Taming the Tiger Mom

Tiger moms are mothers of children in the U.S. of Chinese and Indian ethnicity who relentlessly drive their children to greater and greater achievement. The term is of very recent origin but Tiger moms have been in existence for decades.

Rupa's body language was clear in spite of her assumed casualness—she was about to repeat a request.

"Ma."

"Yes, Rupa?"

"It is about Kasturi."

"Your classmate?"

"Yes."

"Whose father is a vegetable vendor?"

"You know Ma, Kasturi and her sister and brother get up at five to do their homework and at six they have to trim the vegetables their father gets from market."

"I wish your brother and you have such chores," said mother.

"I would love it too," Rupa said hurriedly. She was in no mood for a lecture on the benefits for health from early rising. "You know Ma Kasturi came to class yesterday with a cell phone. Her own."

"What if?"

"I mean even a vegetable vendor is able to afford a cell phone for his daughter."

"He goes around so he has to keep in touch with his daughter."

"I am the only one in my class not to have a cell phone. That is terrible."

"Only one?"

"Almost. Soon I will have no friends."

"What has cell phone to do with friendship?"

"Bonds of friendship are made after school hours from chats and text messages."

"Rupa I tell you for the last time that I do not want to hear about cell phone again. Your father and I have decided that you do not need one now."

"You have decided," said Rupa with some heat. "Don't drag father into this. Left to himself he would have got me one a year ago." Though mother did not comment she agreed with her assessment of her father. He is the type who is capable of presenting sons with cigarette lighters.

"That's enough Rupa. I don't want to hear about cell phone again."

"Or about guitars either," said her son Ramu entering the hall from his room.

"That's correct."

"Where did you get the classification of musical instruments into celestial ones and devil's tools?"

"The veena is celestial because its practitioners are not into drugs and alcohol like your guitarists and drummers," said mother "Anyway I need not have to give you explanations. No guitar and that's that."

"I wish you were like my friend Selvi's mother," said Rupa. "Every time she buys a sari or studs or whatever Selvi and her sister get something too. I don't know why you are not like that."

"I will lose all moral force if I do not do what I expect you to do."

"I wish you had the desires most women have," said Rupa bitterly. "I am paying fervently for a change in heart. I am sure God will hear my prayers."

"Military rule," said Ramu and snorted.

"If you say that again," mother shouted, "you will be in serious trouble."

They left for school. Her husband, a nine-to-five pen pusher, has fashioned an eight-to-seven timing for himself. No clubs, no card games, no drinking, just his office desk where his wife can get him unfailingly during office hours. No secretary or steno to keep him interested either. She was not complaining. She has many friends who would have welcomed a husband like hers. But deep down she knew why he stayed away—he was not too keen on tense home atmosphere his disciplinarian wife maintained.

*

The door bell rang. A young man with movie actor looks stood at the door. He had a large leather bag on his shoulder.

"Is this Mr. Sadagopan's place? I have come to attend to your washing machine."

"It is. Please come in." She led him to the tiny side room that modern houses have for washing machines. She explained the problem. The man took out his tools and was soon dismantling the machine.

She had been so busy in the morning that she was untidy with hair all in disarray. She freshened herself and changed her sari and blouse. Meanwhile the service engineer had laid open the innards of the machine.

"Needs servicing, that's all. When was it last serviced."

"A year and a half or may be more."

"Why no Annual Maintenance Contract?"

"I had it, but the service engineers were all the time wanting to sell this and that and predicting dire consequences if I did not. I don't like threats. I decided to call when the trouble occurs."

"For a sparsely used machine that is not a bad plan. Probably once a year you can call for routine servicing."

Saras watched him working methodically so different from the self trained wiremen and motor mechanics. Noting her interest in what he is doing he explained what had made the machine malfunction.

"Are you a qualified engineer?" she asked.

"I have a diploma in mechanical engineering. Of course the company gives us training to manage their equipment."

"What are the job prospects in your company?"

"For diploma holders it is a dead end."

"You must be looking for openings in engineering and elsewhere."

