Women, Daughters

We have the alumni reunion in Shivalik today. We were supposed to have had it from 4:30 in the afternoon but people only started coming in closer to 8 in the night. Though the lack of turnout did disconcert the organisers (my party in the hostel, if you must know) a bit, the event was a success once we got some alumni to fill our lawns. A nice programme (most of which I missed because I was chatting with him from Bangalore) was followed by a dinner and then by an interactive chat session with each alumnus introducing himself and relating anecdotes from his IIT days. At the time of going on the blog, an old gentleman is telling a story and getting polite applause for his efforts from my sleepy and bored juniors.
I wasn't really doing anything and was basically watching music videos on the big projector screen from the comfort of the front-row sofas on the lawn when I was commandeered by the organising team. I was told to ask the ones who were trying to sneak away to stay back for a small chat session. Now, I have always thought of myself as rather good with people. I might not be scintillating company or a charismatic host but I usually don't have trouble talking to people. However I do have a lot of trouble asking people inane questions and I am painfully shy in approaching people when I think I do not have compelling reasons to talk to them. So I didn't do much of that either.
Anyway, this auntie comes up to me and tells me her husband was from the first batch of IIT (the '66 batch) and would I like to ask him to share his experiences etc. with the students? Now, you might think I'm sick but I have this concept of who is beatiful and who is not. Some women aren't conventionally beautiful and yet, make you want to touch them or be close to them. You instinctively know they smell good, and the women I find beautiful are always women I somehow feel are freshly-bathed. This auntie too had a beautiful smile, and she smelled really good - not overpowering, just right - and had on a blouse with a ...ahem, deep neck. I could see cleavage behind her semi-transparent sari pallu and it was just beautiful and feminine, not in a sexy way as much as in an elegant way.
There are other women too that I find beautiful and women I have mini and major crushes on. There's one, however, who's been on the crush list for quite some time now. Since her debut, actually. She's not beautiful, but she's very very attractive. She's got brains, she's articulate, she's independent and strong, and also something that many new age women are not - vulnerable at times. This is where new age women don't do it for me. The new woman is everything any man would love to love - strong, intelligent, articulate, independent etc etc. What she's not and what she emphasises she isn't, is vulnerable. I mean, dude, if she's Sushmita Sen why would she want me? Which is why it's so maddeningly exciting to see that chink in the Perfect Woman's armour - that small insecurity, that little note of jealousy she couldn't stop from creeping in - which suddenly makes her a flawed beauty you can hold without feeling you're revealing more of yourself to her than she is to you. Perfection is intimidating. Almost perfect is what we can handle, what we can love.
Anyway, so this woman is someone who now possesses in my imagination all the qualities of my Ideal Woman. There was a time when I used to think of stuff in a very abstract way. Now, however, I have a face and most importantly, a name - a beautiful name - to address all my fantasies to. This is obviously very dangerous in case the said woman is ever attained and found wanting. In my case, this will never happen and hence it is perfectly safe for me to keep investing all my fantasies into her. I also think she knows I have a crush on her because I have a
silly grin on my face when I see her (the fifth-grader grin, it's been called). In fact, I'm pretty sure she knows it. I expect women like her learn to recognize these signs in men because they get them so often. In any case, being my Perfect Woman, she has a highly developed womanly intuition which helps separate out the likes of me from the general smilers.
There are other things too that contribute to my loving her so much.
She has a beautiful name. All the women I have ever loved or had crushes on (can't claim a large number, to be honest) have had beautiful names. Why can't all women (and men too) have great names? Why are some travesties still in circulation? I once knew a girl who was called 'Shatabdi'. What kind of a name is that? And what about 'Neyi Neveli', Amitabh Bachchan's granddaughter's name? Some names ought to have died out long ago because there simply are so many better names that are still not too commonly used. I think women should have names that not only have beautiful meanings, but also sound beautiful. I know I'm going to fret and research like crazy to select a name for my daughter. My son (should I have one) will, I'm afraid, simply not be lavished the kind of attention I would reserve for my daughter.
Maybe it's the result of having a brother and no sister(s), but I really don't want a predominantly male household again. Maybe it's because I grew up in one that I have all these romantic notions of how much I'd love my daughter, and maybe daughters are just as much trouble as sons are and in some ways only more so, but this is the way I feel and I can't see that changing in the next few years or so.
Like many other things, this idea too has come to be encapsulated by a particular scene frozen for ever in my mind. When a friend of mine was going away for a considerable period of time, after all the packing was done and the time came for goodbyes to family, she (I think) hugged each member in turn, but the scene that truly branded itself on my mind's eye for ever was when she threw herself on her father and they hugged so closely for what seemed like eternity. It was just so indescribably right that it stirred up something even in my normally unmoving heart. It was like a moment when everything stops and there is this blinding flash of realization that all the trouble, the heartburn, the pain, the sleepless nights, the agony, the times of helplessness in all those twenty odd years were worth it. That the juice was worth the squeeze.
I want to feel that too - the agony and the ecstasy of being a parent. For our own sake, we require individuals in our lives we can love selflessly and limitlessly. That is why we need children.
*****
I just went over this post, and it's embarassingly sentimental. However I'll post it anyway because I can't seem to write anything else (have started several posts and abandoned them all) and I don't want this blog to die for want of fresh material.

PS: Btw, the alumni reunion happened about a week ago. I wrote half of this post then, and the rest was composed today.