Talk like a man
You don’t really have to be male to talk like one, you see (to state the bleeding obvious). One, erm… lives and learns.
“It’s her duty as a wife to live with him and look after him in his old age. What do you mean he was emotionally dismissive?”
Translation: After a lifetime of being treated like an emotional and intellectual doormat i.e. her primary function being to cook, clean, look pretty and nod assent when everybody gushed over her surgeon husband who had actually played cricket for the country (lucky woman!), she decided enough was enough. At the ripe retirement age of 60. And chose to go live with her daughter in the U.S, start a business, make friends of her own and get a life. But this is unacceptable, of course. Ungrateful little shit. What about the poor man? He just can’t cope with the weather in
“Her son’s a weakling, he’s never going to do well. She should support him in every way. It’s her duty as a mother. Why does she want to buy jewellery at this age? She’s 70, for God’s sake! It’s not as if anyone’s going to look at her. He needs her help, she's his mother!”
Context: Hamara Bharat mahaan (‘
Translation: One of her sons is a loser. This suits his very successful siblings and extended family since it provides them with a ready made travel agent, chauffeur, concierge, payer of bills etc. They pay his (and his unfortunate wife’s) rent, in return. Except for one small problem. He now wants to procreate. And wants Mama to help with extra money, and childcare and and and. Mama, widowed young and without supports, has worked very hard for her money, until she retired 5 yrs ago. She’s never bought jewellery for herself. Until she came by an inheritance. Recently. Which she should donate to the loser-procreator-turned-mard (more Hindi). Naturally.
“She’s sexless”
Translation: She’s focused on her work and has no time for gendered office games viz. popping cleavage, flirting, playing the sex card, living up to the 'feminine' stereotype etc. However, if she was a man, acceptable descriptors would include, ‘incredibly focused and determined’, ‘dresses like a typical intellectual’, 'he's so focused he's not bothered about what he wears', 'typical absent-minded Professor-in-the making' etc.
“She’s a frigid cunt”
Translation: However much I try, she won’t sleep with me. Because she has
1) Better taste; and/or
2) Other priorities.
“She’s a fuckin’ nympho”
“She’s really vicious/ a ballbreaker/ jor ”
“He’s looks like a tough bastard, all right, but he’s a useless henpecked git around that wife of his” “He’s completely under that babe’s thumb, mate, effin’ idiot”
And finally, my favourite, from a ‘liberated’ Indian man who married for ‘love’.
“Change into Indian clothes when we stopover in
Change in London? What d'you mean? What if someone saw her? These things count at work, y'know.
Note: This post has been anonymized. Googling the surgeon who played cricket for
9 Comments:
An interesting spectrum of attitudes and mindsets...but I hate to be judgemental on some of them atleast without knowing the persons concerned further. Even if they are totally fictional.
i LOVED this post:) thanks nevermind.
to add to the stuff one hears around all the time- marriage is about compromise. someone needs to stay at home, look after the kids, move cities or countries if the partners job so demands.
subtext- women are better at adjusting and caring. it might as well be them.
gender of speaker- female often. the men are too busy working. they can leave such domestic bickering to their womenfolk after all.
Glorious post. The second conversation especially is scary, because it mirrors the situation of a family I know (family friends), where the mum has two adult children, a daughter and a son. Her daughter takes care of her and basically does everything for her.
But of course, if you're Indian, sons are the shimmering beacons at the end of a dark tunnel (eyeroll), and even though her son was out-of-work, lazy and an overall good for nothing fart, she poured all her resources into supporting him, basically sidelining her daughter/thankless beast of burden in the process.
It sickens me to this day, it really really does.
haha, excellent post. loved the bits about the nympho, and the jeans-into-salwar frieze at the airport. Jeez. The last quote - I actually know people who I'm *sure* would think that way.
Tis a pity, but the truth.
and hello! :)
sreekumar, hi, good to see you're around. none of it's fictional. i am a relativist, and a pragmatic believer in context and subjectivity myself, but i believe with cold clarity that most of this goes beyond relativistic understanding, let alone justification (sorry for sounding like a paper from a journal; try v. hard not to do that). in short, primitive, unintelligent attitudes are just that.
nikita, now, why aren't i surprised:)? the next time you have, erm, certain guests, maybe the lady and i could trot along and do the dirty. you do the wine and view, we'll do the rest. should be fun, no?
punkster, thanks. the lady in question, she did exactly what she wanted, eventually. and has reached a sublime state of don't give a shit anymoreness. so good for her.
TAP, hi, long time. re: the last bit, boggles the mind, no? i mean, un-fuckin-believable. Jeez.
long time indeed :)
@punkster -
"sons are the shimmering beacons at the end of a dark tunnel"
-- warms the cockles of my heart, i tell you..
Lovely and extremely funny post. In a sad kind of way.
hi unmana, thanks. hadn't thought of the sad angle before, but it is, isn't it?
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