"Elsewhere? An engineering diploma holder can hope to find openings only in engineering." He smiled broadly as if he knew where else she thought he should be seeking an opening. She was up to it.

"Movies?"

"Like you my sisters, and friends and customers have suggested that. Looks are not important even for movie heroes. The last major actor who was blessed with good looks was MGR. You can visit any college class room and pick out half a dozen young men who can pass for current movie heroes. Many factors have to get together for one to succeed in movies of which good looks is low in the list. Of course there are people who can make things happen but I do not have the scene stealing presence."

"Married?"

"Naw."

"Why that drawl? As if you are not likely to be married."

"That's it."

"Love failure."

"No, marriage failure."

"What's that? I have never heard of marriage failure."

"Parental opposition."

"Parental opposition in the 21st century?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"She is six years my senior in age."

"Oh!"

"Divorcee."

"Oh!"

"Has a four year old daughter."

"Oh!"

"From your responses I get the feeling that if you had been my mother my love affair would not have fared any better."

"Well any mother with so handsome a son would expect a young, very beautiful single girl for a daughter-in-law."

"But there have been some high profile marriages exactly like the one I have proposed that have been very successful."

"Yes but we did not get to hear the wailings of the mothers of those young men. Why not I hear your story. Before that can I offer a cup of coffee?"

"Thanks madam."

"Call me Saras and you are...?"

"Pranesh, but please call me Pran as my friends do."

Soon he had a cup of the best coffee in his hands.

"My story madam, sorry Mrs. Saras is a bit complicated. It started a year and a half ago in one of the high rise flats like this one. I was working on the machine with the woman of the house watching me work. She had the same build like you with features so similar that you two could be mistaken for sisters."

"She must be much younger though."

"From looks not much. She looks older than her age as I was to find out later and you much younger than yours."

"How do you know my true age?"

"I guessed it from the photos of your children in school uniform. I took a liking to her. During the course of the conversation I got to know that she was a divorcee with a four year old daughter who was with her paternal grandparents. The husband it seems fell in love with a colleague and after divorce married her and is working in one of the Gulf States. As Ammu, that's my girl's name, could not look after her daughter as she was a working woman and as her parents were in a village 200 miles away the daughter was with their father's parents. She was renting the house with all the furniture hence the need to service the equipment. She was moving to a working woman's hostel.

"I must have fallen in love for Ammu was constantly appearing in my mind's eye. I was quite disturbed. I resisted the temptation to call her. I tried my best to get out of what was becoming an infatuation when fate intervened. A fortnight later I was at a newly opened mall when I saw Ammu in one of the shops. She recognised me and greeted me as if I was a long lost friend. I got the feeling that she had also taken a liking to me. We did the rounds as if we were a family. Our next meeting was not by accident. Soon we were lovers.

"I proposed. She said my request was absurd. I pleaded. I told her life for me was impossible without her. She was adamant. Her parents were such rigidly orthodox Hindus that they would even kill themselves if their daughter besmirched traditions by marrying again. Opposition from my family was equally intense."

He had reassembled the machine. Saras produced some sheets and curtains that he loaded in the machine and started it. He washed his soiled hands and wrote his receipts.

"You have not completed your story," said Saras, "If you find it painful please do not." He stood sad faced looking into her eyes.

"You look so much like her that I think it is Ammu that is standing in front of. Well with my mother in tears and Ammu not enthusiastic I was at a dead end. I saw her at least twice a week. Something had to happen. I thought the ball was in my court. It was not. One day Ammu called and asked me to keep the next morning free. She said she wanted me to come to the airport to see her off to the States. Till that moment I had no idea that she had been planning that for some weeks. She did not want me to meet her before that. I was at the airport an hour before the stipulated time.

"She must have taken leave of her friends at her hostel itself for no one else was at the airport to see her off. I helped her off the cab and loaded the luggage on a trolley. We huddled in one corner. Soon the call for her flight was announced. She had to go. I followed her up to the gate. The images of her tears stained face will always be before my eyes."

