the friendly market place rushing to the bank with waddles of cash. And I know very well he has not earned anything in a while. Somewhere else when I go to meet someone I am asked by the maid to wait for a while. ‘She is busy. They have to count all the money you see’ she tells me in a voice mixed with pride and innocence. I call my personal banking guy looking for change. ‘I have a crore to deposit. How do we go about it?’ - I joke. ‘Oh! Let’s see how we manage that’ - he tells me. ‘Can you wait till tomorrow till I figure out?’  He is serious and matter of fact. Obviously he has dealt with similar requests in the last couple of days. Frankly speaking, this has been the only good spot in this entire black money sweeping spree. The fact that the banker dude actually believed I have a crore of cash. The rest of the stories are grim and dark. Irking factors in this gimmicky r

The Restless Mother's Rant

On the big question of whether there is life after birth for a mother, I would say – there are good days and there are bad days. If you ask moms around the world there is not much difference between the two. Here is a comparative table: Good Day Bad Day Get woken up by a scream and a pull of the hair Get woken up by poke in the eye, kick in the nose and a bum sitting on your face Go to the bathroom and breast feed Breastfeed before you can go to the bathroom because the child is screaming the neighbourhood down Clean and dress child (deal with mild resistance if you follow her instructions) Clean and dress baby (deal with severe resistance and tantrum if you follow her instructions or don’t) Make breakfast while baby empties all your kitchen cupboards on to the floor. Make breakfast while baby catches the fridge open, brings out the milk box, spills it all over the floor, slips

I AM OKAY WITH WHOEVER WEARS WHATEVER

There are days when I feel like hiding under the bed and never coming out. Most inconveniently the bed is on the floor these days because of the monkey in the house. Today is one of those days. Facebook has that Pratidin Times ‘news report’ video to show me as soon as I wake up. I ignore it once. It keeps coming. Then I get a few phone calls. Reluctantly I open the video. I want to hide under my bed and never come out. What is it that bothers some people so much about what others are doing? What is this thing called culture that this super parochial hole of ‘Oxomia jati’ gets churned by so much? Why always only women? Who told you that women is a singular homogenous thing and you can make random general comments about them in media? The questions keep on coming back. I thought I had these answered couple of centuries ago. Or was it medieval period? I do not want to go to the details of what this reporter had to say about women wearing shorts these days on Guwahati streets.

Who can I tell

I do not watch TV. To protect myself from knowing what is going on in the world. Ever since Imitha has taken to reading the morning newspaper, I have z class security from any kind of news. There is however no protection from mothers. Mine gives me several missed calls by the first half of one morning. I call back thinking the worst. Are you alright? – I ask anxiously. Her voice sounds tense. She tells me with urgency – Have you heard about Papon’s controversy? I sigh! She proceeds to fill me in with three controversies one after the other. Papon’s, Zubin’s and Zubilee’s. I beg my mother to not pass on worldly inanities to me. Who shall I tell then? – she demands. Talking about inanities, I have stopped watching Papon’s live shows for some years now because of it. He talks too much on stage and makes one wonder what he is on. I take it as a personal insult when he expresses random un-thought-through political opinions from the self-righteous moral height of the stage. Once he