BENGALURU: She smells of her cooking and the perfume Eau d’Hadrien. My mother wore it, too. She used to cook... Our house smelled of garlic and thyme instead of sadness.” — Jennifer Donnelly
My all-time favourite Korean drama Reply 1988 has this bunch of urban moms from different families living in a narrow lane in Seoul, during its famed Olympics year. Known for its realistic portrayal of urban middle class, this series also showcases how these women lived. They exchange food, clean veggies together, drink together, protect their kids fiercely, gossip to the level of scaring their men away and feel happy just to be needed.
I remember we had a little black & white Dianora TV back in 1988. My father, an avid sports fan, replaced it with a Videocon colour TV set just a day before the Olympics started, and half of our mohalla watched it with us. Now, I wonder what it must have been like for my mother, brought up in an urban setup, to live in a drowsy Malnad village, where newspapers and magazines were the only source of knowledge. When the television entered our home in 1986, the primetime news was something my mother made sure we never missed. Our favourite timepass was to imitate news anchors like Rini Simon, Neethi Ravindran, Sarla Maheshwari etc.
Now an urban mom myself, I rue the fact that my daughter could not experience the kind of childhood that I did. We literally grew up in our friends’ homes. Once all of us kids ventured out in the morning after a hearty breakfast, we would return only when our mothers started yelling for us during dusk. We would invade the trees in our neighbourhood coffee estates, have our fill of cashew apples, guavas, mangoes, jackfruit, blueberries, chikoos and what not. We would sprint around, jump from one tree to another. All of us girls hated it when the cricket season started because boys would never include us. Today, I was elated to see the Indian women’s cricket team doting on Pakistani cricketer Bismah Maroof’s baby after their first match. We women have come a long way since we were not expected to play cricket.
The rise of the urban Indian woman has been an unhurried but momentous evolution. From taking part in the Independence movement to claiming room in education, from tadkas and temp jobs to working on space missions, from facing brickbats to thundering for our rights, it has been a hectic but eventful journey. That makes it essential for us to remember, record and reiterate even minute events so that nothing fades out.
The other day, as I was getting scanned at Namma Metro before boarding the train, a woman security guard asked me warmly if I had been working from home last month. Surprised, I looked at her and saw a familiar face. I said yes and asked if she was doing well at work. She smiled and said she did. I guess that is the soundest thing we can do — to acknowledge each other and push other women around us to do better.