What’s with Indians and Skin Colour?

Not many days ago I was standing in the balcony of my house, enjoying the long-missed pleasant evening breeze after days of soaring temperatures. My house is on the first floor of our three-storied building. There’s a family of four that lives diagonally below us. The toddler (not even a year old), the latest addition to the family is a charming-chubby-Chinese looking baby boy who knows how to keep everybody on their toes. He has an elder sister of about ten who is equally charming. Both the children have taken after their mother- small eyes, sharp eyebrows, round nose, not-so-thick lips and a very rotund face. The only difference being that the boy is as fair as his mother while the girl is more on the wheatish side of the complexion of her father.

While I was enjoying the pleasantness of the evening, the sharp cries from that little fat bundle forced my head to turn towards his direction. His sister was holding him and he was making every possible effort to beakfree from her clutches. The mommy & daddy were immersed in conversation and looked dressed-up to leave. While I was taking delight in watching the young girl’s travails of keeping her brother in control, my mother sneaked up behind me and started calling out to the baby. She started gesturing towards him (as one typically does upon seeing an infant). She clicked her fingers, clapped her hands, smiled from ear to ear and asked him to come to her. The boy stoppped fidgeting immediately and looked at her in rapt attention. Then the boy’s mother came forward and took him in her arms, looked upwards, greeted us and then they all drove off. After they went away my mother said, “the boy is a reflection of his mother while the girl resembles her father.” I obvioulsy had a different opinion so I asked her to kindly elaborate. Her reply bowled me over.

“The boy is as fair as the lady while the girl is saanvli like her father,” was her retort.

And that is it. This is the problem with us. With us Indians. We judge beauty not by features but by the colour of the skin. The girl nowhere resembles her father for the father has a square face, broad eyes & pointed nose. She looks every bit of her mother with the only exception being the pigment of her skin. And by only taking this characteristic as the sole parameter, my mommy dear had passed her judgement.

Although a small and probably a very insignificant incident but does speak volumes about our mentality. Why is it that we are not interested in the angelic eyes or a perfectly crafted nose or the voluptuous lips one might have? Why if someone is fair only then they are beautiful? Why is it that the colour of our skin is the first thing anyone notices? Yes, skin is the largest organ & often the most exposed one but why just stop their? Why not move ahead and get over with it. Why do we miss the trees for the woods? (Yup I am reversing the popular idiom here!)

A society like our that revers Lord Krishna and Maa Kaali is also among the highest consumers of fairness creams in the world. With big Bollywood names like Shah Rukh Khan endorsing brands like ‘Fair & Handsome’ and with ‘Fair & Lovely’s’ years of ad campaign focusing on how a ‘saanvli’ girl tastes success only after attaining unmatched fairness by applying “the cream” are both the cause and effects of our Indian obssession with gorapan.

Or perhaps another legacy of the British Raj!

The Great Indian Brain-Drain

What can be more exhausting than the Board exams itself?
The wait for the results.

The past two weeks gone by were sure a roller coaster ride for the students who appeared in the 10th and 12th board exams 2018, as the results by both the ICSE & CBSE were declared online.

The board results like every year bring cheer for many and disappointment for some. Like the trend of past few years, this year too, we saw many students scoring above 90%. The “toppers”- they call them. But not all toppers are toppers. What I mean is that all toppers are not alike. By observing the manner in which a topper reacts on seeing his/her result for the first time, they can be categorised.

Like the ‘smug ones’.

These are the omniscient angels. They know their results even before the CBSE (or ICSE) does. 99% dot! They knew it and poof! Here it is. Not a muscle on their face will move when the computer screen flashes their score card with the gargantuan marks on it. Or even when the parents & the media & the neighbours shower all those boring accolades. Just a somber smile is all they have to offer. After all, they knew it, no surprises here.

Then there are the ‘always-hungry-for-more ones’. The score card is displaying a giant sum total of 499/500 and they are already half-drowned in their own tears, mourning the death of that one mark that could have given them a perfect 100%. Absolutely nothing could satisfy these hungry marks-eaters!

Then we have the ‘brooders’. They are initially at peace with their scores, all hail &

hearty, but no sooner do they hear that their comrades got a higher merit, than their merry-making turns into worry-&-racking. How come he/she got a point more than I did, we studied from the same notes! (Sob sob)

And then there are my personal favourites, the ‘dumbfounded ones’. They are the ones who expect 80% but get 90%. They thrice check their roll numbers and even probably call up the Board administration to enquire if there had been any mistake in the compilation of the results. It is upon being only utterly dead sure, that there had been absolutely no glitches at all, the feeling starts to sink in. The feeling of a topper. It might take a minute or two, but once it does they go berserk. There is no stopping them then. This is their salvation. They want nothing more from life.

