I have been rather uncharacteristic in the past couple of months: Not only did I buy myself a pair of shoes from a website, I followed that up with buying a couple of books online as well.

Er, yes. That's what I meant when I said I was uncharacteristic. But, perhaps, I should elaborate.

I detest shopping. I have detested it for as long as I can remember. I don't mind having new things (although never an excess of it), and even actually like it at times, but it is the act of getting new things that I find unbearable. I am most happy when someone else gives me things that I like without me having to be involved in the process of buying them. Here's why:

1. I begin to get a niggling feeling that I would like to buy, for instance, a pair of shoes. My previous pair has worn out and I need to replace it. And this is where the problem begins. I don't think, "a pair of shoes". I think, "a pair of black leather pumps (not patent leather but matte), with peep toes (but not too much of toes showing), about a 3-inch heel with a hard rubber (not metal) tip, rubber or leather soles with a good grip." (I might as well make the shoe myself!)
2. I then go on a recce of the shops that I have in mind. This may take from a day (if the shops are in one neighbourhood or mall), or several days. This is how my recces almost always go:
a) I don't find exactly what I am looking for. Either the shoe is not leather, or not the right colour; the heels are hideous; or the sole is made of some synthetic material that will crumble in no time; or, if all other requirements are ticked off, there will be a large, bow, with a glistening stone in its centre, stuck over the face of the shoe.
b) If, by chance, I do find what I am looking for, it will never be available in my size.
c) And if, by some greater stroke of luck, I get the design that I want, in a size that fits, it will cost a preposterous amount.
3. After days of recces and subjecting myself to the lurid interiors of shops and malls, aching feet, and thinning patience, I give up the idea of buying any shoe at all.

Apart from never quite finding something that I like, that fits, and that I can afford, I cannot stand the bright, glistening, shimmering, sparkling mash of colours that assault my eyes in any shop I enter, whether it sells shoes, handbags or soap. (Bookshops, obviously, are an exception and, therefore, much loved.) My eyes must be peculiarly sensitive; it would explain why I feel violent urges to grab my sunglasses while sitting at my office desk when I spot characters dressed in, for example, vast swathes of canary yellow with fuchsia detailing. (There should be a rule against such combinations.)

So, after the usual farce of a recce (as mentioned in points 2a, b and c), I considered going online and checking if a certain brand of shoes would have something I could buy. Let me mention here that apart from flight tickets, I had never bought anything online, ever.

To my great surprise, I did find something that I liked, and that looked like it would fit, and I could afford it. Thinking that all this was simply too good to be true, I agonised over the return policy for a couple of days (called up the helpline and badgered some fellow there, etc). But finally bought it. When the shoe arrived, I felt like I had got a surprise present from someone, so alien was the feeling of being handed a parcel holding something that I like.

Much enthused, and encouraged, I told myself that I should stop being this old foggy, and dive into the world of online shopping. After all, look at my mother (I think apart from a house and a car, she has bought everything possible online... clothes, shoes, kitchen appliances, books, jewellery, painting equipment, groceries, furnishings...).

And so I went to Jabong.com. After my success with the last pair of shoes, I chose to browse some more footwear. I was told there were some 17,000 kinds I could choose from. Hold on. 17,000?? I gingerly started scrolling... bright colours started flashing before my eyes. After a few minutes, I narrowed my search to leather footwear. From 17,000 it came down to 300-something. That was quite drastic. I scrolled some more. Very soon my eyes started feeling funny again... just like they do when I walk the aisles of malls for too long. Scrolling through hundreds of shoes on a 15-inch screen was even worse. It was like having innumerable of those same lurid shops crammed into a miniscule space.

I shut my laptop down, switched off the lights in my room, and lay down, feeling ill.

A few days later, I thought of giving it another shot and went to Flipkart to browse books (after all, I have heard so much about it). Something similar to Jabong happened. Thousands of books. It should have been a delight, but it wasn't. It can hardly be compared to spending hours in front of crammed bookshelves, bending your neck this way and that to read the titles, pulling them out, flipping through them, sniffing at the binding, shifting on gradually aching feet... I logged out, not having browsed more than a handful of covers.

