Lady of the ring!

It worried me as a child when I was advised not to go anywhere with single men even if they offered me candy. But how did one figure out if they were single? After all Indian men didn't wear wedding bands. At least if they wore a toe ring to indicate they were married, it would help. But then if they wore shoes, how would I know? Maybe it would be better if they wore a mangalsutra but then again, if they wore a collared shirt I wouldn't be able to see it, would I? Would it be better to ask outright?

I pondered all these in my mind and thought it was really so much easier to know if women were married. All the extra ornamentation- toe rings easily visible in their open toed sandals, a mangalsutra hanging down their ample bosoms, a bindi on their forehead, sometimes vermillion in the parting of their hair, the jingling of keys hanging by their waist, all were markers proclaiming 'I'm the boss.’

Similar of course to the nattily attired driver, with his crisp uniform and cap, who drove the Mercedes!

My career goal really was to either become a person in uniform, like a driver or to be a wife. They seemed to be the real movers and shakers.

Luckily I read a lot of fairy tales. It soon became apparent to me that Rapunzel didn't have the sense to cut off her hair, tie it to the railing and help herself down and that Snow White's beauty only caused her to forever be the victim of some shady assassination plot. That's when I realized how overrated one’s external projection is. It's limiting and it's a pain in the err posterior!

I have now come to the conclusion that the surest sign of dependency is to see how well attired the person is- the better dressed, the more subordinate. Notice a medical representative vs a doctor. The medical representative usually wears a tie and I am firmly of the opinion that my fraternity wears a coat just so that they no one knows they stumbled out of bed and chose the first thing they saw.

One of my friends insists on wearing bathroom slippers everywhere he goes except of course while playing sport. His wife has given up on him. We, however, enjoy hanging out with him because we look better by comparison. The man, despite all studies about nattily dressed people having the ability to pull off big deals etc keeps managing to get funding in millions while the rest of us try and look pretty but are hard pressed to get someone to even pay for an ice cream. He does this while grossing out people by eating cereal at morning meetings without the least trace of self consciousness.

A further corollary to this is that, the more people complain about how costly a thing is, the more likely it is that they are floating in the gravy, and the people that just pay up and act cool are the hoi polloi.

Speaking of which, my kids’ school fee is astronomical and I will be staging a protest or two in my bathroom slippers and oldest pair of shorts. Hopefully not too many people have access to my thesis on poverty and appearance and just maybe I can get them enrolled through RTE!