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Excerpt: Momspeak by Pooja Pande
In this exclusive extract from her new book on motherhood in India, Pooja Pande wonders why Indian society is respectful towards women in their role as mothers but ignores their minds, desires, and sexuality
The sacred overtones and undertones of motherhood ensure that it all becomes nothing short of a religion — where there is space only for absolute surrender and devotion. Reasoning of sacred truths is shot down and you will, in all probability, be branded a heathen. The once-a-mother-always-and-only-a-mother golden rule and dictum is applied, with full force, when it comes to matters of sexuality. Any talk around libidos has no home here—this is a mother after all, be respectful.
We hear it so often, from boring government ads about women’s safety, to spiffy tweets around merchandise in cool ‘real mard’ movements, but what is this respect all about? Where does it come from, and what does it mean? What are the many ways in which we can understand it? Is it selective, in that we choose to be respectful towards one aspect of a mother’s life, her person, her body even, but not the rest of her? What about her mind and her desires? Her body that also houses her appetites? Pushing it further, do we respect only mothers, but not other women? Famed Urdu poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar had put it well, that is to say, with immense cheek, in his deconstruction of that oft-used word, ‘If I was born on January 17, does my mother become worthy of respect only January 17 onwards? Was she not worthy of it on January 16 then, or before it? What kind of respect is this? My birth bestows respect on her, in some kind of reflected glory.’ In essence, it means, ‘When we say respect mothers, what we are really saying is don’t respect women.’ Nailing it much like Oprah, you could say.
But mothers are women.
A nineteenth-century guidebook for Indian women, Nari Ank, says:
The word ‘Ma’ has an inexplicable purity . . . the foundation of true love requires foregoing self-interest and the supreme form of such love can be seen in mothers’ love . . . a mother’s love does not have the stench of sexual desire, it does not have the instability of greed and she is not corrupted by selfishness.
Kylie Jenner, on her Instagram page, said, ‘You remind me that motherhood and sexuality can coexist and just because you embrace your sexuality doesn’t mean . . . you’re not a good mother. You can be sexy and still be a badass mum.’
It is fascinating (in hindsight, frustrating in the moment) how the arrival of a child can alter the dynamics of a romantic/sexual relationship. There are the obvious ways, such as the physical truths of the new mother as well as the father (who goes through his own churnings, which remain even more undocumented), the entry of a tiny new life, usually much anticipated, into the equation between two adults that has been formed — and if you’re lucky and have worked on it, evolved, etc.— over a period of time. Like any good kabab mein haddi joke worth its weight in spices, things are bound to be different. Assuming new parents are indulging in what the Americans call co-sleeping and what we Indians call, simply, sleeping, the baby is now nestled right in the centre on your bed — pride of place and also, practical. (Refer to said hyper paranoia around baby toppling off bed.) If there ever was a quick, sure-fire way to de-romanticize the marital bed, well, it’s this! The space that harbours hot memories of trying out new positions, the good times embedded into your brain? Yeah, that’s where the baby is busy regurgitating milk now, or perhaps it’s where you’ve piled up the nappies because you’re too knackered — for not such great reasons.
It is all part of the transition, of course, and an acknowledgement of this fact is par for the course. There is a time for everything in life should you choose to experience it, but what we must assume distance from, where we must interrogate and push for rectification, is the cultural pushback against the sexuality of mothers, because that is far too serious, far too real. Sex after all, is also about intimacy, connection, expression, that difficult-to-put-into-words bond you form with someone special — it’s all wrapped up in the pleasure and the release. It can be the way in which you recalibrate your relationship dynamics, in fact, but no one tells you that, or deems it important.