Funny isn’t it? But guess what’s funnier- our country, which produces lakhs of such toppers annually, is destined to be the youngest nation in the world but is also, ironically, the one with the highest number of educated unemployed. We are producing “toppers” but are we producing enough jobs to retain them? Our country where the pass percentage is a mere 33%, the topper getting a humongous 99% is a self-mockery by our education system.

We are not giving them 499 marks; we are giving them 499 dreams, dreams which our country cannot fulfill. We are raising their expectations only to trash them later on. And this is the root cause of brain drain. What does a topper do when he/she is unable to make a career that fits the magnanimity of their scores? What does an average scorer do? The one who got a handsome 85%. It’s a fairly good score, c’mon. But it is peanuts when compared to the giant 99%. The toppers eventually head West because there aren’t any opportunities here that befit their massive calibre and the average ones, who were made to feel too average due to their super-intelligent contemporaries, also, sadly start looking for greener pastures. The good brains and the best brains all wash out.

I am not saying that awarding some one with what they deserve is wrong but promising unicorns when the forest is actually filled with ghosts is kind of cruel.

Do let me know your views too in the comment section on “toppers” and our education system.

The StolenWealth Games

The Commonwealth Games, a quadrennial event, ongoing at The Gold Coast Down Under (Australia), saw some unusual incidents making news headlines, apart from hundreds of artistes performing at the opening ceremony and thousands of athletes taking part in it.

There was a set of people holding placards and sloganeering outside the Carrara Stadium in protest of the Games. ‘The StolenWealth Games’ they called it.

These were the Australian aboriginals, who inhabited the island continent for more than 60,000 years. Today, they have reduced in number and are unrecognized, largely as a consequence of the British colonization. Just like India and Ireland and Africa and all the other nations the British so unapologetically ravaged, Australia too was a victim.

The Australian aboriginals have echoed the unspoken of millions by derisively rephrasing the Commonwealth Games to StolenWealth Games. Wasn’t it, after all, the plundered wealth of 51 countries (& more) on which ‘the Great Britain’ thrived on for so long? Didn’t the British abuse & loot these nations beyond reparation in their quest for power? Well, yes! Then why remain a party to it?

The Commonwealth nations group is nothing but a redundant organization and a sour reminder of a dark period in our history, of how our motherland was raped of her heritage and wealth.

The grouping, ostensibly created to co-operate and promote democratic values among member countries, had no real motive but to prevent retaliation from these exe-colonies-now-independent-States against Britain.

Whatever the British did in India (or any other country for that matter) was wrong morally, ethically, politically and in every other aspect. They devastated our culture, social fabric & language and left our country in shambles. They did no good to us through the Raj and are not doing any of it through the Commonwealth either.

Why should India be a part of it anyway? We are a republic and the only head of the State we recognize is our democratically elected President, not Queen Elizabeth II, III, IV, V or any other for that matter. We are not receiving any indispensable benefits from the grouping, rather, on the contrary, the cost of travelling to England has increased manifold. Our economy is on the way to surpass that of UK’s this year, so don’t really require much of their assistance too. Britain has also lost much of her repute globally and is bound to lose more under the stewardship of Theresa May. Friendly relations can still be maintained and as far as trade is concerned, the dynamics will inevitably change on account of Brexit.

There is (and never was) anything to gain from this membership but an international reminder that we were once a British colony. I strongly feel that India should pull out the Commonwealth. India and her resources is nobody’s wealth but us Indians. We are NOT the ‘common-wealth’ of those pale-skinned islanders anymore and never will be.

And as for the Games, yes, our athletes will have one event less to perform at, but then again, it is neither the last one nor the only one.

So what do you say? Should India pull out of this organisation or not. Feel free to comment.

Instagram Id: sanjana_the_thinker

Travel

Some, oh no, many a times,

I feel like a caged animal,

Who wants to flight.

From my own burrow I wish to flee,

To the deserts or to the mountains,

Or even to the forests, for a spree!

Months, weeks, days or even few hours would suffice,

But that little time should all be mine.

Gold, silver, diamond or jade is not what this heart yearns,

But world, beauty and intellect is all for which it burns.

What use our feet, if to stay put we are to remain,

What use our eyes, if from exploring we are to refrain.

Like a free bird should all babes be upbrought,

Not like a fish in the bowl,

Where they are left to wrought.

Only a young mind that voyages can know the perils of the sea,

So when comes the buccaneer, wallop!

