There is no manual to living. There’s no celestial authority who’s tut-tut-ing in disapproval as we try to do this business of getting from one day to another. No daily pass marks. No permanent fail grades. Of course organised religion will have you think otherwise. But by and large, as long as you behave well with others and, you know, don’t kill people, it’s possible to live life without worrying too much if you’re doing a good job of it.
It’s possible. But it’s not something that many of us do.
We get bogged down regularly by the Manual of Living that society throws at us. Milestones we’re told we must hit. Goals we must achieve. And if we don’t…well, you don’t want to be one of those people who are whispered about at weddings, do you? We’re told that those who defy societal expectations of who they should be are people who aren’t “good.” Especially if you’re a woman. Then, the manual on how to be a “good woman” and the blackness of being the black sheep are both a little more intense.
But what if lives lived in defiance of social conventions are where the real lessons on living are? This is what I’ve been thinking ever since I read two memoirs from women who according to society were not so good — “Regrets, None” by Dolly Thakore, and “Timepass” by Protima Bedi.
Both Dolly Thakore and Protima Bedi are what I’d unequivocally call successful women. One, a theatre legend in Mumbai, who has worn many hats of being a newscaster, columnist, and a casting director. And the other, a legendary Odissi danseuse and model who established Nrityagram, one of India’s finest dancing schools.
But it’s the personal lives of both these women — and perceived “scandalous” choices — that they are often remembered by. And dismissed because of. For Thakore, it was the reputation of being the “other woman,” when she a much-married woman fell in love with another much-married man, the adman Alyque Padmasee.
For Bedi, well, it was everything — her fame as the model who streaked naked on a beach in Mumbai (it was Goa, she clarifies), her marriage to Kabir Bedi, her infidelities, and her sudden decision to leave her family to learn Odissi. She explains it best in her own words,
“I could not - and I would not - be a Sita to my husband, not a Radha to my lovers. And I doubt if I have been a Yashoda to my children. In other words, as far as the world is concerned, I have been a total flop. A flop as a wife, mistress, mother, daughter, sister, friend. A flop as a woman. And, of course, I have also been a flop as a social being, for I have broken every single rule that our society has carefully constructed and upheld for over 2000 years…I have done precisely what I bloody well felt like doing, and never given a damn.”
Reading those sentences above you’re probably raising an eyebrow, and forming a mental image of these women. Oh, those kinds of women. I say this with some certainty because I thought the same too. But those raised eyebrows gave way to grudging admiration for the unapologetic honesty on display in these memoirs.
Whether it led to broken marriages, social boycott, professional failures — these two women owned up to their decisions and pulled no punches to say, “Yes, this is the life I lived, and yes these are mistakes I made, but so what.” A quality of character that Joan Didion called the “courage of conviction” in her essay on “On Self-Respect.”
“…people with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the price of things. If they choose to commit adultery, they do not then go running, in an access of bad conscience, to receive absolution from the wronged parties; nor do they complain unduly of the unfairness, the undeserved embarrassment, of being named corespondent.”
What Didion writes of, and Thakore and Bedi had in abundance, was just this courage. Or gutsss, as the kids say these days. Guts to say that even if our choices don’t figure in the Manual of Living written by society, that it’s still possible to make those choices. As long as we’re ready for the consequences. To have the courage of convictions, then, simply means to say, “Well you may not like my life but I am sleeping well at night — so what do you care?”
Because the reality of our lives is, that people do care. Inordinately so. If you spend some time scrolling through Instagram reels, you will see exactly the question of “how to live life” play out in nine-to-five daily vlogs, wedding aesthetics, and inspirational hustle videos. You can pick the kind of life trajectory you want. You can compare your mundanity with that one person you who looks like they have the perfect life. You can pressure yourself into thinking you’re failing when you’re probably just doing fine only. The Manual is omnipresent.
This omnipresence is probably why reading the memoirs of Protima Bedi, and Dolly Thakore felt revelatory. Not because I am desirous of emulating their choices. But, as a reminder that it is possible to live a life that might not look like what everyone is doing. Like Thakore writes,
“You can do it all. That is what I’m here to tell you. You can dream up a career and do the things you love, and have a child and be a single mother, and take tragedy on the chin, over and over again and just plain survive. And still live a life of honour and integrity and grace and humour that will fill your days with love and laughter and wave after wave of memories. Just ask yourself: what do I want? And have no regrets about the rest. None.”
The question to ask, then, when it comes to this ongoing business of living condenses into a deceptively simple one — manuals aside. Even if the answer to this question is anything but.
What do you want?
Hello, hello — it has been too long since I last wrote here for me to make feeble promises of regularity for this once-weekly-newsletter. But irrespective; I hope you’re doing well. I will write again, soon.
I'm turning 25 in 6 months and there's this constant anxiety attached to every word I utter, every decision I make and every step I take. Maybe it's because I'm WAAYYY too accustomed to the "Manual of Living" and now the manual isn't working for me anymore. So, the deep rooted conditioning is now clashing with the changing landscape of my neural networks. And this newsletter couldn't have come at a time, any better than this. So THANK YOU Maanvi ma'am for bringing forward such refreshing perspectives from these marvellous women. As Always, eagerly waiting for another one of your refreshing anecdotes
*Loved* reading it. Cannot wait to read the next edition!