Let not the DURGA wither!

                     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

 http://socialpukar.com/citywoman/ 

and

http://thebarefootchronicles.com/guest-posts/what-does-it-take-to-be-a-present-day-city-woman/#more-119