On a role

Urban Indian mothers are staggering under the pressure of being successful career
persons, loving care givers and efficient homemakers. To top it all, they aspire to
be sexy and slim stylistas like the stars, writes Vimla Patil

A recent shampoo ad that was shown widely on Indian television must have quietly but surely stirred up the hornet’s nest in the media! It showed a young mother dropping her daughter to school and looking extremely guilty at the child’s question, "Mere baal lambe kyun nahi?" Earlier, the ad showed the mother saying that her own mother was a non-working housewife and had all the time to tend to her daughter’s hair to keep it long and silky. But now that she was working, she preferred to keep her little girl’s hair short for convenience, suggesting that she was hard pressed for time to look after her daughter. The girl, in the ad, turned around and asked her mother ‘not to go to work if that was the cause of her short hair’!

Quietly, and one suspects after protests from working mothers, this ad has been cut and presented in its new avatar where the mother is able to fulfill her daughter’s dream of long hair by using the shampoo brand!

Such situations where children make demands on their working mothers are common in the lives of modern Indian women who are under unbearable pressure to be exemplary mothers/wives, successful career women and ‘Bollywood-star-like beauties,’ who invoke envy at social gatherings. On the last International Mothers’ Day of the decade, a look at the tightrope the urban Indian mothers have to walk and how they cope.

"Times have changed 360 degrees," says Mridula Negi, a senior manager in a foreign bank, "It’s no longer enough to earn well, have decent children and lead a good family life. My family expects that I will compete for the top-most job in the banking industry. I have changed jobs three times in the past two years to achieve this and every higher rung of the success ladder brings more stress. I have to lead a team and show progress and higher returns every quarter. There is back-breaking competition among colleagues, which means there is hardly any sincere friendship. Most workplace relationships are based on envy and competition. It’s hard to feel comfortable in this atmosphere. There is also great pressure on me and my husband to have a scintillating social life. In cities like Mumbai or Delhi, if you are home two nights running, you are labelled ‘social outcastes’. My husband, an investment banker, is also going through the same grind. He has to contact clients, watch the market cautiously and provide financial services with responsibility. We invariably come home late, order some food from the pizza joint or dosa restaurant and then crash into bed or go out with friends to keep up with the social race.

In addition, my husband and I expect that the other will remain attractive and fit. So, we have to make time for gym workouts or walks." If this is the fate of a young working mother, senior mothers have equally torturous problems. "I worked for 35 years – without any of the opportunities of modern women," says Lalita Rai, a college professor, "Neither did I earn a huge salary. I did all housework and worked night and day to give my children a better life. Every penny I earned went to provide education and opportunities to my daughter and son. They both did exceptionally well and went to the UK for higher education. They married abroad and now I see them infrequently. Both of them are unhappy with me because I could not help them with money for down payments to buy homes in the UK. Fortunately, I don’t have to ask them for any financial help even after losing my husband. They feel I have failed them."

Between these two extremes, stand millions of Indian women, fortunate beneficiaries of post-Independence India’s gigantic economic and social progress. With fast-track laws for equality and equal opportunities for financial self-reliance in place, they grabbed new educational and career opportunities and competed in the employment market like never before But with the luscious fruits of their victories, came the unpleasant aftermath of overwork, tension and too many responsibilities and expectations. Most women still ended up being the general do-alls in spite of their high positions. A famous example is that of Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, who often entered the kitchen to supervise the preparation of state dinners whenever world luminaries were entertained in her home!

The super-success of women also became a challenge for men whose hi-octane egos are traditionally inflated by their families. Take the statement of India’s richest woman Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, chairperson and managing director of Biocon Ltd. (India’s biggest biotechnology company), who has said that she married Shaw, a foreigner, because she believed that an Indian husband would find it hard to accept her superlative success! In these circumstances, one is left guessing how the husbands and children of Nirupama Rao, foreign secretary of India, Chanda Kochchar, CMD of ICICI Bank, and Pratibha Patil, President of India, accept the scintillating success of their wives/mothers.

"The truth is that Indian women have changed at turbo-speed while men have taken a slower, more leisurely path," says Priya Singh, a senior management trainer, "A majority of men/fathers still expect their wives or mothers to pamper them and do all the work. The children are also reluctant to share housework but definitely want the privileges and financial support which high-earning mothers can give them." "Add to this the excessive media pressure on women/mothers by Bollywood stylists and fashion designers to be slim, sexy, beautiful and perfectly-toned to wear their latest styles and make-up, and you have generations of frazzled young mothers who just go under when they face huge levels of stress compounded by depression. One can notice the sprouting of spas, beauty parlours, cosmetic products and even surgical treatments – they tell us not only that women can afford all these, but also that they have to follow the herd mentality to be seen as ‘successful and sensual," says Meena Thakkar, a spa operator. As Vatsala Kumar, an IAS officer says, "I believe life is a basket. If I put my trust, money, effort, support, love and co-operation in it, my children, too, must put their own contribution in that basket to make life a rewarding experience. If they put nothing and I am the constant, silent giver, something is wrong in that relationship." The only question now is whether sons and daughters realise the magnitude of efforts that modern mothers make to match the expectations of their children and family. Or will sons and daughters now use a new tag line: "Mere pas maa hai – aur uska paisa bhi!"

HOME