Battling Space Invaders

Khaleej Times (Life) / 18 May 2013

WE WOMEN are a weird, possessive lot. Many of us are possessive not just about our men, clothes and jewellery — in no particular order of importance — but also about the physical space that we permeate and perform our everyday antics in.

We brook no incursion into the domestic territory over which we hold supreme authority and we are categorical about it – stay out of our premises or bear the brunt of undiluted female wrath. Here are some caveats on our behaviour, for all — including husbands, friends and relations — to remember.

From being mere eye candies in the office space, we are now making ourselves counted as policy makers in the boardroom. That in no way means we are abdicating our control over the home territory. The kitchen is still where we rule the roost. We would like everyone personally associated with us to know that we don’t allow alien presence there, although some of us are now forced to give the power of attorney to cooks and maids, thanks to our blue-chip interests. We lament our loss of total ownership, but we realise that we live in a ‘something for something’ world.

If we invite you home, be only a guest. We appreciate your desire to lend us a hand, but we expect you to understand our compulsion that makes us inherently despotic about the way we handle our kitchen affairs. Though we perform the same tasks in our individual territories, we differ in styles and manner. You can’t rule country A like you rule country B, so we expect you to respect the differences.  We know that you have your own personal writ that you may not like to be challenged when we visit you. Trust us, we won’t offer assistance and mess our clothes up when we come over.

We are fussy when it comes to scouring dishes and cleaning the table top, about chopping vegetables and rolling rotis. We are fastidious about the way we lay tables and arrange glasses. About the way we stack clothes and water plants. You see, there is something sacrosanct about our space and we cannot allow it to be sullied by external influences. For some reason, we can’t handle interference. We wheeze and begin to get seizures when we see invasive acts from you. We were born with the belief that no one can do our things better than us. So, please desist from offering us services. It is not easy to be polite when you insist, even if it’s out of love and obligation.

We are extremely personal and touchy about our bathrooms too. It has taken years to train our husbands and kids to be civilised in their use of the bathroom and we wouldn’t want you, as guests, to come, break their good habits, and turn them into barbarians.  The last thing you’d want is our young ones to come and whine in front of you, “Mamma, they have turned our bathroom into an aquarium. Won’t you scold them?” It can mean RIP to our precious association.

The bathroom now isn’t just another dingy space with a permanently whirring exhaust fan, soaps, shampoos and toilet rolls. It plays host to phones, laptops, newspapers and best sellers. It’s not a place where you conduct essential biological businesses alone. It is where executives confer, students cram and writers think. It is where harried souls find peace in blissful isolation. We intend to maintain the serenity of this space, so please tread in and out of it with respect. Inspect before you exit. Wet floors, sprinkled seats and stained basins can make us hysterical.

Slam us, but we can’t change; for that’s how we women are designed and conditioned. But we are not the only ones in the world to be possessive about our spaces or to build virtual boundaries around our domain. Think about it at leisure.