And make his way out of melee.

It is the youth that learns in the jungle fire where to breach,

So that then in age, the same lesson, it can preach.

To make a grey head wise & discreet,

Journey one must, to North, South, West and East.

For schools can only make us read, write and speak,

But travelling can let us know, tell and believe.

The ‘OTHERS’

Just as my daily morning ritual, yesterday too, I picked up the newspaper lying in the balcony and began cursorily scrambling through it only to read it thoroughly later on. The front page usually inundated with political news was, for a change, covered with sports news of how Steve Smith plunged Australia into its worst captaincy crises. As I flipped through I read about Donald Trump playing golf while millions ‘marched for life’ outside the White House, and also how 2017 proved to be an annus mirabilis for the Indian narcotics bureau.

The newspaper, as it is always, was filled with ‘who said what and to whom’ from one corner to the other and among all these shibboleths there was this one little bulletin that caught the attention of my eyes.

“Don’t ‘otherise’ disabled with terms like ‘divyang’, says university topper”

Although I had a lot of work to finish first yet I decided to delay it for 5 minutes and give a quick reading to this particular news article. The news was about a university topper, Rahul Bajaj, who happens to be partially visually impaired. Despite this, he won 20 awards at the Rashtrasant Tukdoji Maharaj Nagpur University. I felt immensely inspired at once but as I read on my feeling changed to that of disappointment. On asking how he thinks that the disabled should be treated he says that the government’s term i.e. divyang for the handicapped or differently abled or specially abled should NOT be used as it leads to their ‘otherisation’ & ‘alienation’. They should be treated as equals. I completely agree with the latter part of his statement but the former portion of it needs some rumination.

Of course, physically handicapped or not, every human being is equal, indubitably. But what I fail to understand is what is wrong with coining a respectable term for a set of people, who are, in some minor way, differently abled than the rest?

‘Alienation’ or ‘otherisation’ does not happen when government decides to replace viklang (handicapped) with divyang (specially abled), but when such people try to take undue advantage of their condition. I might sound callous here but it is true. It can be anybody. We all know we have Acts for prevention of exploitation of children, women, SC’s/ST’s and physically handicapped. And we also know that sometimes these legal provisions are misused by the very persons for whose welfare they are implemented so that they can coerce their way through.

To be treated as equals it is equally important to be fully aware of your condition and not be perfidious about it. Moreover, in my personal view, I feel that a person ‘otherises’ himself/herself from the majority when he/she decides to act victim on the basis of a certain disability he/she might be suffering from and NOT when you are being offered assistance by the government for the same.

This argument holds true not only for the differently abled people but also for those groups who often find themselves in the ‘others’ category like the transgenders, gays, lesbians religious minorities etc. we have often seen some of these groups out on the streets, holding placards, shouting and asking for a place in the society. These people are fighting for their rights and have no qualms if they are called for what they are. Acceptance by your own self first, of who you are and what your capabilities are, will only gain you equality in the society.

No one, be it a man, woman, third gender, specially abled, fully abled, homosexual, bisexual, SC, OBC, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian can ever be ‘otherised’ from the society until they decide to.

If we resolve not to be ‘alienated’, no political power or any other power for that matter, is strong enough to ‘otherise’ us.

23rd March: Time to Give Them Their Due

87 years ago, on this very day, three sons of our motherland were hanged to death. The common dream that their eyes kept watching until they were shut forever only came true after 16 years of their unmatched sacrifice. And today, even after 70 long years of independence they are yet to receive what is due to them- status of national heroes, akin to that of M. K. Gandhi.

Yes, there are many who hold Bhagat Singh, Shivram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar in the highest of gravitas, even higher than M. K. Gandhi, but our country on a whole have somewhere failed to do so. My intention here is not to draw comparison among our freedom fighters but only towards the fact that how the successive dynastic political regimes of our nation have deeply under-rated one set of freedom strugglers and over-rated the other, purely to gain and then to retain power at the Centre.

It is somewhat abhorring to see ‘terrorist’ prefixed to the names of these heroes. The British are long gone and this tag should go too, now & forever. They were not terrorists or revolutionary terrorists. They were nationalists. The reason they and many others like them have been sidelined for decades is because they vehemently disagreed with M. K. Gandhi’s kind of politics: ahimsa.

