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#Choices & A New Year..

By Ratna Bhushan Bagchi

So, as the sun sets on the past 365 days, I decide to take stock.

Of choices I made over these past twelve months. Which directly steered the course of my life.

Some of those choices, I look back with unbridled delight; some with hurting regret.

About the choices that worked for me… if only I could live backwards that one day, those moments, and relive that immediate jubilation.

About the choices that didn’t go well for me… if only I could live backwards that one day, those moments, and change my decisions.

Then I tell myself it’s ok. If I always did the right thing, made the correct choices, was always perfect, why would I even be human? 

Life has offered abundance of love, joys, challenges, sadness, sunshine, pride, regret – a limitless kaleidoscope. What life has not given, and will not give, is that rewind button. To re-do that ecstasy, or un-do that mistake.

Well.. that’s life. Beautifully Chaotic one day. Meanderingly Challenging the next. What’s constant is that – It Goes On.

So, as the palpable vibe of New Year celebrations dawn, I ask myself if I will make all the right choices over the next twelve months? Or forget the lessons I learnt? Or remember the lessons and still take that wrong decision. 

With the hope that I’ll make the correct choices, & if not, I will have the ability to course correct..

Happy New Year… A new year full of positivity, joy, hopes & fulfilled dreams!

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Musings..

Change The Date Please. But First, Change The Mindset…

By Ratna Bhushan Bagchi 

So it’s here. That day again. That One Day on the calendar. Year after year. Does it change anything? Something?

I look around me. Hoping.

At the construction site next door, I see a set of people at work. Predictably, it’s the lady who’s multi-tasking – she’s tending to her child, playing with him, humouring him, and setting the bricks – alternately. Her hubby dearest is only setting the bricks. No, she doesn’t seem to be grudging the roles. It’s like she’s conditioned. I ask her if she minds it. “Of course not. It’s my duty to do both. I’m a woman,” she replies in fluent Hindi, looking at me strangely.  

I browse the internet to see what people are posting. No surprises – Indra Nooyi’s legendary post about women-and-work is being shared and re-shared yet again. On the night she came home after being named PepsiCo President, back in 2001, and her mother sent her out to get some milk. Nooyi quotes her mother as saying: “You may be President of PepsiCo. But when you step into this house, you’re a wife and mother first. Nobody can take that place. So leave that crown in the garage.” My aunt, adorable as she is, has this to say: “See, even Ms Nooyi has to keep family first always. And that’s the way it should be for women.”  

I check WhatsApp. There’s a vent from a dear friend who lives in a joint family. She’s being marginalised, yet again, by the women relatives in her household. “I’ve told my husband so many times and he just says women are like this only,” she writes.

I call up an ailing cousin to ask how he’s been doing. “I’m doing much better and should be able to rejoin office next week. But you know what – that woman – the one seeing her team leader – that happening guy – just to be able to climb the corporate ladder. She’s got her promotion yet again. Women can be so, you know, that way.” He’s totally convinced about his nuances about gender.

Sigh.

We are either ‘that way’ or ‘this way’.

Either martyrs or home-wreckers.

The perfect home-makers or vamps-at-work. 

Always judged with the lens of ‘gender’. Never for who we are as ‘individuals’.

As yet another International Women’s Day is upon us, here’s to us.

To women who fix each other’s crowns even before they know that crown needs fixing.

To the women who bring down other women in joint families and workplaces. 

To those gender skewed jokes and memes both men and women crack up about. 

To the companies endlessly doing cute marketing pitches to sell their roses, jewellery, perfumes, dresses, dates and dinners. 

To the deep thinkers at think-tanks who host seminars and chat shows, talk of feminism and make posts viral on social media. 

Change the date please.

But before that, change the mindset.

ends

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Live:

Play with your Children

Go for unplanned road trips with your Life Partner 

Laugh with your Parents

Hang out with Friends outside of your professional circle

Read Fiction

Write a Book

Start a Blog

Create new Recipes

Have that One Special Friend who you can never talk about

Wear high Heels

Take lots of Photos

Keep your Conscience guilt free 

Result: Peace, Happiness, Niceness

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Dad…

———————————

It was mid-session of 10th grade. We had just returned from Dad’s overseas posting and I was applying for admissions to various schools in Delhi. We had a transfer certificate and the rest of the paperwork in place, but it was Grade 10, that dreaded year when board examinations were considered, entirely incorrectly though, as nothing short of herculean milestones. A combination of nerves and a completely different middle school learning made sure I didn’t clear the mandatory entrance tests at two schools. “We don’t admit mid-session in Grade 10 anyway. Why don’t you complete Grade 10th through ‘correspondence’, the third ‘advised’.

I was holding up in front of them. But once in the car, I broke down. Dad, gentle and dignified in front of the school staff, turned into a tiger in the car. “It’s not your fault at all. It’s the school’s loss. How can they behave like this? The education system in this country is so ridiculous. Schools these days are business. Playing with children’s lives!” He kept venting, to my surprise, till I had a smile on my face. And he repeated, like at least five times in that ten-minute vent – “it’s not your fault.”

Those lines stayed with me. And I cleared the next school admission like a breeze.

For Dad, it was never ever my fault.

Bad marks in class test? Dad would say: “Teachers these days! They just don’t know how to teach children. Only create pressure.”  

Can’t finish milk or tiffin? Dad’s solution: “Elder sister will help you hide it; we’ll find a way so mom doesn’t get to know, and you don’t get scolded.”

That moment I was going away with my husband right after getting married. Dad: “You’re a very brave girl.” When I knew he was the one trying to be brave because I, the apple of his eye, was going to live in my husband’s house now.

Once he came back very late and very tired from office. I had been a very naughty girl all day and mom, understandably, had scolded me. Dad came home and couldn’t see his little girl sad. He had a shower and left for the neighbourhood market, to buy me a doctor set. So he could see the sparkle back in his six year old’s eyes. And yes, the sparkle did come right back.

Love You Dad. Miss You. You Were, Are & Will Remain The Best. 

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Musings

“Worrying about all the stuff that is not in your control doesn’t work. Focus on what you can do and not on how you want things to be” 

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After Hours..

Life, as we knew, has turned different and how.

Unprecedented times. Emergencies & course corrections. Polarised opinions & political slugfests. Sugar coated conveniences over science & logic.

Outside of the Disarray..

Beyond The Newsroom – a personal, after-hours space for unwinding & more….

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Nostalgia

That time of the year. A vacation planned for months. A birthday party planned for weeks. A stage show rehearsed repeatedly. Time out. Time off. Time of resets. Well, as it turns out, nothing of the sort happens this year. As the pandemic continues to reset life as we knew it.. life remains sometimes unpredictable. Other times beautiful. Often challenging. Frequently awesome.