How will it change ?

 

 

With the spurt of rapes still continuing in the National Capital of India and our government being as always inactive in curbing these atrocities against Women, I wonder how are we going to change the mindset of men when we are so surrounded by traditions , culture and even government policies which don't consider Women at par with Men.

 

A friend's mom need to visit him in Singapore for couple of months and I was asked to check for the Visa formalities for her and I was surprised to find that since she is a housewife and will be travelling alone without her husband , Singapore Embassy requires her husband to present a  No Objection Certificate stating that he has no objection to her visit.

 

I simply don't understand what is the logic behind her requiring the permission of her husband. What if he does not allow her , won't she be allowed to visit her own son ? Has it been the other way around that her husband was travelling alone,had he too need to submit a NOC from his wife ?

 

I honestly did not expect a rule like that from a developed country like Singapore.

 

Another funny thing happened today while I was at an Aadhar centre getting my Aadhar enrollment done. There was a lady there, who too had came for the same and she had her face covered with her dupatta , as you normally find village women in India. When her trun came , she had to get her photo clicked and she was quite reluctant to remove her dupatta as she was accompanied by a male who was elder and as per Indian customs a lady should not show her face to her elders. It was quite amusing with people trying to convince her and they finally had to ask the elder to turn around.

 

Although it was amusing but at the same time quite saddening to see. And this has been the state of our country for ages.

I too deserve to live life I wish...

I am scared, quite scared because I too have an elder sister and maybe I will have a wife someday. I am scared because of people’s ideologue.

If I talk of a girl being asked to do things as per her in-laws wish which no matter how illogical they are, I hear people say “She is a girl, she will have to bend.” “She is the one who has to adjust.”

And I am not scared because these lines are uttered by some male chauvinist guy but rather conveyed by someone from her own gender.

I always found that more than authoritarian male it’s the female head of the family who is more hell bent on making life hell for her daughter in law. And I simply can’t understand that how at that time she forgets that when she was at her place these were the same things that she didn’t like but rather than making sure that the same is not repeated when she has the power she is more or less determined to make sure that the girl goes through the same discomfort as she went through. The customs, traditions and so called culture of which she is now the enforcer are something she herself whole heartedly didn’t like when she was first asked to follow.

I feel disgusted when people say that a girl has to be kept within limits at her in-laws place then only she will accept or respect us, our tradition. It’s just like saying that when an animal baby is born its tied with a rope to a post and it tries to get free in the beginning but slowly slowly it gets used to its limitation and thus when later you remove the rope, it never goes beyond that because in its mind it still believes that its beyond its limits.

If I talk in general then we all know customs, traditions etc are something that were created for our own comfort but now we have just become slave of them and no matter how educated we become we are still naïve enough to blindly follow them no matter how much discomfort they cause.

I am sorry but I am really really disappointed with our education system, with our culture, with our traditions. No matter how literate we become we still don’t develop the logical ideologue required to purify the society. And even if we do, we cannot muster the courage and strength to stand for them.

And when people who are brought up in a well to do family , who are sufficiently educated, have to go through all this then we cannot even imagine what illiterate and lower class female folks have to go through.

No I can’t let this happen to me or my sister or to my female friends. They are not brought up to live their life as per others wish. They are not educated to live against their wish. Yes family is very much important and a daughter-in-law deserves to live with her in laws but in a cordial and happy environment, not in one where her every wish and want is squashed, where she is asked to bend or compromise at everything. A female as human doesn’t deserve this.

And more than anyone else a woman needs a woman to support her.

Thought provoking.....

I always wonder how come a Woman be so cruel to another woman. I mean consider all the cases of Dowry, infant mortality etc, the main offender or provoking party in all these cases is a female either as Mother in law or any elder female relative. I know Men are animals but when it comes to family matters its the woman who is generally the driving force. I just couldn't understand how can she forgot that even she went through all these things and at that time she also didn't like it at all , so how can she repeat all those stuffs to someone else.

A got an answer few days back while reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns " by Khaled Hosseini . The female protagonist of the first part Mariam is an illegitimate child who lives with her mother, who having seen the cruelties of life, being a woman, always protest especially when Mariam starts dreaming about spending some happy times with her Father and even threatens to kill herself(and ultimately does) when Mariam decides to spend her birthday with her father and her siblings.

Seeing her protests, Mariam says this to herself, which I feel is true, She thinks "I think mother You are afraid, You are afraid that I will find the happiness that you never had"

I also feel in most of the cases people feel that if they were made to go through something, no matter how bad it was , there subordinates should also go through the same experience.

Will continue.......