We are often told that India achieved her freedom through peaceful means. I don’t know how many of us are acquainted with this but by preaching so we are spuriously undermining, firstly, the sacrifices of many who happily laid down their lives for our nation, and secondly, the cost of independence- partition and its concomitant, massacre of thousands of Indians. Would India have achieved her independence much sooner and sans partition if Bhagat Singh & his likes had lived longer? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe this question holds no relevance today altogether, but what does is that the youth of our nation, which is being beleaguered by the sick mentality of the likes of Kanhaiya Lal, LeT, JeM and ISIS, must be made familiar with the supreme sacrifice of such heroes so that as and when they take up arms, it is only to protect our nation, not to kill our nation.

There are many Bhagat Singhs who remain forgotten & unsung, who died young, who were true nationalists, who were subjected to atrocities, who were fearless and who parted ways from the Congress because they knew that ‘prayer and petition’ isn’t enough to win freedom. They used other forms of methods, often termed as ‘extreme’, to fight the British because they wanted to see these foreign rulers, who had corroded India, run with their tails between their legs, out of our country. And this was probably their only folly. Had they colluded with the Congress or M. K. Gandhi, 23rd March would have been a public holiday and we would have only celebrated 50th or 60th Independence Day by now.

Ladies, Please Leap Out of Your Kitchen!

I am a health conscious person and so, I have made it a habit to commit at least an hour of the day exercising my body. No, I have not joined a gym, yet, but I do prefer light workout in the open. Everyday either in the morning or evening, at around 5-5.30, I put on my jogging shoes and get ready for it. I begin my routine with brisk walking first for about 10 to 15 minutes so that the muscles warm up. There are many, so much as myself, who are a regular face on the walking & running tacks at the park. Like there is this group of children who play & simultaneously quarrel amongst themselves for their turn on the swings. Some distance away from them, there is a pair of teenaged girls, sitting on the bench or roaming haphazardly with their heads sunk deep in their mobile screens. Then there is this thinly built lad, who’d go on running for several minutes together until he’s out of breathe. Under one of those gazebos you’d find a gang of senior and super senior citizens, who after completing a round or two would find great solace in flaunting their tales of adventurous youth. But of all the above mentioned groupings of people one usually finds in a public park, there are two special categories that specifically caught attention of my mind.

While on one of those pleasant evenings, I was briskly walking on the paved trail, I surpassed two men, probably tricenarians, and accidently eavesdropped on their conversation. They were talking about the political scenario in the country. While one of them strongly objected to our government’s recent so-called snub to the Canadian PM, the other seemed content with the hospitality offered to the premiere. As both of them were loud enough to be heard even when I was few metres apart, I could hear them switch the topic and argue over the foreign policy of the government. This did not make me think much for it is normal for people to have diverging political views. But what did make me ruminate was what I heard next. While still walking sprightly, I overtook a bunch of women, also seemingly in their 30’s or early 40’s, striding actively. I happened to overhear them.

“You know, if you use jeera instead of hing, it would taste much better”, said one of them.

“O really! I’ll try that. And what about kadi patta? How do you use it?” asked the other.

“You can use it just like dhania, for garnishing”, replied the third one.

“No, no, it can be used in the tadka as well”, retorted the first one.

Jeera, hing, kadi patta, dhania, tadka? Seriously? Is that all women folk talk about? To confirm my apprehensions, I slowed down a bit and this time intentionally bugged my ear to listen to the conversation of the two ladies walking ahead of me. One of them said,

“You know, yesterday I cooked dum aloo with that Kashimiri recipe and they were so much better!”

And, hence proved!

That day I not only came to know that kadi patta can also be used in tadka and that Kashimiri dum aloo tasted better than Punjabi dum aloo, but also that WE women are our own barriers! Our minds are in a state of self-imposed exile. Physically, we can move out of our houses, travel across miles of lengths but our thoughts? Our thoughts remain shackled to our kitchens.

I hear men talking about political & economic issues, both domestic and international. I hear them argue whether the 10 year UPA rule was better than the incumbent NDA. I hear them discuss Donald Trump’s policy on North Korea and how the new immigration rules in the United States could affect us Indians. Is it that these questions only pertain to men alone? Or is it that in case of nuclear strike only men will die? No, right.

Everything & anything that happens in, around and outside our country has some consequences for us citizens directly or indirectly, and the definition of citizens does not discriminate between men and women. Then why is it that we only have men brainstorming about which policies are good and which ones are bad. Why aren’t women zealous enough to talk politics? Why does tadka & dhania & dum aloo take precedence over GST, denuclearization and national budget?

No wonder why India is notorious worldwide for low women participation in the legislature procedures.

Talks of reservation for women in the parliament are ripe as many feminists and advocates of human rights view it as the only cure for this conspicuous imbalance. But what they fail to see are the invisible fetters that are still binding the women of this nation to their kitchens.

