What
does it take to be an urbane DURGA?
Today is Durga Mahashtami. Being a Navami born twin kid, Durga Puja holds a special place in my heart. This is why I am a little biased to the Dussehra grandeur when that's celebrated either in our Odia households or anywhere in Chennai. Pandal hopping is a must. May be that's why even the Stunning yet Angry Indian Goddess somewhere in me just cannot take any slightest form of injustice in any shape. Wait! Is it that am I overreacting? Well, you let me know if I am after complete reading.
‘Arey! You are so beautiful. Very
fair’, said one of my seniors Shankar (Names changed to maintain anonymosity) whom
I met recently. Over these years he has not changed to my utter surprise despite being a high
ranking senior official posted in my city. Then he remarked, “How come are you still
so fair? Chennai climate has not affected you I guess.” While looking at me sheepishly
and staring again and again not straight into my eyes but somewhere that left
me uncomfortable (I am sure you would have guessed where!), I tried distracting
him asking about his wife, who is also another high ranking official posted somewhere else, her
posting and little son.“So I thought you had a great time enjoying Chennai,
uploading pictures and going around beaches and moving and travelling alone, you obviously did. By the way,
long hair. Hmm! Don’t tell me you were not paid for that (I had donated my
locks for natural wigs preparation for cancer patients a year ago).” he
exclaimed. With all round of talks from career to having boyfriend(s) or if I
drink or I smoke or if I am getting married sooner lasted for an hour, we left
finally.
Honestly girls - fair, dusky, wheatish and
dark have their own share of pain. I do have my woes and a lion share of discrimination
for being fair skinned. Yes, I have. But now the point of letting everyone know about such
things is not just to grab attention to let you know that I am no more meeting
that senior again in my life despite receiving his constant messages or draw sympathy for enduring his typical
statements. No, I don’t need that but I must let everyone know about the
mindset of highly educated and extremely good ranking men in the society about
the present day educated women. Is not this judgemental, extremely outrageous, morally
demeaning and equally ridiculous? Exactly the situation was. Does not it sound
weird? No! But why? Don't our parents or we look for potential life partners in
them? I love meeting people. But meeting such people never deters me from meeting
and thanking good people too. Again talking to another senior Raj (Names changed
to maintain anonymosity) another day over messenger chat made me wonder what it
takes to be a present day city woman. He was heart-broken somewhere learning
that her pretty independent crush Sakshi (Names changed to maintain
anonymosity) who could not marry him due to different castes was getting an
ugly divorce from her miser husband due to petty dowry despite being amazingly
talented and affluent. It was devastating for both Raj and Sakshi. So was that for
me as she was too young. That was awful. No woman is married for a broken heart
and broken home. These are just two unrelated examples that I could enumerate
of gender discrimination.
Don't you meet broken angels?
Discrimination of women in cities at
each and every step of their lives has now emerged in different forms and you
will be astonished how. Disrespect, verbal abuse, emotional torture, shaming
for making different choices in life, prohibition to exercise their will and character
assassination are the emerging, unreported and less talked forms of humiliation
for the fair sex in cities. Yes! They exist. The eagerness to have a male child
biologically and even adopt has not still dawned in many educated families. Again,
it might break me if I drift my attention from cities to rural areas as the
levels of atrocities are even higher.
The structural problems based
on gender might be similar everywhere but the difference lay in performance
across communities or families, highlights Mahaprajna, a teacher of English
Access Microscholarship Programme in Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences,
Bhubaneswar. A woman in an urban slum might be economically empowered, might be
responsible for the family, but an economically empowered woman in upper caste,
may not be the decision maker of the family. Probably one could risk
generalisation and say in cities, gender based discrimination is more subtle.
It is evident in our daily parlance or perhaps through expectations set for
each gender, clarifies Ms. Nayak, who is also a PhD scholar in Centre for
Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata. Gender discrimination is carried through
the nature of accessibility to public spaces. Do some of us go to movies still
alone? Do we chat for hours sitting near a tea stall? How much of the night
belongs to us? All these activities are governed by cultural modalities than
legal privileges. In larger structure the struggle of a lower caste woman would
be in certain contexts worse than upper caste. Even upper caste women get
humiliated or oppressed within the families. So the dynamics have to be
contextualised to have a critical understanding, bewails Mahaprajna.
Listening to heart wrenching
struggles every other day and undergoing a tonnes have made me realize that it
all comes down to us. Who is that ‘Us’? It is ‘She’ and that will be my stern answer.
Now it does not matter whosoever is responsible – a boss, a husband or a
boyfriend. Charity begins at home. The root cause of such gender based
discrimination is the ill attitude and the mentality of the individuals
irrespective of the economic background, educational qualifications, foreign
exposure and cool quotient. A child develops and learns manners from home and
that is where the role of a mother to teach her child right and wrong comes
into the picture. That is how a comprehensive change can be expected. So that
way, in most of the gender discrimination cases at college, workplace and home,
if you look at, a woman is the reason of another woman’s woes indirectly. And
that is the irony - a woman against another woman. This is tricky. This is
preachy but not untrue.
SHE for SHE
In the lime mirth of Gurudev Rabindranath
Tagore, “A woman’s heart is as soft as a lily and as brave as a lion”. That is
how women are innately created. They may not tell you what they reel under when
such brutal discrimination happen. Some don’t dare to voice it out due to peer
pressure. Some can’t talk. Some just discuss. Some choose to ignore. Some tend
to suffer. At times, it becomes necessary for some to put a smile and march. But
it is ‘Us’ who can help and motivate each other to curb the burgeoning menace.
No, it is not just sacrifice, humbleness, confidence, undying spirit and
strength within that take to be a woman today. Instead it takes a woman to let another woman, her good will, an ounce of empathy
and a little prayer to co-exist in peace.
Thus it is a vicious cycle. That is where such life ruining discrimination and
major crimes in the society can be checked.
Let the Durga within us never wither and die. Durga Puja ra anek anek abhinandan!!
We are Pandal hopping. Are you?
This article has been put up as a guest contribution on
and
http://thebarefootchronicles.com/guest-posts/what-does-it-take-to-be-a-present-day-city-woman/#more-119