"Will I ever see her again Saras?" He was unashamedly weeping. Saras was consoling him. Soon they were hugging and kissing on the lips and then things started happening. Saras does not know how. They are in the bedroom; yes she is discarding her clothes. The next thing she remembers was that monstrous climax that makes her scream. They lay in each others arms she does not know for how long. His cell phone rang. His supervisor was reading out the address of his next visit. He got up hurriedly and dressed. Buy the time Saras had washed and dressed he was at the door with his tools bag on his shoulder. A hasty hug and he was gone.

*

Saras leaned on her fifth floor balcony railings and peered at the road below. Pran was driving his two wheeler out of the gate. He was soon on the road moving briskly overtaking cars on the road. Saras watched him till a bus hid him from her view.

She pulled a cane chair to a dark corner and sat with hands on head. It all happened so unexpectedly and so fast that the enormity of the act she had committed was sinking into her consciousness only now. Adultery for women is a dreadful act and for an Indian woman brought up in the darmapatini tradition it is doubly so. She wriggled her toes. The thrill of the climax that had coursed up and down her body seemed to linger there. When was the last time she climaxed? Must be years ago. She never had any great desire for sex. Her husband was not very insistent and when he was she yielded without participation. He lost interest too. Though he took great pains to be secretive about it she knew that he was an avid browser of porn sites. She never mentioned it; never minded him having some outlet for his desires. What surprised her was that she had desires too that she kept repressed in her subconscious for this young fellow to awaken, or was it exploit.

Was his story true? Had he take her for a smooth ride? Was he a predator targeting over-the-hill housewives he meets alone in homes? For a young man as handsome and charming as he was these women would be easy prey. No, his story had the ring of truth. He was intensely miserable as he narrated it, and when he hugged her she could feel him tremble. Even an accomplished actor cannot achieve this degree of authenticity. And then this horrible thought. Did she lead him on? He could not have known the way to the bedroom. Yes, she must have seduced him. Otherwise the progress from small talk to intimacy in bed could not have happened so seamlessly. No way could the tight blouse she was wearing have come off untorn unless she had peeled it off.

She moved into her room and stood before the dressing table mirror. It was a large mirror and the light was bright. She studied her face and her thoughts drifted to Dorian Gray of Oscar Wilde's only novel and that disturbed her.

The young and handsome Dorian has his portrait painted by an eminent artist. In the studio he meets a friend of the artist. The friend of the artist is a hedonist to whom fulfilment of the senses was the only thing worth pursuing in life. Dorian falls under his spell. Before plunging into a life of debauchery Dorian arranges that there will be no change in his personal appearance but his portrait will change appropriately with each evil deed. As Dorian panders to his senses to the full his portrait changes to that of a hideous old man.

Saras worried that her face may also show signs of the horrid act she had just committed. It was impossible for that much evil not to show. Has her lip curled up in an ugly sneer as happened to Dorain's portrait after his first act of debauchery? No, her lips were unchanged but there was a change of that she had no doubt. Yes, her eye brows were no longer closely placed straight lines. They curved down and her lips curled up in a faint smile. The sternness in her face was gone. Of guilt at having been unfaithful to her husband there was no trace at all. This should have pleased her but it did not. Was she such a hardened evil doer that she should not only be unconcerned by the heinous act she had committed but actually so smugly pleased with herself that a change for the better had taken place in her physiognomy?

What has happened has happened. There is no use regretting. She must move on. It was time to prepare tiffin for her children who however sumptuous the lunch she packed always came ravenously hungry from school. She opened her kitchen cupboard for the packet of semolina for the kesari halwa she had planned for the evening. She saw the box of Brownie ready-mix her niece had presented her during her recent visit from the States. It was on the top shelf beyond her reach. Like all college educated mothers Saras was a friend of fibre in the diet and a sworn enemy of bad cholesterol and trans-fat though if questioned she would readily admit she had only vague notions about them. The nutrition facts on the Brownie package in her opinion did not say good things and consequently she has not been baking the brownies even though her children have been clamouring for it. She jumped for the box but could not touch it. She used her husband's back scratcher to dislodge it down. She held the carton for a long while turning it round as if searching for some inspirational message. She got one but it was not from the box but from her subconscious. 'What moral forces have I now that I should presume to deny them anything?' she asked herself. Grimly she tore open the Brownie packet and pulled out the packet. Soon the mix was in the oven.

