Day 13 - Labels

I hate labels - until I employed a cook whose intelligence was not particularly off the charts, (well, maybe it was but in the other direction) tea was often in the Coffee container, sugar in the Tea container, and coffee in the one marked Sugar. I still have pickles in jam bottles, masalas in pickle bottles, and pepper corns in sauce jars.

I am a woman - I can't argue with that having given birth to two human offspring and being forced to shop regularly for feminine products. But that's the only label I allow myself.

I believe a woman can do anything a man can do and in some cases, maybe even do it better. But I am not a 'feminist'.

I used to take care of my home and kids for many years and enjoyed my time with my family, my children, and myself. But I don't like calling myself a 'home-maker'.

I work in a large organization and enjoy working, learning, and mentoring others. But I don't like calling myself a 'career woman'.

I do speak Tamil but I don't like calling myself a 'Tamilian'. I also don't like calling my family 'Tam Brahm', especially as the other three quarters of it speaks abysmal Tamil and we don't do too many things that are considered to be Brahminical.

Why don't I like labels? Because the moment you plonk yourself in a neat container, you become a part of it. You are no longer an individual but simply a part of a whole. You become sensitive to any comments hurled (or you imagine being hurled) at that group. You become a geometric shape with defined vertices, characteristics, and rules, and are no longer a delightful abstraction.

When someone cracks a joke at Mallus I laugh heartily though I speak Malayalam fluently and am a Mallu on occasion (usually Vishu or Onam). When someone makes a good-natured joke about Tam Brahms I laugh at that too. I laugh at - and make -jokes about women drivers and working moms and home makers. Because there is a little of all of these in me. And because I am a little of everything, I don't laugh at anyone, I laugh with them, and I laugh mostly at myself.

My marriage was arranged, but we found love along the way, and I'll be damned if I get into a debate about which is better.

My daughter gets good grades, but she is not a 'nerd', she learns classical dance, but she is anything but traditional'. She is weird, wacky, emotional, funny, and smart, and though I am often tempted to call her a 'typical teenager' I refrain from doing so.

Because she is so much more than a label, or even a collection of labels - she is herself, that is all. And that is everything. And I stick to my guns even if I end up eating rice with jam or idlis with coffe powder.