The burden of being a woman

 Both my grandmothers were discontented with my lack of interest which by certain standards were proclaimed to be the mark of a woman. Biologically yes am a woman at least  by the medical yardsticks the world has understood so far. But the problem of my womanhood is still complex.  I  was the odd one out at the summer camping at my grandmother's home/house. Girls in the family were pleasing in appearance to the elders.... long hair, coy, anklets, golden dangling earrings, flowery and temple going. Me, I was the eye sore according to them .
I had a mop of unruly hair on my round head, a pair of abstract eyes and a very concrete stare.
My older 'girly' cousins would tell me" Well groomed womanhood will not stare so" but though i tried hard to keep my eyes coy I always by natural instinct would stare at men and women alike.

I had a natural tendency to stare because I liked displacing heads in the sense I liked to add whiskers to the clean shaven face of my uncle and imagine him say 'meow'. And so sometimes they would see me smiling for no reason and then I would be the eyesore of the summer.

Not that i didn't make efforts. I did get spurts of sentiments and feel very 'grand-daughterly'. In fact when I was seven I did decide to be woman enough. But nobody could  withstand the direction of growth of my unruly hair(it had its natural style of curling upwards, maybe the law of gravity is not all that correct) and that summer too saw my mop of a head.

 I tried to look pious and devout ....

....but unlike my cousins who looked at the lamps and the idol, I fixed whiskers to the clean shaven face of the priest, who took offence and complained about my smile and stare. And I did try to  pretend to be interested in anklets but then sooner or later they would find one hanging from a bush.I cannot withstand those chains on my feet or anklets as they are called. I liked more the 'tring' from my toy telephone or the' tring' on a bicycle. Moreover they were an inconvenience when you had to flick away a snack unseen and unheard.

 If the summer shopping spree began, my cousins would please my grandmothers and mothers by buying what prospective well groomed women buy...the umpteenth pair of anklets, earrings and such 'lady' like accessories. Me I was a pain to them all with my collection of half torn second hand books which i claimed had treasure in it, half chewed pencils, erasers in geometric shapes, broken shells, lost buttons, collar for non existent pets, cushions for the cat to relax, paint brush, a can of paints, fishing rods and a bar of chocolate.

So I largely spent my time with boy cousins fishing, cycling, climbing trees, stoning buses and listening to their description of beer and cigar. While my girlish cousins dreamt of fairytale princes, I dreamt of buying a dog .

A commentator opined am a writer with feminist leanings,  after an anthology of writing was published in 2003. No. I am still struggling to be woman enough, feminist is a long way still.