Journalist and author Lalita Iyer’s upcoming book chronicles her personal journey from puberty to menopause. From being the ‘good girl’ who topped school to this current woman who thinks, “it’s high time I stopped being a version of myself that my mother wants me to be”.
There’s much one can relate to in The Whole Shebang. It’s not a heroic tale of escaping a violent marriage, the sex trade or an oppressive society, but an urban Indian woman’s journey through various avatars — most of which we don to please someone else.
“We spend too much of our life saying and doing the right things and being versions of our real selves,” says the Mumbai-based author. “In the playout of these versions, there is a sense of dilution and loss of the self but if we allow our self-exploration to continue, we have a shot at getting to who we really are, and sometimes love it too, like I did.”
Iyer’s real job, she says, is balancing mommyhood to three boys, two of which are feline. Her former works include ‘I’m pregnant not terminally ill, you idiot!’ and ‘The boy who swallowed a nail and other stories’. The latest book, to be released on September 10, is an extension of her widely read blog. Its draw is the insight into her personal ordinary life and its battles. An exploration of the burden of virginity in the urban dating scene, the search for companionship, the end of a marriage and parenthood in a modern family unit. It’s the story of the internal life of many women, to employ a cliché, searching for themselves.
“I can just hope the book gives women the courage or impetus to tell their real stories and stop berating themselves for not being good enough,” says Iyer. She says she’s in the midst of a love affair with herself. “It’s liberating... the realisation that imperfection is totally okay. The knowledge that I am learning to put myself first, instead of factoring everyone else like I have been programmed to do. I am learning to define boundaries...”
Among other things, Iyer dedicates a chapter to having her hymen surgically ruptured after she found that being a “deflowering agent is a job nobody wants”. Her advice to girls is to lose their virginity as quickly and uneventfully as possible. “Virginity is a baggage many women (and men) still carry, despite the tinderisation of our times,” she says. “It is, technically, just the first time you have penetrative sex. It is still treated as some kind of landmark event. I know so many people in their 30s and 40s who are still gloomy about their virginity and hold it like it’s a dark secret.”
Another chapter is dedicated to getting her periods during a holiday from school, with no one to celebrate or create drama around it. One talks about the intrigue around her wedding at 38, the celebration of her pregnancy at 40 and dissolution of her marriage. All ordinary occurrences that would otherwise be spoken about in hushed terms and not validated as events of self-discovery.
The Whole Shebang is available for pre-order on amazon.in
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