Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Femininity

Makeup caked my face giving it a pasty, ghoulish appearance. I had painted my lips garishly red and put an excessive quantity of kohl in my eyes as well. I had also draped myself up in a golden hued sari which shimmered under bright lights. The bangles in both my scrawny hands jangled as I walked while my thin neck hurt because of the unwonted weight of the heavy gold necklace that was dangling from it. I had worn high heeled sandals and donned new, elaborate coiffure-things I had never done before.
The view that the mirror had presented when I stood before it was dreary-I could be either a woman of the street or a lady of an ultra-conservative, affluent and patriarchal household. I was not sure I wanted to resemble either but I was determined to appear in public dressed in this fashion. I wanted to find out for myself if by dressing up in the conventional, feminine fashion, made me feel feminine-a feeling that had eluded me for the eighteen years that I had spent with the gender identity of ‘woman’. I, thus, attended my cousin’s wedding last summer to evoke the femininity latent in me. As I walked besides my mother into the hotel banquet hall where the wedding reception was held that evening, I was determined to not feel awkward or embarrassed of my gaudy appearance. Women are supposed to exude feminine charm by being graceful and pretty and since it is widely believed that cosmetics, ornaments and a winsome smile are what women need to assert their beauty and grace, I decided to test their efficacy under my mother’s experienced guidance.
I had not been in the party for even ten minutes when I became aware that several pairs of eyes were on me. My aunt-the groom’s mother-came up to us and said, “Nalini, is that you? Oh you look so grown up and beautiful! The sari is suiting you well too. Your mom cannot complain that you have pathetic dressing sense anymore.” She grinned and began talking to my mother, in whose smile I thought I saw, a hint of pride. Maybe she would finally forgive me for turning up at the last family function in clothes which I had deemed to be appropriate for the occasion but which, according to her, had made me look little better than a rag-picker amidst all my well dressed relatives.
My other aunt-mother’s younger sister-inspected me now from head to toe and commented, “Did I not tell you that you are actually not bad looking? See how you have been transformed into a pleasant and attractive young lady with a little effort! Do you feel the difference?” She asked me, sounding triumphant.
“No, I don’t feel any difference yet. But these things take time; how different is it from Buddha’s enlightenment? I am sure that I would start feeling like a lady soon. Thanks, aunt.” I replied, smiling what I felt was my most alluring smile and went ahead to find myself a place to sit because my legs had already began to ache. I heard say as I walked past her, “Don’t jump around in the sari.”
This aunt of mine loved me dearly-she had given me the enlightening advice after I had refused to accept an expensive salwar kameez as a present on my last birthday-and had instead asked for a volume of Poe’s works-that to feel like a woman, one needs to behave like a woman. “How exactly does one feel when one feels like a woman?”I had asked her. She and my mother had exchanged glances and then she, with the air of a detective on the verge of unraveling a mystery, said, “Dress up well first. Inculcate grace and behave with a polite restrain and soon you shall know, what it feels like to be a woman.”
Thus, at the wedding I had turned up dressed up as well as I could in expensive raiment and behaved with as much as I could with what I imagined feminine grace was and waited to begin to feel like a woman. I heard the enraged voice in my head telling me that I look ridiculous. It said caustically, “How can make up and gold arouse femininity in you? What the heck is femininity anyway?”
“Femininity is grace and poise, I think-qualities which young ladies in my position should possess.” I replied.
“But grace and poise are not intrinsic qualities like honesty or intellect. They manifest only in one’s demeanour and one can fake one’s public deportment. This in turn means, one can pretend to be graceful and stuff. How can anything that be faked be an essential quality of a woman? I still don’t know what femininity is!”
“You are right, I think. But I cannot listen to you now. Let me give my mother and aunt a chance and maybe, we would discover what it is to be a woman.” I replied to the voice that loved Emilie Dickinson and Wilkie Collins and just like me, was eighteen years old. I was engrossed in conversing with the voice in my head when Tina, my sixteen year old cousin also dressed in a sari, walked up to me and said, “Why are you sitting alone, looking all confused?” Before I could say anything in reply, she said sounding suddenly gleeful and excited, “Guess what has happened? A couple of guys-they are cousins of the bride-just asked little Toby about you! I have already spoken to them; they are engineering students. They are really funny and one of them is very cute. You have to speak to them. Come with me!”
I was taken aback but I was pleased with what I heard-was I becoming ladylike, finally? Men have never asked about me; in fact, I was not sure what were they asking about me. “What did they ask Toby?”, I said to Tina.
“Oh, the normal stuff. They asked your name, your age, if you are related to the groom, and what you study. Ah, they just passed by. Look at the two guys near the window to your right!”
I looked in the direction at which Tina pointed and saw two boys, maybe in their early twenties, glancing at us. I felt perplexed and heard the voice again, “So, is attracting male attention is very important a part of being feminine?” I had to wait no longer, I felt I knew what being feminine entailed. I turned to Tina and said, “Well, you know me. Tell them that I have a tooth ache and cannot speak.” My cousin looked at me, with astonishment in her mien. “You are strange!” she said and left. “You may tell your cute guys that too if you please.” I replied as she walked away and then the realization dawned on me that to be feminine, is to bear on one’s shoulder the encumbrance of a million pretentions-I have to be coy, graceful, charming and look beautiful in a way that would make men ask about me. “Do you want to be that?”The voice asked. “No, it’s too heavy a burden. I am happier being free to look clumsy, to behave awkwardly and to brood without having to talk to men simply because they are cute. I am happier being me, unfeminine and unattractive!” I and the voice soon started discussing how we had both day-dreamed that very afternoon about living in Murshidabad during the period of political turmoil which followed Nawab Siraj ud Daula’s defeat against the East India Company at the battle of Plassey. I thought I heard some other voice-probably that of my mother saying, “Oh there is Nalini! She is staring blankly again.” But I paid no heed-I and the voice were already courtiers displeased with the inaptitude of our new Nawab, Mir Jafar!