MY VIEW
Marrying reel dreams to real needs
Aruti Nayar

The BJP's decision to pit their own brand of a desi bahu, Smriti Malhotra (alias Tulsi), against the videshi one of the Congress has sent middle class moms-in-law like me into a flurry. It is not the faux deshi bahus like Sonia, (who still manages the pallu so well!) who are a counterpoint to Tulsi. Rather, it is the India-born videshi-oriented bahus, more phoren than foreigners can be, who are. It is this India-born videshi breed that seems to be multiplying. They are western-oriented desis as far as I am concerned and they don’t find favour with me. But I liked Smriti Malhotra, who is said to be a true-blue desi bahu, flashing the beatific, perfect-bahu smile, and I wondered why God did not make more like her. She was the ideal bahu, homemaker and upholder of values as far as I knew.

So, whenever I go shopping for a bahu, I have decided that only a truly made-in-India Smriti-type, the desi ghee variety, who would do for me. Of course, my son has been educated in public schools, works with a multinational, speaks a videshi bhasha, eats videshi khana and watches videshi movies and channels. But like all good sons, he has left the choice of a bahu to me. I have the wisdom to know that only a pure desi one and not the adulterated desi posing as videshi will fit into the Great Indian Family.

The fact that Tulsi played a sedate home-loving, sacrificing bahu who put her own desires on the backburner for the larger good of the family and home, makes her sufficiently suitable to serve as a role model for my desi bahu. She will, I fervently hope, have just the right influence on the gullible-but- wannabe-global saas and bahus who actually want a Sita but get duped by a Stella.

Why do I prefer a desi bahu? There are many reasons and each one of them answers the demands of an bharatiya ishtyle of living. A desi bahu, for one, has no personal dreams and desire. From birth she is programmed to respond to the whims and fancies of her husband, mom-in-law and all those who inhabit the crowded drawing room space in our homes. She is a living and moving contraption whose battery life revolves around sacrifice, conformity and dreaming the collective dream. It is unthinkable that a foreign-born, living in India videshi bahu would display such automation that would bind our families the way we want them to. Mostly videshis have a mind of their own and they don’t think it is sinful to be human. So they want respect and space and love and dignity--- all of which combine together to make them home-wreckers and naturally divisive. Since the Great Indian samskar tradition has not genetically modified them still, they have expectations, dreams and desires of their own. Naturally they make less contribution to the home and hearth and the family. They think they deserve a fair and just treatment, and even argue about it! But I can’t have this going on in my house. Bahu wahi jo zubaan na chalaye!

I want a desi bahu whom I can dominate and boss over with gusto because a videshi one will question and refuse to toe my line. I can lead a desi one by the nose and ensure compliance just by virtue of being a mom-in-law.

She will serve me while I sit and queen it over. If her back cannot handle the back-breaking load, that's her problem and not mine! After all, none of us in the great Indian family believe in pitching in but, as they show in the ad, we have a tube of Moov ready to hand it over to the bahu of the house after a back-breaking day.

That’s why I want Tulsi and not Sonia. Tulsi seems to have no mind of her own. Even in real life she said that her brothers-in-law had persuaded her to join politics. Oh, what obedience! Suits me fine. My ever-faithful desi bahu will suffer in silence, smile through all hardships and work like a horse while taking a donkey's load as far as chores go. There will be no need to either indulge her or pamper her. The very fact that she is a part of my august family will be gratifying for her. Home is where her heart is and her heart will always be at home, even if she is spending all her time scheming against her sister-in-law or bad mouthing my ill boy.

So give me any day a bahu wedded to Indian values and tradition. But, where do you find this desi bahu? The telly says she is right there and one has to only believe the gloss on the tube to make the one at home become true to life. After all, isn’t life now all about spliced images and split conjuring of dream themes, if not dream bahus?