Intro to Tact 101 - Prof. Aurina Chatterji

I reached the train station early this morning and so instead of taking my usual 9:31 Bandra local, I took the 9:16. Since this train comes from Andheri, it's always quite packed by the time it gets to Bandra, and I found myself standing for the entire ride to work. Somewhere near Vadala, I noticed a lady standing opposite, staring at me quite unabashedly. I didn't pay her much heed as I've re-learned to ignore the plethora of starers in the city. What I hadn't realised was that I was carrying my backpack in such a way that it inadvertently moved the shoulder of my kurta to one side, thus revealing my (GASP!) bra strap. To be perfectly honest, even if I HAD realised it, I'm not sure I would've done much about it right then. Apparently my obscene obliviousness was too much this lady to handle - she tch-tched, leaned over and adjusted my shirt for me. I stared at her, unable to digest the fact that a perfect stranger would invade my personal space so blatantly, without so much as a word. In retrospect, I probably should've voiced my disapproval, but what the hell would I say? "Excuse me, Aunty, please not to touch other people's bra straps?"

I've been thinking about this all day, and really, this is not so different from when Ujwala saw a picture of Mama and said to me, "Your mother has beautiful, thick hair. Why is your hair so thin?" It's not different from the time when someone asked Tulu Mashi "how much her husband earned" on a train to Calcutta, after knowing her for about 15 minutes.

If she was genuinely concerned, she would have informed me politely. Instead, by wordlessly doing the needful, she sat cushily on a moral horse about 20 feet high.

Indians have a terrible inability to mind their own business; we love to poke our noses where they don't belong, and moreover, think we have every right to do so. I've tried over and over to dismiss it as a quirk, but Christ on a bike, I can't bring myself to excuse that kind of behaviour as being a "cultural foible." As innocuous as their intentions might be - and sometimes I have my doubts about that too - the truth is comments and actions like that are rude, offensive and can be very fucking hurtful. I've been told some hundred times by several different people (who I definitely do not know well enough) that I'm too ugly, too dark, too fat, too short, too "Westernized," and the absolute worst - that it's "too bad" I'm not as beautiful as my mother. They may as well have ripped my heart out and done the Mexican hat dance on it.


As most people would, I against my better judgement, internalized those comments, believing every single one of those insults. No, these people do not matter, but when you're 13, 14, 15 with self-esteem as fragile as Mom's brand-new china, every unwarranted touch causes cracks. It took me a long time - and to be honest, living across the globe - to clamber back to feeling like an adequate human being. I dreaded coming back to these verbal assailments so much that a large part of the letter I wrote to Rosemary consisted of these fears. And here's the thing - I am not the only one who has gone through it. Both my sisters will testify that they, too, were made to feel ugly and stupid by complete strangers or, even worse, by (unimportant, extended) family members to whom the concept of 'tact' was apparently as foreign as Zsa Zsa Gabor.

In other news, why the hell am I turning 22 in three days? As if 21 wasn't old enough...