Equal but special

Recently a friend asked me what were my views on giving women 1 day off on the first day of their period. Yes you heard it right - first day of every period, once a month to working women. I was plainly appalled by the question. Not because it was insensitive or crass but because it was bordering on genteel understanding and a supreme confidence borne out of considerateness for a woman's troublesome, painful, pesky three days. I promised him that I will try and articulate why I don't want it and here goes...

Picture credit - cnn.com

Privilege

Its my belief that I am born a woman out of accident. I could have been male / female/Androgyne. But the universe decided that I will be blessed and have the privilege of carrying a life and nurturing to birth. This was bestowed on me and not something that I earned or worked for. But to have that privilege meant that I will go through a natural process of having monthly period from when I am 14 yrs of age. Statistics say that 10 out of 100 women suffer period pain in varying intensities. As much as I don't want to brush it away as natural pain to be put up with, I don't want to encourage fellow women to completely abstain from work, normal routines and go into hibernation. From a more pragmatic standpoint, I would advice less stress, taking the day easier with a  chilled out attitude and maybe a couple of beers with friends after work. Be happy, take it cool and no need to take the day off! In fact, we should take the day head on :-)

Equality?

I have twin children -  a girl and a boy. My messages to them from birth have been that they are equal. As they grew up, I had to tell them that they are equal but not same - from the gender perspective. Now they are teenagers and with increasing nuances, I am also afraid to tell my children that they are equal but one is special. But special in what way?

• Special in a way that she cannot walk alone in the evening back home.
• Special in a way, she has to be practical about her dress sense.
• Special in a way that recruitment advertisements carry invitation for only women
• Special in a way that gender diversity is a big agenda in many companies

If I am an equal how do I explain special? If I am different and special and need a different stroke at different times how can I ever be seen as an equal? Will my colleagues from the other genders respect me or detest me for all the special treatment that I get, which for them is denied. I don't know what is special and hence I detest all special treatment that is considerate to me. In fact, I feel chauvinism was better and feminism celebrated too often and too freely.

Need Vs Want

I took on the world in my own terms a young girl from a small town, working and fiercely independent filled with ideals from Bharathiar songs (National poet who imagined a free spirited liberated woman - Pudhumai Penn) Unfortunately, nothing in life treated me as an equal to a male. Neither did I seize life in a way that overcame my own lifelong conditioning or subtle messaging throughout. I am exposed to an average middle class child hood and the much celebrated, over hyped IT industry and I hear down the rungs its worse in lower economic strata and lower paid sectors. Thinking about what would all women need today, I would say

• We need more safety for women
• We need to be able to walk anywhere without constantly watching over our shoulders
• We need better physical and sexual safety across industry, income groups and economic strata.
• We need equal pay
• We need better portrayal of women in  99% of advertisements - from toilet cleaners to toothbrushes to cooking masala and high end bikes - all of them objectify women.
• We need household work to be shared. Not from "I am a liberated man - I help my wife in the chores at home"  but more from a perspective of "this is our home, lets both share all chores and responsibilities" 
• We need to be free from the constant worry of whether my young child (girl/ boy) might be molested by some monster when we are away at work.

Maybe I will think about relief or rest during 1 day of menstrual pain after these existential and core issues are addressed. Maybe some day, but definitely not now.

Strength and Pride

I am trying to teach all children around me to be resilient , strong and be able to face challenges. How can we inculcate this kind of inner strength if I start from the pretext of physical weakness -during a period every month? What excuse will I have for the male team member who will run around screaming - I want a period and I want an off day too??? Partly I am also driven by immense pride and competitiveness. I think I can work equally hard and harder in tougher assignments at the workplace. If he can work 22 days a week, I want to be able to clock in more outcomes in lesser number of days. Not just clock 22 days or lesser but be able to compete equally and be recognized on fair grounds. I feel the menstrual privilege will put me at a serious disadvantage.
It will be a gradual weakening of the spirit and a collective slow poisoning of the spunky and courageous spirit of every woman. Maternity privilege is done, menstrual privilege is under consideration -what next?  Menopausal benefit?

Thank you, Team Headstart

Was the decision correct? Did we do the right thing for the kids? Will they be fine staying away from us for 7 days when they were all  of 11 years old? Is it safe? These were a few of the many questions that were running through our heads when we went to drop the children at the airport on the day they were leaving for the Delhi excursion. The kids were excited and happy to greet each other and check luggage and hurriedly confer with their friends.