Be it housewives or working women, their evenings are wasted reconnoitering on what to prepare for dinner. They sure watch TV but not news channels and the debate shows on them. They cursorily read newspaper headlines but hardly ever open the editorial page. Tell me then how a reservation bill will be able to bring these women into mainstream politics when all they can think of is tadka and Gopi bahu! The bill might get 33% or even 50% seats reserved for women in the parliament, but what use when those seats will lie vacant throughout the sessions.

To some extent society, but to a larger extent woman themselves are responsible for not being able to show their presence on the Indian political frame. By setting marriage and motherhood as ultimate goals of life they shorten their vision and limit their intelligence, and the result is a life full of kadi patta garnishing. When you can’t think it, you can’t do it either.

Sucheta Kriplani (1st woman CM of India), Vijaya Laxmi Pandit (1st woman President of UNGA), Indira Gandhi (1st woman PM of India), Kiran Bedi (1st woman IPS officer) and most recently Nirmala Sitharaman (1st woman Defence Minister of India) & Avani Chaturvedi (1st woman fighter jet pilot of India) did not achieve their respective feats while standing in a kitchen. They dared to dream. They dared to move out of the confines the society has constructed for women and entered the long held male bastions, and voila! Here we are reading their sensational stories that excite our gut.

Yesterday, we might have wished each other a happy women’s day. But I believe the day we see half of our MP’s, without that crap reservation bill, as women and hear our mothers & sisters deliberate over who should the next PM be, would be the day we will be celebrating Women’s day in its truest sense.

Ladies, please leap out of your kitchens- physically and mentally!

It Happens With Boys Too

When Timmy came home one evening, he seemed visibly perturbed. His body was shaking. He opened his mouth to call for his mother, but no words could muster enough courage to come out. He felt like he has lost his sound. He tried again, and in a feeble voice he said, “Ma, it pains”.

Timmy was a 10 year old, a naughty but lovable kid, who enjoyed playing cricket. Going out in the evening to play was a daily ritual until his uncle shifted in his neighborhood. His mother was happy at the idea of having a relative close by and Timmy was overjoyed too, for his uncle bought him expensive toys to play with. That day Timmy had been invited over by his uncle on the pretext of a new cricket kit. He was told to keep it a secret from his mother so that she could later be surprised. While little Timmy was patiently waiting in the drawing room for his uncle to show himself with the promised brand new kit, he was instead grabbed from behind, lifted and taken inside the bedroom. His uncle wasted no time and quickly began undoing the boy’s clothes. Timmy resisted but his uncle was able to soothe him by saying that it was a ‘new game’, so he yielded. In the ‘new game’, Timmy was made to bend over his knees, touched variously & inappropriately and made to do things often termed as ‘oral sex’. After the ‘game’ got over, Timmy didn’t know whether he had won or lost. He felt disgusted. Or was it ridicule? He didn’t know what it was. His mind was numb. He didn’t remember dressing-up and leaving his uncle’s house. Neither did he remember his uncle’s veiled threats to keep mum on what had happened. And nor that there were blood stains on his trousers. On reaching his house all that was palpable to him was a sickening ache in his groin.

Looking at her 10-year old son, Timmy’s mother was both horrified and angry. The blood stains beguiled her into thinking that he has gotten himself into a skirmish, like most boys do, and was beaten up. In no state of explaining himself Timmy was reprimanded and ordered to immediately take a bath & change his attire.

His feeble voice went unheard.

In the bathroom, Timmy looked at his body. There were no apparent marks or open wounds, then why did it hurt so badly? He looked around, nobody was there, yet he felt two eyes staring at him. Even with full sleeves and a pair of ankle length trousers, he felt entirely naked.

Timmy was at a complete loss. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to tell his mother & father what his dear uncle had done to him; but what would he say. He didn’t know what it was called. This wasn’t taught at school, and never had his parents talked about it. Was it good? Maybe. Maybe not. But it ought to be good. Otherwise why would his uncle do it? He was a good man. Had it been bad, mother would have known it. Resting on this thought, Timmy stepped out of the bathroom. His mother awaited him with a bottle of Dettol in one hand and a ball of cotton in the other. She told him to pull up his trousers and show her his injuries. He did. But there were none. A bit shocked, she asked him about the blood stains. Again he opened his mouth to tell her what had occurred, the whole of it, but again he stopped short, vacillating, thinking of a name to put on it, but he couldn’t find one. His inarticulateness lead his mother to believe that the blood was probably of some other boy. Timmy tried to tell her, in tidbits, but in vain. How could he explain her something which his own brain could not comprehend. Because he did not know that he was violated; because his mother did not take full cognisance of his condition; and because we think that ‘this’ cannot happen with boys, it continued for three years. It stopped the year Timmy turned 13, when he gradually became aware of sex. It was then that he knew exactly what to call it- Rape. Yes, it happens with boys too.

