I am Mom, this is my monologue

"Good news? What would that be?"
"I am being sarcastic? not with you. When have you bothered about what people -- least of all your mother -- has to say?"
"Good news? You're NOT thinking love, not again."
"And your good news is very different from other peoples'."
"All the things you keep saying: keeping your boyfriend because you don't want to sleep with too many men!"
"Maybe I am conservative and old fashioned."
"WHAT about your happiness? We were also educated, but we didn't think orgasms all the time. Marriages are not made on orgasms."

Click. Bleep. Whirr. Static. Dead.
Phew.
Marriages are not made on orgasms. Hmm. But broken due to the lack of them? And wonder of wonders, no marriage and STILL fucking no orgasm. Not the screaming my lungs, need-to-change-the-sheet, marks on me, kind. Uhm. I will go think about Office Beefcake. More than think. :) Imagination rocks. And men think they need to drink to screw women. Hah.

I am Sunita and I get beaten everyday

I am Sunita, 30-years-old, three children: two daughters aged 17 and 14 and a son who is 10. Today I was beaten up, first when i was being beaten for myself and then when I was trying to save my younger daughter ...who was trying to save me.

My husband -- an alcoholic, without job and with another woman he spends my money on --- was hitting me this morning. As usual. We had an episode last night too. As usual. so my younger daughter got in the way, trying to stop him from beating me. She thought if he hit me too hard i would die. You see, just two years back (i was 28), I had an open heart surgery. But he hit me, because I warned the Other Woman that she has to stay away from my husband.

So when my younger daughter tried to protect me, he throttled her. And said he would fuck me and my daughters. How can he? They are his children, his flesh and blood. How could he say that? Why does he treat us like this? I didn't get the kids from my parents'...they were born here. Of him. How can he talk about screwing his own daughters? what if she does? What should I do?

Should i leave him? what will the world say? what will happen to my daughters? who will marry them? Will they also have a life like me?? I am Sunita. I got married at 18. I am a maid in a swanky household. WHAT IS MY FAULT?

(as told to Eve*)

My Vagina Monologues

After having heard about Eve Ensler's celebrated play, The Vagina Monologues, I finally got to see it -- performed by Mahabanoo Modi Kotwani and her team of actors.

Four women talking about other women and their stories from the world over. The rapes of Bosnian women. A 72-year-old Parsi woman, shamed for the orgasm she never really had. And somewhere between watching that play and starting this blog, the realisation that the stories sound the same. Sound real.

I am not at all confident about this liberated, knows-her-mind, ball-breaking, board-moving, super-all-rounder creature that the 21st century woman is supposed to be. That I am supposed to be. Or am some of those things. Or I was...

Heart-break, baby-loss and physical abuse later: I really don't know. Am I emancipated? Finding myself, finding my Eve, finding my vagina. Literally and figuratively. Go figure.

I am, therefore I start...