The first thing that caught our attention were the yellow ribbons and boxes of packed food for the morning. The teachers were fully armed, prepared to handle 40+ adrenalin charged children for the next 7 days. We said our goodbyes, our daughter was insistent we gave her a hug and of course our son preferred a handshake and a matter of fact goodbye. I gave him also a hug, as I was definitely missing him already. The teachers collected the kids in groups, lined them and got the kids through the entrance security gate in an orderly fashion without disturbing the other passengers. After waving till our eyes could track them no longer, we loitered in the airport for another 30 minutes as we did not have the heart to leave. While driving back, we felt their absence acutely and missed their presence every mile of the ride back.

My husband and I were greeted by a quiet house and we were wondering what to do with our time. Meanwhile, we were getting good updates from Sushma that they had checked in and were airborne. Every day, we looked forward to all the lovely updates from Sushma. An added bonus was the daily blog by Riad with some lovely pictures. This year, children called us twice and it was such a sweet surprise.

The day of picking up the kids arrived and we were at the airport waiting eagerly.  They came running towards us and we could see that they were very happy. They had gift and chocolates with them, were busy saying goodbyes to their friends. I was moved to see one of my daughter’s classmate crying because the excursion was over and she was going to miss her friends.

The first shock came to us when our son who loves restaurant food said : Can I eat some simple dal, chawal at home? The next surprise was when he had conserved the pocket money that we had given him and he returned a small sum back to us. The surprises did not end there, both our children had bought lovely gifts for us and their near and dear ones amongst friends and family. What surprised us the most was the many stories that unfolded over a period of time. The instance where one of my son’s friend would help him by folding all his clothes. The incident where one of my daughter’s friend had fought with her on the trip and how they made up in school after a heartfelt apology. The incident where the school was impromptu and bought them ice creams on entering UP and stories of how they stayed together, bantered, played pranks and enjoyed the trip. Several instances of how they bargained with shop keepers at Dilli Haat to strike the right chord between the cash they had and the price the shopkeepers demanded.

While the kids learnt a little about wildlife at Jim Corbett National park and a little about Mughal emperors, architecture, Taj Mahal, India Gate, Qutb Minar etc, I think they gained a lot more about life, friendships, responsibility, independence and expression. That for me was such a sweet spot in answering the very same questions that we started out with. A very warm thank you to Team Headstart for organizing and executing the Delhi Excursion very well!!

Re-emerging from self imposed silence

My theatre program and the Leadership development program at my work place put me in a quandary. I was busy day in and out, but after making it out of the devleopment program with some great learning experiences, I feel that I am ready to re commence my writing. I used to frequently think that I should write more. Just returned from a fabulous trip to the Cape of Comorin - Kanyakumari and Trivandrum with one of my closest friends and life could not be in any better perspective than now and here.

To mark the start of this innings, here is a quote  (from myself, of course!)

Look at life with more love, expectancy and curiosity like suddenly peeping from behind any one of a thousand windows. Who knows, how each window can unfold?

Thank you, Ritu for your perspectives and this lovely picture!!

The day I lost my marbles

I am part of a theatre group called Yours Truly Theatre (YT) and am doing a theatre season workshop for a year. This entails attending lovely classes and performances to a varied set of audiences and below is an account of our eighth performance but our first one which was a Sunday Interactive Performance (SIP) open to public. Our play was in 'complete the story format' (CTS), where the story is stopped at a critical juncture and the audience are encouraged to share their experiences, views and eventually arrive at a sequence of events or endings. These are enacted by the actors on the spot and this is one of the improvisation theatre formats. Our show was hosted on 27 Oct 2013, at our theatre space called YT ALMA. Below is my thoughts that flew down the keyboard to  monitor on the very next day.  Here goes!

 

 

 

Yesterday  was the first public show for paid audience. The word “paid” was driving us nuts as we were worried that we were not good enough and worried sick if we will be able to complete the story and not make a royal fool of ourselves. We had given seven performances to varied audiences but this one was special – why? I think we mentally emphasized the paid audience as deserving value for the notes that they had shelled out – there was a lot of pressure to perform. Before the show started, we were seated in front of the stage and speaking to each other – mostly because we were nervous and I was singing a song (that too a very lilting sensuous tamil number) that I had watched on TV the previous day. Each of us have our own way of coping with pre –show jitters, I think!!