It is difficult to fathom, hard to imagine and even harder to come to terms with. Till yesterday we were debating on the safety of our daughters, and here we today see our sons raped.

Men are raped by men and women. Small boys are raped by bigger boys in the hostels and by bigger girls in the neighborhood. Teenaged boys are raped by middle-aged women and aging men. But there is no official data available on male sexual harassment because cases such as these are reported even lesser than those of female molestation. Raison d’etre- men are protectors, not victims. This vainglory has press-ganged our men to suffer in silence. In the quest of preserving their masculinity, we do not allow them to cry or be seen as vulnerable; else the society may render them with derisive titles such as gay, feminine or womanish.

When boys, as little as Timmy, return home blanched and bleeding, our minds are bent to think the causal to be a brawl. Our dispositions are trained so, that we can only associate crimes such as rape, molestation, violence and harassment with the fairer sex. Had it been a ‘Tina’ in place of Timmy, one look at that wilted face would have substantiated the mother of the horribilis that had chanced.

Male sexual exploitation is a stark reality. And no it is not good. Men do not enjoy it! And neither it means, in anyway, that the world is finally moving towards a gender-equal society. Rather, it is an indicator of a dystopian cosmos where none is the saviour.

It is time, that we break away from these draconian unwritten laws of our society, and provide the victims of this heinous crime, irrespective of gender, the right to come out in the open, so that these beasts of humanity can be castigated. Let us not shy away from teaching our children the difference between “good touch” and “bad touch”. Otherwise, that day may not be too far away when the streets outside our houses bear a deserted look, for we as parents, being already scared to death to let our daughters out alone after dark, would then also cower from sending our sons away during the day, in fear that they too, might get raped.

#MeToo #MenToo

Son- The Panacea of Indian Misery

Emperor Akbar, the Great, is said to have performed severe penance so as to be blessed with a son. He travelled more than 350 kilometeres, on foot, to Ajmer when Prince Salim was born, to pay his respects and thank Khwaja Muin-ud-din Chisti at his dargah. Many great kings in the past have resorted to such measures in order to be blessed with an heir (read son). Since girls didn’t have the right to ascend to the throne, a male child was the first preference. Although daughters were treated with dignity, lived a luxurious life and were often taught warfare tactics, they were never seen as rulers. While it was quite natural for the kings (or feudals) to hope for a son, who would succeed him and carry forward his legacy, it is interesting to see that even the common folk were captives of this ideology. This was probably due to the prevalence of practices such as dowry. Afterall, it is easier to take than to give.

Marrying off a daughter was no less than unwinding the Gordian’s knot for the plebeians. Children were married young and thus we understand why fathers knitted their brows at the birth of a daughter because soon she would have to be wedded and that would entail vast amount of expenses.

But that is all history. This is 2018. 21st century. We do not have Kings or jagirdars anymore. Neither do we have baal-vivah in vogue anywhere around. Even dowry system is a passè. Wait a minute. Then why did the Economic Survey-2018 depicted a high son ‘meta’ preference among Indian couples? Shocked? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Can’t say about you but I am blasè; because once you know the root of anything, it doesn’t really bewilder you.

This year’s Economic Survey, presented in a pink cover, in support of women empowerment, ironically gave us a statistic worthy to be embarrassed about. We Indians have a highly skewed sex ratio to last child born (SRLC) in favour of boys. Which, simply put, means that Indian couples don’t stop producing till a desired number of boys are born. The preference for a baby boy is so ensconced in our society that we didn’t shy away from producing nearly (and probably) 21 million ‘unwanted girls’.

Hurrah! This is the 21st century India and with this all the efforts of the so-&-so NGOs & human right activists go right to the dogs. But, but, but, hold on a second, conversely we also see that the figures of female foeticide and infanticide have plummeted, and so have the number of cases of pre-natal sex determination. The enrollment of girls into schools is on a rise and women participation in the workforce remains steady. Maybe not all the efforts went to the dogs.

That’s all stats. Figures. Numbers. Lets get down to brass tracks. Why on earth, in this post-modern scientific age, when the world is taking a leap from gender-equality towards gender-neutrality, is India still glued to this pre-medieval mindset?

Don’t think too hard for the answer is comparatively simple- Marriage.

