Not the "Mrs." for a change!
This time, I was invited to dinner & drinks, and T was invited as my partner....

In India, one of the things hardest for independent women like us is that we seem to become "the Mrs." the instant we set foot on Indian soil. We disappear!
Doors are slammed in our faces, we are pushed aside in waiting lines, the many "little men" that come to repair whatever is broken in our houses ingore what we say (after all, what could a WOMAN know about these things?) and if we want something done we have to ask our husbands to give the order!

Even if we are not married we pretend we are, because we become preys the minute we turn out to be "not married"...which for Indian men is the same as available. Never mind if there is a boyfriend somewhere...not married is single and single is prey!

In the more positive situations the mali (gardener) greets us with "hello Sir" (should I start paying attention to my chin?) but usually the most positive attention we can hope to get is that young men want us in their picture, never mind that we could have been their mother. I would really like to hear the comments when they show that picture to their friends....what the hell are they going to say? (I can think of many things!)

But resistence is growing!
The other day I bought a great t-shirt which is the brainchild of the "fading ladies" (www.fadingladies.blogspot.com). This is a group of ladies in Delhi who refuse to fade into oblivion, and they have started producing t-shirts with texts that tell that story...mine has a print in Hindi saying "I am not a tourist, I live here!" on it.
I think they are now planning a t-shirt that says "I am not the mister"! Way to go, ladies!

But for now, this is my own little triumph....