I did order a couple of books later though (no bookshop seemed to have these titles), in a much sanitized, matter-of-fact manner: Log on, check for availability, place order, log out. I might as well be buying a bulb at the local hardware shop.

I realized that shopping online does not change a single darn thing: To get the things that I truly like (books), I will still spend hours inside shops; while buying things that are low-priority will remain largely painful and avoidable.

So much for being an old foggy.

Today is rakhi. I didn't know, naturally. The marketplaces have been strung up with rakhis of all sorts for days, of course, but that didn't tell me when the occasion actually was. So, when, throughout this evening, I witnessed, overdressed and over-stressed women (and girls) of all ages, sizes, and socio-economic strata rushing around, I thought something must be up. And yes, it is rakhi.

I (we, my family) don't celebrate rakhi, or bhai phonta, or any such festival. I have very vague memories of our parents literally dragging my brother and me out of bed at some unearthly time of the night because that was the auspicious moment when I was expected to smear some mixture of stuff on my brother's forehead. I don't remember whether we actually completed the farce (we might well have fallen back asleep in the middle of it), but I do remember our parents muttering that if my brother and I didn't care at all for it, why should they. That was the last time they tried to go through with it. Very wise decision.

Apart from my brother's utter lack of interest in rituals of any sort (genetically inherited, I am sure), there was also the minor issue of me demanding that my brother do all the rituals that I (as a girl) was expected to perform. If I gave my brother a dab of holy stuff on his forehead and muttered incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo, he better be dabbing similarly holy stuff on my forehead and mutter mumbo-jumbo as well. (The mumbo-jumbo, it seemed, was addressable only to brothers; there was no version for sisters.)

When I was older, my mother tried to get me to do the occasional Lokkhi pujo on Thursdays. Initially it was fun--I read the Lokkhi-r Panchali, thinking it was a cute folklore, set up the pujo paraphernalia, etc--but soon I got bored. And then, once again, I realized that my brother has been left out of this. Heated arguments with my mother soon followed.
"Why should only I do it? Dada has to do it too."
"But only girls do Lokkhi pujo."
"Says who? All pujaris are male. Dada should do pujo also."
"Look at X (some cousin sister). She also does Lokkhi pujo."
"I don't care what she does, or anyone else does. I will not do it, if dada is also not doing it."
When things got serious, my father pulled me aside one day and said, "Why don't you just go and light the dhoop and get it over with? Don't have to do anything else. Nothing else."
Hm. Once I realized that even he really couldn't care less about whether the pujo was done or not, or how it was done, I did what he said. And my mother didn't ask me again.

No, I didn't know what feminism was. All I knew was my brother should not be allowed to go scot free while I had to do something I had no interest in.

We (my family, again) have never celebrated (or worshipped) men, like millions of families in India do. I have never understood why the women do it. One of my theories is that womenfolk--deprived of most forms of activities and entertainment that men enjoyed--came up with these rituals to fill their time with. It is similar to the reason why womenfolk also came up with such elaborate and complicated recipes for cooking food; it just kept them occupied for hours on end, giving them a sense of purpose.

Coming to think of it, I wonder how my brother and I would have reacted if we saw our parents go through the motions of something like karwa chauth. I am sure we would have been in splits, holding our sides, laughing, till tears streamed down our faces. And knowing our parents, my mother would refuse to skip even a single meal, while my father would probably crack the wildest of jokes at the mere idea of having some flour-sieve thrust in his face. Bless them both.

No, I don't have much respect for rituals. Some of them can be fun. But definitely not when the whole thing is about only one half of the population fawning on the other half, repeatedly.

That Women’s Day is a load of bull must be obvious even to the most naïve. It is another excuse to dress in festive finery to work, get free food in the office canteen, take part in school-like fun-and-games organized by the HR. Yes, people—women—do enjoy it, do appreciate it, do have fun.

