Matter of Choice

Often I end up arguing with my male friends and also my husband about "women" issues. Things like woman get reservations, extra privileges, special seat in buses (in India) , special train compartments (in India). Each time I try to convince them that these reservations are needed for people (like women) who never enjoyed equal rights for a long time, specially in a country like India. They now need special attention and additional motivation to re-establish the male female balance, in all aspects of society, be it in education, career building, politics.

Men of the present are very angry that their female counterparts are getting so much privilege. I am angry too, why are we still getting privileges for the things that was supposed to be available normally to woman from the very beginning of time. We should have had equal opportunity as human beings to do whatever we wanted, to hunt, to fight, to study, to marry, to choose partners (in life and bed). And I have been rudely pointed out that women let go of all these basic rights and chose a life of domination and despair for thousands of years. She supposedly chose to stay at home, cook dinner, take care of the children and husbands and build a family. With fellow women she chose to build a community and hence a society.

Thus for centuries she chose to be oppressed and dominated by the male counterpart, be denied of civil rights, social rights and in many cases burnt alive as witches or as Sati (where the woman is burnt alive in Hindu custom with their husband's aging corpse).

Today it is very normal for men to vouch that women cant drive, they cant do maths, they cant think logically, they cant work in the oil rig, they cant work in the mine and multiple other things women cant do. I stress upon the fact that it was a choice made by woman. And even today when there is so much going on about equal rights, woman choose to be housewives, give up their career, be a teacher and not a scientist and even choose to wear the scarf, cover their face, adorn symbols of marriage (sindoor, mangal sutra, etc etc). Your choice for centuries to put your family above your selfish needs have given all woman a bad name today. Your so called glorious sacrifices, your strength to run the home and hearth, to bear a child , to endure labour, to give up all your aspirations to be happily married and build a happy family have adversely proved that woman are weak and they chose the easy life to be at home.

Seeing this bewildering gamut of choices women made to say at home and follow a traditional makes me wonder was it really a choice. Could it be that men being physically stronger could force some of these so called choices and that slowly shaped to become normal way of life. Just because nature built men physically stronger than woman, he became the master, just like in the animal world. Men and woman species evolved to take on the primal role of two separate reproductive organs, that eat, sleep, hunt, mate, bear children and keeps planet alive and running. But then comes the biggest problem of all. Human beings are not just primal animals, they evolved to acquire more grey matter, invent the fire, invent the wheel, build tools, calculate, read, write, fall in love, feel pleasure, discuss philosophy, discover medicine, build the atom bomb, take drugs. Men and woman alike went through these evolution of becoming humans after being "just animals". What went wrong at this stage, why did the words like domination, suppression, inferior gender, weaker sex evolve faster than equal rights, freedom of speech, freedom to work, freedom of choice. Woman bowed down, they made a choice to keep their voices low, and chose peace over happiness (as we say in bengali shukher thekey shanti bhalo)

O stupid woman....when will you become man enough to break free, make some choices that make you happy. When you will choose to your chase dreams and not give up every pleasure to build the happy family. When will you break society into pieces and declare your equality.

One was left behind

My mom is sure she cant fit into my shoes, the shape is so different she gasps. I can never wear her's. My guy friends say they can easily fit into their father's shoes, and also their grandfather's and the great grand father's. (Exceptions are there to prove the theory , of course). Hmmm...The evolution just happened too fast for the XXs. The freedom gave them wings, their mind wanted to try anything that was new, anything that was pristine and not touched by the female genes. Tons of whys filled the vaccuous unknown and answers were erratic, and even to this day I am not sure that I understand all the answers. But what was happening to the XYs when the XXs were busy changing and embarking on adventures. The environmental bubble around them was the same, but the stimuli they received were different. When the female tinytot was struggling to stand on the same pedestal offered to the guy beside her, she quickly learnt new survival skills, new tactics to defend the reasons thrown at her from people defending the pedestal....

With that preface life becomes easier to explain, its but then natural, you evolve fast when you face obstacles. But if there is not evolution, will nature start eliminating selectively? Wishing the bubble around us (thats society when spelled out) will throw some real good obstacles to the boys, men, fathers, brothers and they will flourish and evolve and survive the struggle for existence and live till the doomsday of the homosapiens (originally posted on my other blog: About this and that)

How are men managing dual roles

I stumbled upon a website today: http://www.fatherhood.org/
It took me by surprise. All these day I have mostly seen and heard of women concerns and women clubs. So its good news for guys. They have websites that offer an understanding for dual roles. One outside and one at home. The role of men at home are becoming extremely demanding. With women pursuing career and managing to balance home and worklife, its time the men prove their strength in managing their dual roles as well. They always claim to be better performers than women in all sphere of life. I would definitely be cheering for the guys who outperform the women in this duality challenge. Good Luck !!!

The gender of the fetus in India

There are certain entirely new realization that came with my pregnancy. As soon as it was the 5th month, everyone wanted to know the sex of the baby, like it was a normal thing to ask. Well, first it was strange for me. When I was in India I have never ever known the sex of any baby before they were born. Even it is considered a taboo to know the sex before birth. But when outside my motherland I hear this casual question I am tongue tied for few seconds and then I blabber " well its a ..., thats what the doc thinks... blah blah" as if I am still not sure whether to divulge the sex of the baby.

Whats going on in India. Is it some fear to know the unknown before it happens or people just love the surprise on the delivery table.

Unfortunately the reason is a very sad one and I feel ashamed as an Indian to know about it. It is our cherished tradition of female infanticide that made our government ban sex identification of a fetus. People educated or otherwise still kill a fetus which has the potential to become a wonderful girl, a caring sister, a cheerful daughter, a loving mother, a doctor, a lawyer, a geologist or an astronaut. They kill the possibility because she cannot carry the family name forward, because she needs a huge dowry to get married, because she is still the weak image of her ancestors.

A decade back when I was still in college, I chanced upon a documentary "Father, Son and the holy war". They captured on camera rituals like sati in the 21st century and how to this date people (also NRIs) performs a ritual (Puthrakameshti Yagna) for the gods to bless them with a male progeny. This is the same ritual performed by King Dasharath in our ancient epic Ramayana. In another instance, a smart engineer, educated in the premier college of India (IIT) left his wife and new born daughter for the same reason.

But don't think the government saved the women from being killed in the womb by stopping the identification of sex. They are unsafe even after they are born. India and her glorious tradition lives on. I wish I could request all my fellow Indians to stop this stupidity and all this crime against women from the day when they form as a tiny fetus to the day they die in white as a pious widow.