As soon as the audience were seated, I was turning to see how many people had filled up. I refrained from counting heads and tried to whisper my anguish to Lisha and Sankalp – who were completely chilled out. All of us were awestruck by the brilliance of the first performance – “The Bully team.” Every show, I felt they were moving it a notch higher and true to form, they completely out did themselves. We were called next. The entire “Music team” performance was surreal. I felt the back drop was made for us, the balloons were beautiful and ALMA** was completely transformed just to house our very own story. The story of dreams, aspirations, love, rejection and success again (atleast that is my favourite ending in the CTS) Our CTS was brought to life by our entire team so beautifully. For all the time during practice when we agonized ‘will our CTS be too long or too short? Will it be too confusing with all of us being clueless? Will our audience like it?’ Yesterday, I felt our CTS portion was just PERFECT. I fell a little in love with the whole team yesterday – you guys and girls, rock!!

 

If I do not mention the third “Fear team,” I will be doing a serious disservice. The only thing that I wanted to ask both Aditya and Charit, how did you do that reflection scene to such perfection? You were glimpses of GOD!!

To Anusha, Madhukar and Radhika – my heartfelt thanks for giving our show colour, aesthetics and musical appeal. For our gurus – Nandini, Sumit and Vishal – there is a reason why you should be called our gurus – you took our play to the next level. When did our performance get infused with so much of a comic element without losing the essence? Vanakkam, Vandanam, Nandri. We are gifted to learn with you and from you.

 

**Every SIP, the way ALMA transforms itself (through the creative volunteers and directors) is a revelation. In my mind, ALMA is a beautiful person transforming himself/ herself every time to suit the show – Remember the back drop for Kannada Kavya Chilume, Masala Improv comedy, SIP whatever it was – ALMA looks different and beautiful each time, without fail. I love ALMA for that!!

 

What's in a name?

My mother has come home yesterday, and this reminds me of an interesting tit bit that happened many years ago.



Grandma and grand daughter fast asleep

This happened when we were enrolling our twins into pre primary school. Our limited preparation of my children to face the interview questions spanned across “What is your name?” “ what is your age” what colour is this?” kind of basic questions. We felt admission into school was equivalent to admissions into some university program and were intent on getting our children to prove their individual brilliance. At least in our minds, they were the equivalent of young Einstein’s and May Curie’s of the world. So our coaching started just 2 days ahead of the interview and we were quizzing them to see if they were answering the questions that we would ask most 2 year olds.

 

Grandma,ma and sweety

In our efforts to teach them their full names, we started with my son. When he answered “My name is XXXX” saying only his first name. We jumped in and corrected him. “Your full name is XXXX Satish” and once we were convinced he answered that we moved on to our dear daughter with the same question. She was bold and answered with the supreme confidence of any two year old “My name is YYYY Bhara” appending my name as she is a girl. We were tickled by her response and burst out laughing but for me that was a fulfilling moment when my daughter decided to carry my name forward as a woman and had made the simple deduction that boys carry on the father’s name and daughters will carry on with their mother’s. Bless you sweety, for carrying forward some part of me and this is a tribute to my mum and to you and the link that I am able to form between us!! Life is surely connected and I feel I carry a lot of bits of my mother forward though I have never seriously thought about it or specifically mentioned it!!

We are our mothers daughters and for that I am grateful :-)

First one thought on the many firsts

Today is the day of my first one thought and yesterday was the day of many firsts – the day we did the first TS3 performance in front a hooting and encouraging audience. Who better can we have as an audience than this passionate lot, who will walk up to you and say “it was deep, it was shades of grey, it was realistic, it was AWESOME!!” It was a definitive first for me where I was apprehensive of how the play will turn out as we had not rehearsed enough or so I thought, in my naïve but limited intelligence. It was also the first time, I let go and allowed my co-actor to lead me and what an experience it was! I learnt more through my co actors and following them than I would have learnt in many classes clubbed together!! Loved every minute of it and the fulfilment seems to gain clarity after a day or two.

