Tampons Talk

It was 5:30 am. Sia was jet lagged and roaming in the dark. Should I use this time to unpack she wondered as she passed her suitcase, which lazily resting against the back of the living room couch. Sia went into the kitchen and made a cold smoked cheddar sandwich and then sat cross legged in front of the suitcase, staring at it as she took a big bite.

The flight home had been long with a quick plane change at Amsterdam giving Sia very little time to dash out and purchase some colorful wooden tulips at Schiphol airport. She rotated her shoulders, they were sore. The last two days of the spring semester, right up to the point till Sia had boarded the plane, had been extremely strenuous. Her arms had built some muscle between packing stuff and moving all the boxes into the basement. Sia smiled, remembering how she had wet her underwear while lifting the carton loaded with books. Was it common for women to ejaculate during heavy lifting? She made a mental note to check that up on the internet. 

The mynahs (starling) started to chirp. Morning must be approaching. Looking up at the window, Sia saw pink streaks emerge across the vacant sky. Taking one last bite, Sia dusted the crumbs of her hands and opened up the suitcase. Out came the clothes—new and dirty, the shoes—heels, sneakers, ballet flats, boots, yes boots that had been very useful to fight off the eight inches of snow that covered Knox’s campus in Galesburg. A bag loaded with chocolates and cheeses made its appearance and she went to dump it in the refrigerator.

She came back to find her half awake mother staring confusedly at the remaining contents in the suitcase. “Hi ma”, she cheerfully exhaled but got no response. Ma was narrowing her eyes and squinting. ”Can you get me my glasses Sia?” she asked. Sure, Sia bounced towards the bedroom, wondering what could have caught her Ma’s attention so intensely. Only the undergarments were left to unpack. By the time Sia returned with the spectacles, she realized Ma didn’t need them. Pinched between her index finger and her thumb, Ma held a tampon which she has plucked out from amongst the thongs and pushup bras strewn about.  

Oh that! Sia said to herself as she bit her lower lip.

“Are you having sex?” Ma whispered suddenly.

“No” Sia lied instantly.

“Because only married women use tampons. Young girls should not. It is very shameful if we sent you to America and instead of studying you are having sex.”

“Just relax Ma, Ayesha asked me to carry them for her sister, who is married.” Sia lied again. Ma smiled hesitatingly, obviously relieved and turned to Sia and asked, “Are you still a good girl?” Sia blurted out a yes too fast.

Ma patted her on the back as she continued to whisper, “Please don’t have sex with anyone until you are married”, and then she leaned over even closer and added, “And even if you do, don’t make the mistake of telling anyone. Not even your best friend, not even Ayesha, because one day she will use it against you.”

Sia just nodded so as not to encourage this topic of conversation, but really, why was premarital sex such a crime to her mother? “Your grades are good and soon you will get your degree. You have a good education and good health and soon you will get a good job and find a good husband. But if you want to find a really good husband, then you must have a good reputation in our society.”

Sia was getting increasingly amused by her Ma’s obsession with “everything good”. She decided to be a bit of a saucy tart. “What does a good reputation mean ma?” Happy that she could impart wisdom to her daughter, Ma stroked Sia’s hair and said, “It means that people in our society—your neighbors, your relatives and your friends—all can expect you to behave with good manners and make good choices. That is how a person’s reputation gets formed.”

“If you sleep around” she said as she inspected one tampon closely, “you will find you have many boyfriends but none of them will want to marry you. Is that what you want?” Taking a deep breath she concluded her sermon, “All your father and I want for you is a good husband from a good family.”

She got up to go to the kitchen and make her morning cup of tea. “Would you say papa came from a good family?” Sia asked cheekily. Ma was silent as she put the water on the boil, tossing some ginger and cardamom into the pot. She needed a few minutes to form a politically correct answer.

“Well your grandfather, Pandit Suryavansh, was a famous Sitar player.”

“But you also said he was an alcoholic, and that two of papa’s brothers were mentally unwell, so how is that good?”

“Your father is a good person” ma shot back defensively, “the character of the boy you marry should be good. That is what is most important.”

“What about your family Ma? Would you say you came from a good family?”

“Of course! We are Brahmins and everyone in my family has a master’s degree.”

“But didn’t your father beat your mother and didn’t she leave him and separate? You said that your whole life you were ashamed that your parents were divorced and that you grew up with very little money…”

Ma’s face turned red and her nostril’s flared. Sia tried to reason, “All I am trying to understand is what makes one family good and another not when all families have their sunshine Moments and their dark secrets…”

But Ma had lost interest in this conversation (or any conversation that challenged social norms). Sia’s papa had woken up by then and walked towards the ladies. Sia smiled at him and quickly chucked the tampons into the suitcase and shut it, probably to save herself from further embarrassment.

“Good morning Sia” papa said as he hugged her. “Welcome back! Did you find the driver easily at the airport?” Sia nodded smiling. The maid woke up and made them some green tea. “So how was school” papa asked as Sia and he sat in the verandah with their legs stretched out in the tropical sun.

“It was good”, Sia winked. “I really enjoyed my art appreciation class…”

“Art? Why are you studying art” ma interrupted, “that isn’t a good subject! What happened to economics?”

“Sarita let her finish talking”, papa gently chided ma, “so tell me beta, what other classes did you take this semester?”

“French, macroeconomics, political geography and marketing…”

“Sounds good” he said and then got lost reading the several morning papers that were on his tray. 

“Did you hear about the Chandok’s daughter” Ma asked out loud.

“No, what happened to her” papa responded without looking up from the paper.

“She just graduated and got engaged to this boy whom she had met in college. The Chandok’s thought he was from a really good family but two days ago Kimaya walked in on him kissing some English blond girl in his hotel room, and now they have called off the engagement.”

“All our Indian boys are like that Sarita, they want to have a fling with a blond girl before they settle down…”

“But Kimaya was a good girl; she didn’t deserve this after she got engaged to him…”

Blond girl versus good girl, hmm—her parent’s theories were very amusing thought Sia. “Ma, why do you say Kimaya was a good girl?”

“She always wished all her mother’s friends at parties. She didn’t avoid them like you do.” Sia would have said something to defend herself but she didn’t want to break Ma’s train of thought. “She always dressed up very nicely and I think she graduated at the top of her class. This boy was her first boyfriend.” Ma sipped her tea as she looked at Sia, very satisfied with her answer.

Sia gulped down her green tea. She didn’t want to ruin Ma’s good impression of Kimaya or ruin this good day by telling everyone here that Kimaya had an abortion last semester. Rumor has it that she had gotten pregnant by an African-American football player at her university. She had only started dating this cheating loser Amar on the rebound as he had helped tutor her through Calculus last semester, which she was badly failing.

And as for Sia, yes she was having sex and using tampons. She was playing around with many subject choices and was finding economics hard and boring. She didn’t avoid her mother’s friends; only excused herself when they started asking prying questions. Sia was perhaps, not making a very good impression, but she was having a good time and discovering her own version of life.

As she leaned forward to grab a copy of the Times of India, Sia quickly pulled down her t-shirt. She didn’t want any of her parents seeing the butterfly tattoo right above her butt crack. Ma would only have two words to say.

Not good.   

A version of this article was published on: Good Girls Marry Doctors [blog]