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Real Women Don't Cry
IdeaSmith
They were in the same class. In my class.
She was the quintessential behenji in a hip crowd. Plaited hair, salwar-kameez and a sharp brain. In accordance to her curd-rice genes, she took copious notes, had a near-perfect attendance record and consistently high grades. She told me once that her ambition was to become like 'one of those Matunga Tamilians' meaning the kind that preened in a new kanjeevaram at every wedding, pattu-recital, arangaitram and poonal-ceremony. The ones that shopped in Matunga market and had kaapi at Madras Bhavan. The ones whose accent bespoke Tam-Bram-Americana. The ones who worked for multinational software companies in Silicon Valley. Or married someone who did. I didn't like her. I never liked wannabes and the ruthlessly ambitious ones always scared me.
He was Mr.EasyGoing. One of the many small-town boys who made it big by getting a toe-hold in Mumbai, starting with a college admission. He hated mathematics but managed it better than several of his classmates, owing to his engineering background. Engineering in something quite unfashionable like...instrumentation? Textiles? I forget, it didn't bear remembering anyway. He was dazzled by the glamour of Bollywood, the smartly dressed girls around, the flashy cars and cool clothes that his Mumbai peers owned. He had a rustic wide-eyed charm along with the sweet modesty of someone who knows he is just a moth in a crowd of butterflies. I liked him. Everyone did.
It seemed symbiotic. She was authoritative, demanding and bossy. He followed her around meekly, doing her bidding, snapping to her orders. And things always turned out well with high marks for everyone. We called him her P.A. Only because we liked him too much to call him the more realistic-but-demeaning 'puppy-dog'. He bore it in good humour, as he did everything, smiling shyly. And all was well.
An entire year later, we had moved on to more serious things than other people's admirers. Ardent admirers had metamorphosed into abusive boyfriends, cheating rogues and impossible cads. I looked across the canteen to her, a tinge of envy in my gaze. She had always had him right under her thumb and she wasn't even that nice! And he was devoted to her.
Later that evening, I wandered back into the canteen for a quick bite and to pore over my books in solitude. The library was always too crowded and charged up with nervous adolescent tension during the exam fever. The canteen, emptied of its regular raucous crowd (now frequenting the library) was the peaceful haven I needed to concentrate.
As I sipped my tea, I looked across to the few occupied tables. They were sitting at a table in the corner. I would have moved on, except he spotted me and waved. So I waved back. And shouted a HI! across to both of them. Oddly enough, neither responded.
She had her head down on the table, turned away from me. I thought I could lip-read him telling her that he was speaking to me and that she might look up any minute. She didn't. With a surge of annoyance at her impossible rudeness, I looked back into my book. Then he called out my name. I looked up to see him frantically gesturing for him to come over. What a bother.., I sighed and shut my books.
As I walked the few feet over I suddenly had a premonition that something was terribly wrong. He wasn't smiling. And she sat stone-cold in her seat, head down like she was dead. Only when I neared their table close enough to sit down did I hear the soft anguished voice. I had to force her head up from the table. She looked awful. Hair awry and eyes swollen, alarmingly red. And a voice like I had never heard before. She was murmuring,
He says he is going to leave me. He says he is leaving. I asked him why did you say you loved me? He says he was just joking. And he is leaving.I looked up at him, frank embarrassment at being privy to a private conversation. And I was startled by something I had never seen in his face before. It was cruelty. Sheer, cold cruelty. He was cutting her up with a knife and he knew it. It was deliberate. And then, before my eyes, Mr.Nice Guy cooly got up, dusted his palms and walked out of the canteen.
For an hour I sat with her, a girl I had never liked, while she poured her heart out to me about the crimes of a guy I thought of as a jolly good fellow. The dreams, the hopes, the expectations - everything that had lain under the ruthless ambition. All her drive and zeal to do well and carry both of them out of their lower-middle class status, out of the gargantuan family expectations that they may both be able to stand up and do what they wanted one day. And just before the very end, just before the final exams, he had cut her out. He hadn't meant a word of it. It had all been a sham. And she was devastated.
The first exam was the next morning. I kept a watch on the door, wondering if she would make it. She did. Face badly puffy, she drifted in unobstrusively. And across the room he sat, laughing and joking with his friends like nothing had happened. He didn't bat an eyelid as she walked in, deeply wounded dignity intact and sat down in the seat in front of him. And then the test begun.
In the second week of the exams he was seen chatting up two girls from the other class. And by next month it was rumored that he was seeing one of them. The P.A. joke faded out and was never raked up again, even while other mortifying love-tales were dug up at every alumni meet.
But something shifted for all of us in that one month. All the boys from her "I'm a tomboy!" days seemed to be saying with their sneering glances, "It served her right."
And what about the girls? She had never had any friends among us. We never discussed it across our cliques and no one ever said anything to her. But none of us ever spoke him again.
She graduated with top marks and found her footing in a job-tough market. Marriage happened a year back, to another man of her own choice. Of him I know nothing more and have no desire to, any furthur. It's good to want something and wonderful to get what you want; just not at the cost of stepping on someone else's toes - or heart.
She once introduced herself on stage with -
When it rains, I feel the rain.Perhaps she never knew that there were people who would hold out an umbrella for her. But then again, she probably didn't need it. Real women don't cry - they just feel the rain on their faces.
The others just get wet.
Real Women Don't Cry
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Ayan Roy
July 16, 2008
10:53 AM
Wow Ideasmith..that was really really absorbing. You are a really good storyteller.
