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REFLECTIONS
An official address
LATHA GOVINDAN
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A tribute to the intrinsic worth and value of the work that women do at home everyday.
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Photo: R. Ragu
Doing `nothing'?: A life of toil without recognition.
TILL three years ago, when people asked me what I did, I would reply: "I taught Sociology at High School, before that I worked in an NGO helping rural women recognise their `self-worth', and before that I was steeped in motherhood attending to baby calls and soothing girly teenage angst." All this and more kept me engaged while we lived in India.
Now, when people ask me what I do, I am at a loss for words to describe my occupation. Rome has endless possibilities, so much to see, so much to explore. A lifetime is not enough to experience the eternal city. With my innumerable houseguests I explore the "must see" monuments, churches and fountains, explaining the antiquity and charm of this fabled place. Those interested in statement shopping, I introduce to Via del Corso and Via del Condotti. Here shops explode Italian designer names — Gucci, Armani, Bulgari, Prada, to name a few. The display windows call attention to fashionably outlandish outfits, impossibly pointed slender shoes and eye-poppingly pricey bags in tantalising shapes and textures; seizing in a titillating pull crowds hungering for more and more. The name game is the name of the game here. To flaunt the label of the big houses of fashion on oneself is the biggest draw of the season. Those aspiring to keep up the contest, but not quite able to afford the prices on these fancy streets, I drive to the Outlet shops in Castelli Romano to indulge their vanity without financial agony. And those in need of bargain prices I take to the flea markets of Porta Portese and Via Sanio, where glib salesmen peddle Murano glass, CK jeans, LV bags at quarter the price while swearing their authenticity.
Multi-tasking
When not engaged in such outdoor activities, I busy in housework: smoothing the creases from freshly laundered shirts, trying desperately to maintain the shine on my parquet floors and Wedgwood cups and saucers. Cooking also I do, making sure we have a hot meal at the end of the day, keeping the family wholesome and in good spirits. That is not all. I also entertain my husband's diplomatic guests, when I cook grand Indian meals, impressing and educating them that Indian food is not only chicken tikka masala and tandori naan but fish molee and appam too. That each State of India has its own culture and food that is as distinct as steak and kidney pie is from tagliatelle al tartufo. Kerala cuisine uses the delicate flavours of the coconut in its curries, vegetables and sweets. We also feast on an array of seafood from the Arabian Sea. Dinners at home are nostalgic of my faraway land and, hence, fish curry laced with coconut milk, accompanied with steamed rice-flour bread, the exotic "appam", is a popular favourite. Appam is puffed with yeast in Rome, and not toddy as it would be if I were in Kerala. My foreign friends are charmed at this new culinary experience.
Entertaining relatives and friends, showing them around bella Roma, executing household tasks, are all managed quite adeptly by my seasoned self. Also, I might add, I give myself three hours of reading for pure pleasure. This time I devote to the word. Re-discovering Cervantes' Don Quixote has helped me dream again. Devouring Diddi by Ira Pande makes me reminisce of glistening days spent at Ranikhet in the Himalayas and of the gentle people of the hills. Most of all I love the advice Diddi breathes in her writings: "The common people you have around you are a treasure. Remember they represent a rich cultural tradition: make them the subject of your study. Look closely at the people you work with, observe their language, thoughts, their social units, their lifestyles and beliefs. You will learn more from them than from hours spent in a library or museum. Yet remember that you must interact with them in a responsible manner: do all you can to make them understand their past, see their present for what it is and prepare them to face their future. In short learn from them and teach them."
Unrecognised skill
That it is an adroit skill to be able to boil rice, attend to a friend on the telephone, catch the news headlines on the BBC and load the washing machine all at the same time, is never recognised by any managerial Guru. We women think and work multi-laterally and yet we are often admonished for not paying attention to detail. With no management training, most women are able to handle these quotidian tasks with easy aplomb. Rural women in India are known to labour for 16 hours a day, sowing fields, foraging firewood, grazing cattle, caring for children and executing domestic chores. A life full of care. Yet, when you ask them what work they do, pat comes the answer: "Nothing"; not recognising their toil all day with no time for themselves, not even time to stand and stare. Only because the work that women perform is not remunerated monetarily. Yes, money makes the world go round. Strangely, when my friends ask me what I do these days, I find it hard to describe my office-less status. Is it that domestic work has become so degraded in the grab for office jobs, that to admit that one enjoys the quiet of the home, is seen as the mark of a loser? Or does the world notice women at home only as "desperate house-wives" with no agenda, no purpose and plenty of time to kill?
No complaints
Discord and discontent, resulting in unspoken bitterness, spring from absence of recognition of the value of work. And, when the intrinsic worth of every kind of work is proportionately acknowledged, proud families, communities and nations are built. Self-esteem of a person, of a family, of a community, of a nation is then the spirit of the universe. As Nietzsche said: "To esteem is to create: esteeming itself is of all esteemed things the most estimable treasure."
I am not complaining at not having an official address. I am able to write in the morning, read in the afternoon, take the air with friends in the evening and share a relaxed home-cooked dinner with my husband. I keep busy all day without wages and when I go to bed am happy at the day well spent. Is this not the "ideal world" that Marx envisioned? Or, am I making it up?
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