Happy Father's Day

No i am not going to change my WhatsApp display picture or upload my status with my dad carrying me, or me perching to him like a baby monkey. I love my father from the bottom of my heart, for our similar interests in reading, cracking jokes and talking in sign languages, even to this day he tells me that i am his favorite child.

 I wish my dad a happy father's day, your little princess who has grown and flourished in life and still looks upto you Appa. 

I fondly wish my husband, a very happy father’s day too. I have many great  reasons to wish him for the wonderful father that he is!

I feel so lucky to be married to a man who plays such an active role in our kids lives. The transition from couples to parents seemed terrific for us. I wondered what kind of mother I would be? What kind of a father he would be? Were we really ready?. Ready or not, the baby was coming!

Once we became parents, we realized how heightened responsibility it was and still is. I truly began to feel the kind of father I have given to my kids.

He is funny. My husband plays the fool whenever there is the slightest possibility of having a laugh. Sing, dance, make funny faces, you name it! He is up for doing whatever to earn a giggle. When tensions run high and I am at my wits end, it’s often his humour with the kids that makes me calm down and save my sanity. 

From broken toys to broken feelings, he’s a natural at curing whatever it is for me and our kids

Finally, I love him more as a dad than a husband ( in fact am bit jealous of it too!)No one can make my children laugh like he can. Even if I try as much as I can, the best belly laughs are always for their DAD.

Nothing binds us like children do. Parenthood bonds are stronger than marriage vows. Here is  why I love him even more after our kids came

He is the man my daughter will compare others to. She may not know it yet, but someday, she will search for a man who will love her as much as him

What pregnancies have made to my body and health. And that makes me feel more beautiful in his eyes.

He has given me a world. A world which revolves around the three best gifts. And for that, I will always love him.

Happy Father's day

Nandini Mithun 

Birthday

 Birthday

The hullabaloo around birthdays is commonplace across cultures, with variations in degree, be it small or large. Birthdays have been understood to serve as rites of passage at different stages in one’s life. ‘Sweet sixteen,’ ‘turning 30,’ ‘Naughty at 40', these epithets just go on to mark milestones and there is a ritualistic reinforcement of the affair in some manner or the other

However, those of us who have lived in cities have witnessed a wide array of options for ‘celebrating’ birthdays. Socializing in cities today dictates that a birthday without clamour, noise and festivity almost doesn’t seem like a birthday. Of course, there is very much a class angle attached to this and today’s era of commercialisation has contributed immensely to how rites, rituals and festivities are observed in present times...

I have however, always had a problem with the hyped idea of birthdays. After all, what’s so big and great about a birthday?

what then does ‘celebration’ connote? What exactly do we celebrate? Isn’t it just another performance of our gender roles, of being coerced into ritualising it?Receiving gender specific or another crockery our cutlery set

Birthdays need not always be ‘fun.’ It is okay not be okay. It is okay to not fit in the box. It is okay to ‘celebrate’ (if celebration is in the true sense of the term).

I wonder why should the whole world know about my celebrations or my birthday, it isnt a big deal.  

I do the same things on my birthday that i did a day before and after, except for my age nothing suddenly changes. 

While I sip my masala chai, manage the  chores, keep an eye on my daughters 

 I wish myself  more reading, more comfort food and more ‘simple nothings’ and more 'OUR' time with family in the year ahead.

 It isn’t too late! And the rest can sulk in condemnation

What is in a name

 Whats in a name

When I was a child, a quiz question that intrigued me was – What is the one thing about yourself, that others use more than you? The answer is – Your name! Your name is the first symbol of your identity as a person.

But even in the 21st century, in many Indian households, the women are addressed only by the respective relationship (i.e.) daughter, sister, wife, mother – as demonstrated in the movie. In some households, the husband doesn’t address the wife with any proper noun – but somehow they run a family together!

In my opinion, the subtle yet purposeful abrogation of a woman’s name in the household, is the first sign of erosion of her identity. Especially in the case of a woman who doesn’t work outside of the home, her namelessness is a powerful assertion of her lack of agency – that she doesn’t matter when she is herself, she matters only when she is associated with other people.

I myself have grown up witnessing it in the day-to-day life of women, in my family. I was taken aback when I experienced it myself.

In India, a married woman is mostly addressed as  Mrs. <insert Husband’s surname>. After the birth of children, it is the norm for mothers to socialize mostly with other mothers – this is more so for stay-at-home mothers. This is prevalent everywhere, but more pronounced in smaller cities and towns.

In the later part of the last decade, I found myself as a housewife and a stay-at-home mom

No one other than my husband knew my given name, for quite a while! For the security guard of the building, I was the lady in <insert door number>. For the house help, I was ‘madam’ – even though I was younger than her. 

It is usually the children who make friends first, when the family moves to a new place. Then the moms of those children become friends. But for some reason they address each other as the ‘mom of child X or Y’, almost always. Thank God for mobile phones, otherwise people wouldn’t even bother to ask for a woman’s given name – even after becoming ‘friends’ and living next to each other. Not knowing someone’s first name is somehow packaged as a sign of formality and not addressing them by their name is somehow packaged as respect!

If undertaken as an academic study in social sciences, I’m sure ‘the name’ study will bring to the surface, several underlying aspects of not just gender, but also class and caste. Right now, I’m just glad that I made a resolution to ask for the name of every woman I meet – so that I can address her as a person..

Next time you remember what to do, right....

Nandini Mithun