Issue 78: The Common Woman | My Woman Wednesday

This is Part 2 of an ongoing series on the common women touching our lives

V is early again. “Arrey yaar, you have come at 1pm, I asked you to come at 1.30pm.” She grins. “Ok ok Didi. I will go home, make lunch and then come back”. “Oh no.. you will be so late.” “Didi. Chakachak”, she laughs as she leaves.

V is my Woman Wednesday. Why not, when the world keeps talking about Man Fridays. Whoever gets an honest day’s work done on a Friday anyway?

I digress.

V comes into our little village, this high-rise of settlements, at 9.30 am every day. She flits and floats from home to home, dusting, sweeping, mopping, cleaning. She leaves for good at around 6 in the evening, only to start the cycle again the next day.

Many times, I find her staring out of the window, excitement writ large on her face. “Are you trying to find the sea? It is so distant, whatever is there to look?” I ask her once. “Didi. I am checking whether the green train will pass or the pink one. Pink na, bahut mast hai (The pink train is a lot of fun).”

V likes humming while working; we even catch her singing sometimes. Will you sing for Music Sir, mom asks her once. “Nahi nahi mummy (No no),” she runs away, shy.

Mom says V has installed an AC at home, they use it for an hour every night to beat the heat. Oh good for her, I say. Maybe we are in shining times. Not so straightforward, mom continues. V has sons, so she is able to indulge in what is almost a basic necessity during peak summers in this city. If she had a daughter, she would be penny pinching all her life saving for her daughter’s wedding.

But, all isn’t fair in V’s world. Her mother has given over the village property to the son, V’s brother. “I am much poorer than him just because he is a man,” she says, reconciled to her lot in the world.

One day, back from her annual visit to her village, she proudly announces that she has bought some land. She has pooled in her annual bonus with advance salary from employers, but also taken loans from money-lenders at what sounds like an exorbitant rate to me, to buy that land.

If you really think about it, the richer the person is, the cheaper many essentials are. Loans are available cheaper thanks to steady jobs and recorded credit history. Insurance premiums are fairer because of better health markers thanks to better living conditions. Discounts, deals, everything targets the rich.

What about common women like V, who actually have steady jobs and are as ambitious about life if not more than so many well-to-do people her age?

They are doomed to pay the poverty tax over and above the women tax. And that’s a sad reality we cannot unsee once we start seeing it.

Click here to read Part One in the Common Woman series.