Love and peace,
Ayan
Ritu
URL
July 16, 2008
11:06 AM
@ ideasmith : Thank you for this article. I am terribly moved.
"feel the rain on the face"... I shall remember that one for a long time.
Thanks again! :)
temporal
URL
July 16, 2008
01:04 PM
is:
good one
nothing wrong with a drop or two
LINK
bd
URL
July 16, 2008
05:43 PM
beautiful
Ravi Kulkarni
July 16, 2008
06:07 PM
Very nice.
Ravi
Sudipta Chatterjee
URL
July 16, 2008
07:45 PM
That was very thought-provoking, Ideasmith! It would have qualified as a wonderful short story in my book, but rather causes me to stop and ponder because it is based on someone real.
smallsquirrel
July 16, 2008
07:51 PM
lovely, Idea... I liked it!
I think we've all gotten insight into people in ways we wish we never had. eye-opening and saddening too.
good job.
Ruvy
July 17, 2008
06:48 AM
Very well told tale, Ideasmith. It's not important if it's true or not. I well know how hard it is to make truth sound like more than a dry account from a fellow with green eyeshades.
In addition, good fiction reads like truth, and this had the ring of truth to it in every respect.
Kol hakavód!
One tiny error that perhaps an editor would be kind enough to correct for you. But none of us ever spoke him again. You need a preposition or some other connective word between spoke and him - "about", "to", "with", "of" - whatever you are desire to convey....
Best from the mountains of Samaria,
Ruvy
ravi
July 17, 2008
09:35 AM
Most probably he won't like the job of "P.A". But he wanted to enjoy a girl's company, to get that he sacrificed his self respect.Once the party is over, he nicely escaped.Boys like to talk with girls as many as possible. Many of them never go more than that.
But the statements like "Real women don't cry" seems meaningless to me. In fact She already cried, when he told the truth.
ravi
July 17, 2008
09:38 AM
I mean to say, such statements do more harm than good.
Chaitanya S
July 17, 2008
09:57 AM
"I never liked wannabes."
Wannabe: One who imitates the behavior, customs, or dress of an admired person or group. (source: dictionary.com)
Why are hard working people with ambitions to be a part of a higher social strata termed this in a derogatory sense ? Not everyone is fortunate enough to be born in an affluent household. Aspiring to be someone else is not a sin.
Deepti Lamba
URL
July 17, 2008
12:38 PM
Thing is those who aren't comfortable in their own skins are hard to like.
I know the type Ideasmith is talking about. I was snubbed plenty back in school by the 'intelligent sorts' who thought they were cats whiskers and the scrappers were to be ignored.
I don't think economic status had much to do with their behavior. It was the straight A+ and fawning over by the teachers and family alike that made them obnoxious.
Most of them have very lopsided personalities. A whiff of failure and they crumble.
Ritu
URL
July 17, 2008
01:19 PM
@ Chai: Interesting you bring this up because just the other day I had a debate with a friend who had the same objection - my making a (self-dergatory Ledzuis style :)) statement that most Delhite are wannabe.
My answer is this : There is nothing wrong in wanting to aspire for ideals. The problem is as Deepti says, 'not being comfortable in your skin'. That is what wannabe really is. A person from the ecomonically lower-strata of society who makes it big will get far more respect if the continue to take pride in where they came from and then incorporate the new realities into their lives.
However, a large number of wannabes are those that are running away from themselves and their realities. They can be quite trying in their zeal to be someone else.
Also, as Dee mentions, it is not only about ecomonic strata. For e.g wannabes are also those heavily decked socialite aunties who sit during a classical music concert and nod their head vigourously at all the wrong times. They are wannabe connoisseurs.
Chaitanya S
July 17, 2008
01:58 PM
Ritu: I used to run a modeling agency in Mumbai and came across "wannabes" from Delhi on a daily basis. Most carried the airs and attitude of a supermodel. Rather than insecurity, I felt it was their shield to protect themselves from being taken advantage of.
After seeing Harman Baweja trying to ape Hritik in Love Story 2050 (yeah yeah I sat through it), I understand what people mean by "wannabe." :-)
Anuradha Goyal
URL
July 17, 2008
10:41 PM
Extremely well told story, but I could not connect it with the title...because one the woman in the story did cry, and second real women too cry, may be the tears flow from the heart at times rather than the eyes.
Ledzius
July 17, 2008
10:55 PM
"may be the tears flow from the heart at times rather than the eyes"
You women never cease to amaze me with your metaphors..
Ledzius
July 17, 2008
10:59 PM
The whole point of the story is.. some guy broke up with her.. and she had to deal with it..
Is her experience that unique or tragic?
Aditi Nadkarni
URL
July 17, 2008
11:48 PM
I really liked this one...for a lot of reasons. I didn't like title. It doesn't fit the story. This is the kind of story one needs to read in college when there's that difficult, uneasy age and the wretched heartbreaks and heartaches that come with it :)
Ledzius: a lot of good stories aren't good because they are unique or tragic but because they have something in them that one can relate to. Moreover, the most common of experiences can be made absorbing by the narration.
sanjeevani
July 18, 2008
01:32 AM
Hey its a nice article , it took me back to my college years when i faced a situation of sorts related to a break up and people felt she just deserved it being so perfect...hahaha now i look back and laugh..the joke was on them.. :)
Ledzius
July 18, 2008
01:52 AM
Dunno if the above is a true story or not, but a studious Tambram girl from Matunga actually having a boyfriend is a bit hard to swallow.
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