Feline Musings

A confusing scenario; a messy state of affairs – women are supposed to be well-bred, educated and enlightened but at the same time their individual choices and career preferences have to be compromised in the face of pushy social norms. While men have always required women to work side-by-side with them – be it in farmlands, or orchards, or managing entire households and the finances while the men were at war or away on voyage – it is the modern trend of equal financial contributors that has added to the role of the women. In most families today, the burden of loans, lifestyle and spiraling expenses is forcing reliance on double-income and when this trend started more than a decade back, there emerged the concept of DINK – Double Income No Kids. But as women developed work-family life balance, social and familial demands on compliance to traditional child bearing and rearing roles were reasserted.

What I realized from this experience was that Creativity in any form definitely feeds on your life force, it imbibes, and emerges from something deep within you and you have to give it all that you possibly can. Whether it is fanning the fires within with passion for a Muse, or having a mind at rest from all other cares of the world, Creativity is a jealous child – an all-demanding, all-consuming force that compels and commands single-minded devotion, dedication and energy. Whether you feed it with intense pain or pleasure, with dominant passion or intense absorption, your enthrallment with your creative side has to be complete and undivided. No wonder, many bright and creative individuals over time and centuries have been known as eccentric, withdrawn, silent, moody and even autistic. With all things worldly, there are exceptions and many may not agree with the concept that I explore in this blog, but I would love to hear about real-life experiences that say that creativity demands single-minded dedication and most importantly, a mind a rest from most things materialistic.

The imagery was precisely related to me, as a married woman. The henna stain symbolized the sometimes harsh impact of domesticity on the gossamer fabric of matrimonial bliss, and dreams.

I was too rebellious, and on the go and maybe a bit rustic for his comfort; he was well settled and sophisticated in a very much “I may be the next Ambani” style, and was too career-oriented to give me the time and attention that I required. We parted ways on friendly terms. I remained single for many years after that waiting for the right guy. He married his secretary within a year of our last date. I remember consoling my mom on the eve of his wedding with the words that he was anyways going bald!

It was really the age of innocence!

In an age of DINKs – Double Income No Kids, I am faced with the pertinent question – To have or not to have – kids (or a kid, to be precise). Seven months down blissful matrimony, a belated honeymoon, and quite a well-settled household, the attention has been diverted to my aging ovaries. The [...]

I desperately tried many times but it wouldn’t click. I gave up, thinking that some thing was wrong with my camera. They moved ahead. I was very disappointed and tried to find what was wrong with the camera. I clicked some one else and it worked fine.

 I have been having recurrent nightmares about a woman. A woman’s plight has petrified me and made deep inroads into my psyche. I feel helpless – not because I cannot protect myself from the nightmares, but because I cannot do anything for her. This woman revealed to me a fold of our tattering social fabric, [...]