Here's to all the other women in my life

I beg the forgiveness of my mum and wifey before penning this column because, given the topic, I should ideally be writing about them. But I dare break away to feature "the other women" in my life who, as a colleague joked, are too many to list out in a column. Let me try, skipping names wherever they may be injurious to my health.

My first encounter with womenfolk was awful and bloody in the literal sense. By the modern societal yardstick, any attempt to describe Vijayalakshmi might border on the definition of body-shaming; hence, let me just say she was a victim of childhood obesity. That wasn't a handicap for her, only an excuse to bully the rest. We were in Grade 1 and Her Heaviness enjoyed pouncing on wooden benches during break. Her acrobatics made a bench to tip over one day, causing me to lose my right big toe nail. In the contemporary political climate, the incident would have been bloody enough to spark communal skirmishes because she hailed from an upper caste family. The hurt Vijayalakhsmi gifted me was lifelong, as the nail that grew back was scruffy and vertically split. She is the most memorable member of the feminine gender in my life, as her face bobs up every time I wear socks or trim my nails.

Sobhini in the same class was the first girl we came to adore. The little damsel stole everyone's heart with her effervescence, so we let her ring the school bell, hitherto a patriarchal job, in exchange for dried grapes supplied by her brother Vasu, a salesman in an ayurvedic shop. She could easily pass as a model for a turmeric beauty product. Wifey still gets sleepless nights after my brother Feroze, a retired professor, once referred to her as "our first-ever girlfriend" who recently enquired after me.

Chandramathi in the same batch was our Joan of Arc. A studious girl hailing from a fishing family, she stood against injustice. She dropped out, unfortunately, but grew into a hardcore comrade when Hindu right-wingers tightened their grip on our village. When heavily armed militants butalised our village, she was hacked while trying to save a life. I was moved to tears as I saw her back split open in the length of a sword. Chandramathi couldn't be silenced.

How can I forget Mini, my best friend's sister who tossed a sword into her brother's hands at a midnight meeting, and shouted, "Go get Chandramathi's assailants"? The last time we met, she was dealing in a different ism, selling growbag vegetables to supplement her husband's Gulf income. Red revolution to green revolution!

Prabha, now a sign language professor, was my bosom buddy during college days. We were partners in all teen mischiefs. We racked our brains together on Geoffrey Chaucer, Jonathan Pope, and TS Eliot. We schemed against all the girls and teachers she had issues with. We went to the movies with safety pins to prick the hands that disturbed her from behind. People saw us as a modern Romeo and Juliet, which we weren't. One morning, she was whisked away to Mumbai by one of her many brothers, after which I too escaped to the metropolis to study journalism, leaving a trail of rumours that we had tied the knot. A few months later, Amma wrote asking if we were married, and sent a relative to check if Prabha was living with me. "We took an entire village for a ride," reminisced Prabha, when we met 25 years later.

How can I forget the old flame, whose married daughter recently passed my call to her dad asking him to quickly find his wife? "Call Amma, her boyfriend from Dubai is on the line!" Equally hard to forget is a childhood friend who I met at a party after 34 long years and who pulled me aside to whisper, "Your procrastination ruined my life." And how about the mystery woman who told me to love her ceaselessly and vanished into thin air?
Shanoo Bijlani, Dhairavi, Jayanthi, Dina Vakil, Sunanda Talim, Shola Rajachandran, Swee Peng, Mich Low, Huatmay, Yu Chin Fun, Genevieve Cua - a few on the winding list of woman chiefs or temporary bosses I worked with in my 40-year career. Some mended me on rewriting copies from mofussil retainers. Some taught me advanced editing and world-class designing. A couple of them counselled me on stress management. Genevieve taught me the ABC of personal finance. We were a great team without egos. Patriarchy never permeated our world. Peng made sure my comp-offs were combined so I could plan my vacations. Women certainly make better bosses. Here's a big toast to all those wonderful women who left a mark in my life.

This Friday, when this column is published, I will be busy making my own breakfast and lunch in my self-exile, until I get a call from home saying: "Come home, you are forgiven."
suresh@khaleejtimes.com