Ladkiyo ne to shaadi karke chale he jana hota hai, ladke he ma-baap k budhape ka sahara hote hai. (Daughters eventually get married and leave with their husbands, while its the son who supports parents in their old age). Now, now, stop right there, this, yes, this is the part where it all starts.

We Indians happen to be pretty far-sighted. We start preparing for our old age when we are in our prime. O no no, I did not mean ‘saving for retirement’ but ‘producing’ for it. We do not mind having daughters, yet, at least one son is all we wish for so that some 50 years from today we will have someone by our side.

Since time immemorial we have burdened our sons. We have forced them to strike an equilibrium between wife and parents. Indian parents invariably expect their sons to be an incarnation of Shravan Kumar, while a wife-loving man is asininely dubbed as joru ka ghulam (henpecked husband). Hindustani mothers cannot stand their sons patronising their wives. Normally around the world, people beget children because besides being a source of joy they give one a purpose to live for. But we Indians have an ulterior motive too. We wish, we pray, we beg, we resort to tantar-mantar and often to medication claiming a guaranteed male progeny, and if any of these todkas does work and indeed a son is born, we nurture him extravagantly, bow down to all his demands and pamper him to a fault; partially out of love and partially out of the assumption that one day he is going to return the favours. But all hell breaks loose when the son decides to move out of his parents house with his newly wed wife. A fusillade of criticism is launched at the couple. The son is accused of moral turpitude. All & sundry begin reprehending the wife for her alleged chicanery in diabolically snatching away the lamp of the house. The parents become victims instantly and son, the culprit. And why wouldn’t he. For he was begotten not to live his own life but to cater to his parents’. How dare he decide to move out of his begetters house!

Why wouldn’t a couple desire a son when our Bharatiya sanskriti mixed with Indian rules make it morally and legally an obligation for a man to take care of his parents, failing which he will be liable to 3 months imprisonment or more, as the case maybe. The setup of our society is such that it puts the onus on the man alone and not woman. Old parents are a son’s responsibility not daughter’s; and by this convention the revelation of high son ‘meta’ peference shouldn’t make us gasp or gape our eyes for we humans are selfish creatures. We look for security prior to anything we undertake and a son, by virtue of our societal conviction, is our security deposit. For us Indians- son is the panacea of all our miseries.

This issue of son preference is not akin to India alone but to other East and South Asian nations, such as China, as well. Interestingly the reason remains the same. We do not find skewed sex ratios in Western advanced countries due to the fact that their prospects are same for their kids of both genders- school, college, university, well earning job, marriage, grandchildren. But our forecasts differ big time. For daughters, we dream only till her marriage. But for sons our reverie is never-ending, not even when we are moribund. It is this difference in culture that is the root cause of high son preference and needs reformation. A son or a daughter would be insignificant once we know that in either case they will eventually leave their parents place for greener pastures. The westerners have married this reality and to them a baby boy or a baby girl makes as much a difference as two peas of the same pod. Theirs is the culture of independent upbringing, where parents prepare their sons for the world ahead of them and not merely for lighting their funeral pyre. Their sons and daughters are equally free and at the same time equally riveted to their part of responsibilty towards their parents. Hence, the question of gender preference does not arise.

Many will disagree when I say this, but somewhere our culture is at fault. Our culture promotes dependency. First, dependency of children, even after they attain adulthood, on their parents. Second, of parents on their children (specifically sons), even after they are married and have their own family to attend to. I do not mean to perpetrate that men should dump their parents, NO! But I think there should be wilful assent. No son should be forced to choose between his wife and mother; and no son should be begotten only to perform the last rites of his begetter. Indian mommies and daddies should concede that the little birdie, sooner or later, will fly off the nest.

We need to assign equal roles to both sexes. If daughters have an equal claim in the wealth of her family to that of son(s), she should also be made an equal partner, when it comes to sharing the (financial) responsibility of her aging parents, of the son(s).

If this happens, in no time this high son meta preference will be a thing of the past.

No Sita, No Draupadi

For years we have heard our elders tell us tales from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. We are taught excerpts from these epics as examples of morality. While boys are taught to walk on the path laid down by Lord Ram, girls are implicitly expected to be chaste like Sita. Our scriptures are all praise for Siya-Ram for being the epitomes of perseverance and uprightness. While Ram established new horizons of rajdharma, Sita crossed all boundaries of sacrifice & loyalty and became the symbol of an ideal wife for centuries to come.