The door bell rang. She opened the door. It was her daughter. Rupa took a step in and stopped. She stood staring at her mother as if it were an apparition.

"Ma," she said, "What has happened? You look so different."

"In what way?" Saras almost panicked. Did the mirror lie? Was there after all a change that proclaimed in unmistakable terms that she was an adulteress?

"You look like mother," said Rupa softly

"But I am your mother."

"No, Ma. You were more like a head mistress." She hugged her mother. They clung on to each other as if they were meeting after a long separation.

"I smell Brownies, Ma."

"Yes, Brownies are in the oven."

"At this rate soon we will be getting whatever we ask for."

"No,"

"No?"

"You will be getting without having to ask."

"So?"

"You can have your cell phone." This stupendous news demanded a hug and she promptly gave her mother a tight one. And then she said something that only an elder sister would think of.

"Then Ramu will have his guitar too, Ma?" she said anxiously.

"Sure. Why doubt it."

Ramu whooped when his sister announced the good news even as he entered. Soon they settled down for tiffin.

"How many Brownies can we have Ma?"

"A high school girl is old enough to know how many she can gulp without throwing up," said mother. Rupa laughed.

"Very funny, Ma. Two should be enough. Not more than two Ramu."

"Have you taken over from mother? Why can't I decide what is good for me?"

"Because you are not in high school."

Mother had to intervene to restore peace.

"Ma, we have a problem. Father comes home at seven, and we after tuition will be back only at eight. Cell phone and guitar will have to wait for tomorrow."

"Ask your father Rupa he may have a better idea." He had and it was a pippin. The children will go to his office and from there for the purchases and then to their tuition. Soon they were off and Saras was awaiting the arrival of her husband with considerable trepidation.

It surprised her that feelings of guilt were bothering her no more. She could explain that. The intimacy was purely physical. Her emotional involvement with that person was nil. It was to her little more that a session with a hair stylist or masseur. Well almost. But would Sada notice a change in her? Her daughter had. Would his acute male mind see deeper? She again faced the mirror looking for the Dorian Gray curl of the lip. Her lips were normal. She tried to rehearse her moves as she opened the door and met his eye. She gave up after a few tries. She would act naturally and hope for the best.

In the event he noticed nothing. He entered complimenting her.

"You have brought up the children well," he said.

"'We' should be the word, not 'you'," she said handsomely, "your role could not be a bit less. But what makes you say that."

"I chose a cell phone with camera and many other features, Rupa did not want all that. She was definite about a basic instrument.'When I am in college perhaps,' she said. Ramu demanded of the salesperson an electric guitar suitable for one who has never played one. He got me to enrol him with a teacher a classmate of his had suggested. I am proud of their maturity."

After a wash he sat for tea and was surprised to find Brownies on the plate.

"What's happening to you, Saras? Moral force seems to be leaking at all points."

"From now on Moral Force will be acting with a human heart."

"No Gandhian tyranny?"

"Well I am not fighting Imperialism."

"Hope I will once in a while be at the receiving end."

"What a question Sada. You come first as you will presently see."

"Where, where; what, what?" he said looking round.

"Patience, Sada, patience. You don't expect me to palm you off with some silly gadget do you? You drink your coffee while I take a bath. I am feeling very sticky."

After the encounter with a stranger a bath was clearly overdue. Saras had delayed it. She had a plan.

"Sada, is the door latched," she asked from inside the bathroom," and are all the window curtains drawn?"

"They are Saras, but why?"

"I forgot to take the towel. I am coming out now dripping wet" Before Damu could properly register the stupendous statement she was out as promised in her birthday suit.

"Hold on to the table Sada. You may faint in your surprise." She was standing in front not more than a couple of metres away, unashamed and unembarrassed. "Hitch up your jaws, get the towel and start wiping. If you do a good job you may have to do it frequently if not every day." He recovered his composure and mumbling sweet nothings he wiped her dry.