The faults of the working mother

When I got pregnant, I was confused about a lot of things, but one thing I was clear about was going back to work full time. I did not want to lose touch with my career, the world, the industry... you know the drift. 

You can read the entire article here.

Marie Kondo and the joy of pre-love

There is a lot of noise on social media about this Marie Kondo Netflix series on tidying up and sparkling joy. I haven’t watched it yet. To be honest, I got so bored of Bandersnatch that I haven’t logged into Netflix in a while now. It sparks joy in my mind to avoid that app these days.

Anyway, I do not generally agree with this philosophy of saying goodbye to things we love. Or people we love, for that matter. I hoard what I love, and I throw away what I don’t. In fact, I am such a ruthless thrower-awayer of things that I wonder if I love anything at all. Except books. And, I hear that Kondo has suggested we throw away books too. So, I don’t like her. Throwing her away from my mind now.

All this talk about love for objects, and joy in tidying up, sparks a completely different thread of angst in me. Do you know what’s fashionable these days? Pre-loving and pre-caring for things. Darn it, this phrase ‘second-hand’ has been made obsolete and very second-class, no one uses it anymore. Except for with used cars. Yet to hear someone say “My pre-loved car is up for grabs.”

I mean, even grammatically, ‘pre-loved’ doesn’t seem to make much sense. What does ‘pre-loved’ mean? That I don’t love it anymore? That it is pre- my love and I will love it once I sell it to you? That it was created before love came into existence?

And you know where it is used the most? With baby stuff. People are always selling their kids’ pre-loved toys and pre-loved furniture and pre-loved car seats. Now, I have my share of baby stuff. As soon as our kid turned 6 months, V and I promptly landed up at the baby store to purchase bed, high chair, and stroller, without any view of where we will hold it in our very Bombay apartment. While my baby is super special to me and I consider her a very unique being, she is exactly the same as 90% of the babies in this world (the other 10% I am told are raised by parents who read books like ‘How to talk so little kids will listen’). So, coming back to my baby, she is very predictable – doesn’t use any of these new-fangled things mama and papa got her with much love, and a significant pocket outlay.

So, I look at these things with anything but love. That stroller, especially that stroller. It’s this white elephant in the drawing room, only grey in color. I would willingly throw it out with the bathwater (without the baby), especially at the next person who utters the phrase ‘pre-love’. The only thing stopping me is that significant pocket outlay. I am told kids use the stroller when they are 4-5 years old and too lazy to walk, especially on holidays outside India. Maybe, I will wait till then, while building a lot of angst up every time I see that stroller next to my much-loved bookrack.

By the time I internalize the concept of sunk cost and opportunity cost at space wastage, it might become my pre-hated item. That’s at least a differentiated value proposition for a sale, for whatever it is worth.

Of weddings and offices

Ten years ago, when I started my career, Kamala Mills (Lower Parel, Mumbai) was the haven of the office goer. Because, that’s where you landed up if you wanted a paycheck. It had two gates, one front and one back, with a long line of taxis at both, none of them willing to go anywhere. There was a JaiHind restaurant (Udipi? Café?) outside one of the gates, and that’s all the food we could get, if we wanted to avoid the unpalatable food at the teeny tiny office cafeteria. Those days, Kamala Mills also had a large tract of wasteland within, withering away in the Mumbai sun and floating away in the excessive rains, that transformed into a dusty parking lot for the brave that drove to work. In that era, I knew no one who drove to work in Bombay. Except two. Who we would hound on bad monsoon days to drop us wherever we could be dropped, gearing up to swim the rest of the distance homewards.

Anyway, all this preamble is for naught, only to serve as a reminiscence of the struggles of a newbie in Bombay. But, that parking lot at Kamala Mills? That one has significance. That’s where the land owner’s son or daughter got married one fine weekend. In an age devoid of Instagram and instant rumors, we made do with hearsay, tabloid stories, and our own curiosity to come up with what was cookin’ at the wedding. SRK danced, said someone. Katrina did too, piqued another. The wedding cost 25 crores, exclaimed a third. We spoke about those unknown people for at least 2-3 lunches and tea breaks at work.

What will we do for small talk if not for ostentatious weddings, I thought.

Cut to 2018. Kamala Mills no longer has that decrepit parking lot; neither does it have those sad cafeterias. Not too many people walk in there to draw paychecks any longer, for it has transformed into the safe haven of pubs and bars and discs, all highly flammable, that people walk into, to see their paychecks go up in smoke (literally, sometimes). The action has all shifted. To other office buildings in Lower Parel, but much to the concrete jungle of BKC (in Bandra and somewhat in Kurla).

I need to go back a bit again, you know. When you have spent a good 10+ years criss-crossing a city, especially as a consultant with clients all the way from Nariman Point to Ghansoli (which is technically not even in Bombay), there is a lot of reminiscence that is (un)avoidable. BKC used to be a place perennially under construction. Buildings were coming up everywhere, but there was only concrete waste to see, no food to eat, and general desert-land around. The only good thing was, no traffic from home, so I didn’t complain. BKC today has developed by leaps and bounds, if lot of buildings means lot of development. However, it still seems to be perennially under construction (of the metro rail variety), also full of traffic. Only silver lining – endless, copious amounts of food everywhere.

What is the point, you may ask. The Kamala Mills of 10 years ago and the BKC of today meet at an interesting junction, quite counter-intuitive to the commercial connection they have. Weddings. The grandiose variant nonetheless. Come to think of it, it’s quite poetic setting wedding ceremonies in the middle of commercial establishments. There is nothing more commercial than a well-spent-upon wedding after all.

I had the good fortune of witnessing the Isha Ambani reception prep from my BKC office, atop a multi-storey building. It looked garish even from afar, but that’s only the jealous woman in me talking. Also, this time, unlike 10 years back, we were able to track to the “tiniest diamond stone in the bride’s Sangeet lehenga” level of detail on the wedding prep, thanks to Instagram and the ever dependable ToI. It made for small talk for a month before and a month after, and may do for several months beyond too. SRK served food, so did Big B. Salman Khan was the side dancer to Anant Ambani’s main dance. Beyonce performed at the pre-wedding ceremony, while ARR at the reception.

I can go on and on. But, really, let me save that for the small talk if and when you, the reader and I, the writer, get to meet each other. For now, I hope they have finally been able to clear the debris from the reception venue. I want to take my kid to that ‘public garden’* for once before she grows up and wants to go instead to the pubs of Kamala Mills.

* Is that even a public garden or have I got it wrong? The public are forever barred from going inside because of some event prep or another.