If Sita is everything a woman is expected to be like- calm, composed, patient, respectful, tolerant, unquestioning and virtuous almost to a fault, we also have Draupadi, everything a woman is not expected to be like- ambitious, brazen, outspoken, stubborn, wrathful and revengeful. These two ladies might be chalk & cheese but they did have their fair share of hardships and spent most of their lives in misery, despite being queens! As common knowledge, Sita was abducted by Raavan, though rescued, had to take the agni pariksha to exonerate herself from charges of impurity, only to be later condemned by her own husband whose very struggles she made her own. Panchali was dragged in the maha sabha, pulled by her hair, molested publicly and then forced out of her kingdom into the woods for a 13 year exile.

Abduction of Sita.

Draupadi in maha Sabha.

We may take pride while listening to the tales of bravura of Lord Ram and the skillful Arjun or the sturdy Bheem, but the travails of these two women cannot be brushed aside. Ram became the king but it was Janaki who roamed the forests for rest of her life. Pandavas won the war but it was Panchali who lived with the reminiscents of the cheer haran forever. Ram killed Raavan but Sita had to ultimately commit suicide to prove her chastity. It was Shakuni who orchestrated the infamous game of dice and it was Yudhishthir- the just, who gambled away his wife, yet, Draupadi is held guilty for the Kurukshetra war.

Don’t these accounts sound familiar? They do indeed, not because we’ve been hearing these stories since our childhood but because very similar episodes can also be experienced around us in quotidian.

Satyug, Tretayug, Dwaparyug and Kalyug- are the four yugas or stages, according to Hindu beliefs, the world goes through. We are presently in the last of these four yugas i.e., the Kali yuga, which literally translates to ‘the age of vice’. How much of this is true cannot be ascertained, but if this theory holds true, it can be stated with certitude that the roots of modern day crimes against women were sowed in these preceding yugas.

Why are we then exasperated to read, hear or see cases of ‘virginity test’ in communities such as Kanjarbhat; and the notorious polyandrous rituals in the state of Himachal, when our own Gods and Goddesses enacted such a role-play where even after going through an agni pariksha a woman stands impugned; where a woman, bent under the social dogma, is first forced to marry 5 men and then is aspersed by the very society and subjected to remarks as lewd as vaishya; where a woman is stripped-off her modesty in the presence of her high & mighty husbands and yet none moved a muscle?

Be it Tretayug or Dwaparyug; be it one Ram or five Pandavas; be it Raavan or be it Duryodhan; women have been unsafe, men have used them as objects to avenge their hurt egos, and their saviours, whom they so devotedly followed & worshipped, have proven helpless in protecting their honour. Sita’s selflessness and Draupadi’s iron will are unprecedented, but so is their destituteness in their greatest hour of need. They allowed themsleves to be tamed. Perhaps, they depended too much on their better-halves who proved to be broken reeds. They waited way too long for justice to be delivered. It did in the end, but at a cost too high.

Our puranas being timeless, do not pertain to any single epoch. If they find resonance today so will they in future near & far alike. Every new crop will be told and re-told these stories. While it is upon the elders to cognise the younger lot with these myths (which form the pillars of our Hindu belief system), the analysis of these should be left upon the new breed entirely. Every young generation interprets religion and mythology in accordance with their zeitgeist. This interpretation should be a never-ending wringing process. Because repeating something over and over again does not make it the only truth. A fresh perspective can always be carved out.

What I have gathered is that it is not easy to be born a woman. While one cannot help his/her birth, efforts should be made to extenuate the situation . And that cannot be done by relying on others. We need to be independent. We need to be strong. We need to stop asking the government for security. Sure it is the duty of the state to provide a secure ambience to its women and it should strive for it, but rapes don’t take place only on roads & public transport; they happen at homes, workplaces, schools & colleges. A policeman cannot be at all these places 24*7. We need to be aware. We need to be mentally sharp. We need to be physically fit. We need to come out of the quagmire of self-pity and stop treating ourselves as victims all the time.

Sita belonged to divinity and so did Draupadi. They were said to be incarnations of Goddess Lakshmi and Maha Kali. One was born of earth and the other of fire. If these devis can be violated, Nirbhaya incident succinctly illustrates what could happen to mortal women like ourselves.

From Ramayana & Mahabharata there are umpteen lessons to inculcate, but for us ladies there are many ‘not’ to. To all the women of this Age of Kali I say, Don’t be a Sita! Don’t be a Draupadi! Let not the patriarchy dictate you & let not men toy with you. Don’t be a damsel in distress who awaits her Prince Charming on a white horse and in shining armour to emancipate her. Instead, be your own saviour!

Because in our unfortunate times, Raavans there are many but Krishnas too few.