And now to tackle an unpopular subject

It's all well to muse on the weather, but today I have something more potentially controversial to mention. An uncle of mine is visiting from Malaysia. He's spent the past several years in East Asia, and his children have never lived in India. Now the entire family has moved here.

"Do you think it's difficult being a woman, professionally, in India?" he asked me. "Your employers, and all, treat you okay?"

It immediately ocurred to me that he might be asking for his daughter's sake. She's only 9 and her life has changed completely, and I thought he might want to know what she could expect. So I said,

"No, professionally it's been no problem - except for that one time someone made a 'Legally Blonde' reference in the middle of an interview," I said. "I think personally it's more difficult...people still have very old-fashioned ideas about bahus (daughters in law) and all that...and I think being in a joint family would be very hard because it's so different, you don't get a lot of privacy or individual space..."

My answer was unusually inept and disorganized, and probably spoke more to my fears than anything his daughter will ever have to face. But I stand by my general drift, which is that it's harder to be a woman than it is to be a professional woman, in India and in the world. Except for that one awful Legally Blonde glitch - a moment that left both me and the interviewer marinating in awkward silence - my co-workers and bosses have been the height of professionalism. This could be because I work in a somewhat young profession where women are disproportionately represented. (I have heard, for example, that many Indians still hesitate to have a female surgeon because they worry that women won't have the stamina to stand for the entire duration of a difficult operation)

But from my perspective, being a young woman in India carries more baggage than any professional commitment. Young women nowadays are usually categorized - whether they want to be or not - into one of two stereotypes. They can be traditional girls and get married in their early twenties, right after a bachelor's degree, to a man their parents choose. They can have their first child within two years of marriage and become housewives. Although they wore jeans and T-shirts in college, they cheerfully put these away after their wedding and don the saris and salwar kameezes of a proper married woman. They listen to their mothers-in-law, and sometimes live in a joint family.

Then there is the "modern" route. These girls have seize the new opportunities opening up for women in India. They pursue the highest levels of education, outperforming their male cousins and many of their friends. They have a good-natured but at heart insecure disdain for the traditional type of young woman. They dream of falling in love but feel that most Indian men are still trapped in the Stone Age when it comes to attitudes towards women. They plan to work after marriage and even after having children, and often have high-paying positions in fields like finance, marketing and medicine. They are Westernized and glamorized, they wear suits and blazers and speak perfect English, and often have manicured nails.

What's the point of these somewhat insulting stereotypes? After all, this happens in the United States, too, doesn't it? You have the good Southern girls and the bad Northeastern girls and the dull but accomodating midwestern girls and the stuck-up but sexy Manhattan girls...oh, I see.

What I am not trying to say is that Indian woman all fall into these camps. In fact, most wouldn't want to, given half the chance. I certainly wouldn't want to, not because I think either stereotype is bad but because all stereotypes are limiting. (And if you look at the prevalence of women's home businesses and the percentage of women who take time off to have kids and then return to the office, you will clearly see that neither category is impermeable, especially in India)

But once people label you as belonging to either one of these cliques, they make assumptions about your character and attitude that are neither comfortable nor accurate. Navigating these assumptions about your behaviors and attitudes is frustrating on any continent, and especially frustrating when you're foreign to the very standards being applied.

After all, in the United States, I was a stuckup East Coast feminist...and although many of my friends were the same, we often wanted to escape the prison of people's assumptions about our professional, sexual, personal and even sartorial choices. I might wish, now that I'm in India, that this would change. But sadly I don't feel that it has. Perhaps this is one of the downsides of being a woman at all. People reserve the right to judge your lifestyle and choices (just look at "Worst Celebrity Moms" quizzes) in a way they don't with men.