And then I see innumerable women—friends, acquaintances, colleagues, ex-colleagues, cousins—struggle to cope with keeping house and job together. Countless women I know manage their homes while being at work—no, not at the cost of their work, but along with their work. Some electricity line at home has blown a fuse, the woman is juggling mouse, keyboard, computer monitor, and a reluctant electrician on the phone; the ayah has not turned up and the mother-in-law cannot manage the cooking and baby together, the woman is on the phone (the blessed phone!) with a friend/sister/sister-in-law/neighbour/playschool trying to get a replacement ayah… I don’t need to go on, you know what I mean.

Yes, the husband could/should do part of this. But that is another long, and long-standing, debate. Let us focus on this one point for the moment: Women have to manage their homes and their office simultaneously. And this is only worse for women with small children.

Seeing all the women-with-small-children around me on this Women’s Day I wondered: They are all educated, “emancipated” in many ways, financially more independent that most others; then why don’t all these strident, forceful, assertive, liberated women do something about this? Especially women who are in professions—journalism, law, social activism, teaching—that are supposed to help the less privileged become more aware of their rights?

I do a bit of online browsing. And then I come across this:

Central Government Act
Section 48 in The Factories Act, 1948
(1) In every factory wherein more than 1[ thirty women workers] are ordinarily employed there shall be provided and maintained a suitable room or rooms for the use of children under the age of six years of such women.
(2) Such rooms shall provide adequate accommodation, shall be adequately lighted and ventilated, shall be maintained in a clean and sanitary condition and shall be under the charge of women trained in the care of children and infants.
(3) The State Government may make rules--
(a) prescribing the location and the standards in respect of construction, accommodation, furniture and other equipment of rooms to be provided under this section;
(b) requiring the provision in factories to which this section applies of additional facilities for the care of children belonging to women workers, including suitable provision of facilities for washing and changing their clothing;
(c) requiring the provision in any factory of free milk or refreshment or both for such children;
(d) requiring that facilities shall be given in any factory for the mothers of such children to feed them at the necessary intervals.

Incredible! You mean, not only is this a woman’s right, it is actually a law? A law like any other law? A law that should invite penalty / punishment when it is not followed? Like the law that says stealing is a punishable offence?

I am sure I am really late to this knowledge but, in my defence, I don’t have children who I have to manage remotely, or tear myself away from every morning to go earn a living. But what about the many women I know who do?

So, here’s a question for all the working mothers who are reading this: Will you ask your HR department why you don’t have a crèche in your office?
You tear yourself away from your toddler every morning. It breaks your heart; it breaks hers/his. Can you do this for yourself? For the bewildered eyes that wonder where you disappear for several hours together?

Sure you can. But will you?
Or will you remain content with the free canteen food on the next Women's Day?

Today, in a taxi, I heard a song on the radio that I had first heard while in a car many years ago. It was 1999; we were going to the Howrah station; it was morning; it was summer; and I liked the song from the moment it started. It was from a movie called Mann. It (I had later seen) had Rani Mukherjee and Aamir Khan dancing (when he still did dance in movies instead of wearing a permanent frown). Today, I still knew all the words.

There's something about moments created by songs while travelling in a car. Moments in which there's just me, the world moving past my window, and the song. I don't consciously form these moments; they form themselves. And they stay on inside me somewhere, only to surface months, maybe years, maybe decades later.

My first such moment was a late winter night in the December of 1990; a long drive to the airport in an Ambassador (what else?!); the window up, against the chilling wind; the moon up, speeding along with the car, bouncing over the tops of trees; my head resting against the window, me looking up and following the moon. Chaandi raat hai, tu mere saath hai was playing on the car deck. I knew it was Baaghi, with Salman Khan and a rather scandalously dressed Nagma. I didn't know what Baaghi meant, what most of the words of the song meant, what the movie was about. What I did know was I loved that moment. I don't have a clue what happened before or after it.

There have been a few more of these moments over the years. Not many though. For although all the components have been there--a song, a car, travel--it's probably me who was somewhere else; not quite there.