Yesterday was also the day when I volunteered for the first time at the Kannada Kavya Chilume. I saw first-hand the beautiful back drop come to life and how it was done piece by piece (literally) I experienced the calm and focused actions of show manager, making the right decisions and calling the shots. I saw a lady perched on a high stool (she was climbing great heights for sure J) handling the lights with aplomb. I also saw musicians bring on the magic to stage and weave through every emotion on stage. How did they do it? The act was improv theatre and at least the music must be staged? No, it was going with the flow and establishing the stage, setting the tone, heightening the emotion and finishing with a crescendo. The actors were phenomenal and for all my lack of language skills in Kannada, I left after the circle time, a very happy, content and enriched volunteer. Ofcourse, thanks to the team for performing my favourite kannada word “avali-javali” during their practice sessions. Now I will always look at them (my avali-javali) with more love, more depth and more of satisfaction.

On the subject of my kids, yesterday was also the first time when I was away from my kids and husband for the first time for a full day. Don’t get me wrong, I travel abroad on work, I travel to various places to attend to some family functions, I travel to take care of our farm often….but yesterday seemed like I was away from my family to do something that I enjoyed, I cherished and I derived a lot of pleasure from. That came with equal parts of guilt, defiance and self-doubts. When my daughter asked me today “why were you so late last night?” I wanted to reprimand her but realized she also missed my presence. Being the quiet one, my son is yet to make an observation but my husband has been grudgingly supportive and ensures that home front is taken care of in my absence. So my dilemma from this third experience of firsts during this weekend has been whether it’s the right move to take away one whole day from my two days (weekend) with my kids till they will give it to me? I know very soon in about 3 years’ time, they will have other things to do, and wanting to spend time with uncool parents is almost certainly not going to happen with the cool and hip teenagers that they will be!! So right now, I am still contemplating, dissecting and feeling a bit low about the third first time ever…And I know this is also about my journey of self discovery. Every piece, every nuance and every emotion as an individual, as a mother, as a wife, as a professional and above all as a thinking being wanting to be a little better than what I was yesterday. I am not sad that I am at the crossroads rather I am happy that I arrived here today…I am content in the thought that I shall be…what I choose to be.

Happy to share my thoughts with you!

Outsource everything except being a mother and a wife

The creative team

Recently, I worked with a team of women on a newsletter as part of the "Women in IT" program.  This was a good experience as it exposed to me a lot of infectious enthusiasm and fun. My responsibility included interviewing  a senior leader, writing it up, editing the articles and creating the final copy along with the Chief Editor. Here is a picture of the entire team and a copy of the interview.

No appointments, No disappointments

Traditional at heart, yet modern in her views and outlook, Vasudharini Srinivasan is a shining example of a successful senior leader. She started her career as a Senior Systems Analyst at Mascot Systems and quickly rose through the ranks due to her innovative problem-solving capabilities and financial acumen. As part of her accomplishments, she has been instrumental in taking a new age internet service company through the CMM certification journey, she has led the PMO and Quality function followed by heading the Stores IT delivery organization at Tesco. She is a warm and caring person with a no-nonsense attitude and is happily married with two children aged 15 and 12 years. Here are some excerpts from an interview with her.

 Name few qualities which you think is able to help you get to the current level?

 Execution - Being a hands on technical person helps to lead a technical organization in the right path and ensures that leadership is execution focused;

Empathy - having a true connect with people ensures growth and a high level of retention.

Balance – knowing when to dive into the details and when to get the strategic outlay are a few of the key leadership qualities.

 How do you balance your various roles?

My mantra is, “Outsource everything except being a mother and a wife:-)” Basically, build strong support structures which can complete tasks and provide the time for you to focus on things that you need to complete. I love cooking, and it helps me de-stress, and so does spending time with my children and elders in the family. I believe in working smart to produce results and expect no less from my teams.

 What keeps you going in tough times?

I love humor. That is the most effective therapy during any tough situation. I carry less luggage (hurt, anger, worry, fear) and hence the journey is comfortable and enjoyable. Whenever I hit a rough patch, I tell myself that “this too shall pass” and this helps me to blithely move ahead when all mental weight has been shed.

 What is your view on why there is drastic drop in percentage of women at the top?

I think that the question is whether there is a credible drop in percentages as we climb higher. My answer would be no, because women make their choices and prioritize personal fulfillment over professional success. In the fight between the board room seat and the family hearth, I think the family hearth wins hands down. This is a conscious choice that women are making and there is no element of bias at the top. I think these choices are personal and every woman has to make it consciously. The only advice I would give them is never to allow a guilt gap to overpower or cloud these important career choices.

Be the best you can in what you are, what you do and where you go.  Best Wishes! 

Mrs Vasudharini Srinivasan - Head Stores IT, Tesco HSC