Over the years, your support has made Women’s Web the leading resource for women in India. Now, it is our turn to ask, how can we make this even more useful for you? Please take our short 5 minute questionnaire – your feedback is important to us!
Love and equality go hand-in-hand. Here is a delightful read on how sharing responsibilities at home sows the seeds of love, equality, and positive change.
The day after our wedding, my husband gave me our brand new car to drive. Yes, the day after! Mine is an arranged marriage so most of you would understand that it was a big leap of faith for him. I did drive but not very regularly and the car was a different one from the kind I was used to driving. My mother-in-law and I had to go for a small errand. The highlight of this drive was that I crashed the car in a side footpath while turning at a bend ! The fender of the car had to be replaced. Just a scratch, and we were both fine. It happened while we were on our way…so, we continued our drive and completed the errand.
My mother-in-law never said a word apart from telling me to be more careful (which was expected and required). Neither did my husband say much. To his credit, he was non-committal about the damage to the car and has since never really told others or me that I am not a good driver; though the teasing does occur occasionally. His relaxed attitude not only encouraged me to drive all over the country, but also to drive many different modes of transport.
His relaxed attitude not only encouraged me to drive all over the country, but also to drive many different modes of transport.
In fact, I have been his driver on many an occasions, and was one just five days after the crash! I also run all his errands and any other important or not-so-important things which require a car or a driver. Come to think of it, maybe it was a part of his master plan to let me do most of the driving! Now, he drives me for my mall-hopping and I drive him to office when he doesn’t want to. Happiness all around!
His faith, his encouragement, and acceptance of me as woman who wants to do her thing, make me try things that even I’m unsure of. But what is the harm in trying, when someone has got your back?
What is the harm in trying, when someone has got your back?
Often, our friends and family are puzzled, and even miffed, that I end up doing things that a ‘husband’ should do; like driving home from a party late at night or going and checking out the rates and schemes for phones, coolers or ACs,etc. We often take ‘joint’ decisions and ‘his only’ decisions and ‘her only’ decisions, too.
Why must we do tasks according to gender? If we truly want women’s liberation and equality everywhere, then why not start at home?
Pic credit: Charlesfettinger (Used under a CC license)
Inderpreet Kaur Uppal is an author and freelance editor for fiction and nonfiction based in Gurgaon, India. She is a post-graduate in human resources management and has worked as a lecturer for management, corporate read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
Be it a working or a homemaker mother, every parent needs a support system to be able to manage their children, housework, and mental health.
Let me at the outset clarify that when I mention ‘work’ here, it includes ANY work. So, it could be the work at home done by a homemaker parent or it could be work in a professional/entrepreneurial environment.
Either way, every parent struggles to find that fine balance between ‘work’ and ‘parenting’, especially with younger kids who still need high emotional and physical support from their caretakers. And not just any balance, but more importantly, balance that lets them keep their own sanity intact!
I watched a Tamil movie Kadaisi Vivasayi (The Last Farmer), recommended by my dad, on SonlyLiv, and many times over again since my first watch. If not for him, I’d have had no idea what I would have missed. What a piece of relevant and much needed art this movie is!
It is about an old farmer in a village (the only indigenous farmer left), who walks the path of trouble, quite unexpectedly, and tries to come out of it. I have tried my best to refrain from leaving spoilers, for I want the readers to certainly catch up on this masterpiece of director Manikandan (of Kakka Muttai fame).
The movie revolves around the farmer who goes about doing his everyday chores, sweeping his mud-house first thing in the morning, grazing the cows, etc and living a simple but contented life. He is happy doing his thing, until he invites trouble for himself out of the blue, primarily because he is illiterate and ignorant.