The weaker sex

Twenty sixth January 2014 dawned, and sun unfolded its affectionate wings to embrace every being in the national capital of Delhi,deprived of its warmth for the past few days.

Flipping through the pages of a national daily,in the back drop of the fun and frolic of the republic day parade, my eyes ceased at a headline in the editorial..I felt as if the commemoration was ambiguous, sprinkled and immersed in plentiful instances of the fragmentation of the above mentioned tenets.

It  talked about self proclaimed justice delivering  associations , in remote villages of a state. A girl given the punishment of being married to a man ,almost twice her age, and the reason? her father was caught eveteasing the daughter of a landlord. Since the father couldn’t afford the monetary penalty, the onus fell on the daughter to bear upon her, the severity. Who were these people who promulgated this justice? Why a daughter is seeked to exhibit upon herself the punishment rendered as a remedial measure to the wrong done by her father? 

Does it justify the purpose? Will the father never be a collaborator to crimes in future when a daughter’s life is rendered redundant? Or will that embolden the father to  stimulate more such crimes? since the gravity of the compensation has to be fulfilled by the womanfolk. Justice reverberated injustice, though the aberration of words went and fell in to deaf ears and vanished in the bylanes of the eastern hinterland, among people who did not even have a remote perception of the maxim called “Justice”. This was my interpretation as a gullible reader of a national daily. The article shuddered me from inside, to apprehend the fact that such brutalities still existed in the dingy corners of our motherland, who are miles away from the pomp and show displayed on the national television-Where girls are non entities, living ,non-existent beings  and puppets in the hands of the so called stronger sex “the males”.

The creator of the universe, is a tethered, meek and timid entity, whose musings resonate the ramparts of her heart,and the mumblings rumble only enough to be heard by those who choose to be a comrade in secrecy……

This takes me back to an incident when as a senior level teacher in a higher secondary school,I came face to face with this stark reality which had only stood as a denounced contention in my thoughts.

The performance of the topper of my class had nosedived. Consequently, the parents were called. The mother was the parent who showed up though very resentfully. She seemed casual, relaxed and resigned, least interested to discuss her daughter who was the apple of every teacher’s eye  who had ever taught her,but the lady who had borne her, pretentiously was unconcerned.

She sat grinning as I discussed the result,and  abruptly handed over a logical reasoning, - a new born in their household and he was the attention seeker. Contemplating that the mother was talking about a relative’s issue I had turned to my student to reprimand her for having forsaken her studies. The girl broke down and said that the new born was her sibling.

This was her fourth child,after three daughters. Words dissolved in my tongue unequipped to manifest themselves to paraphrase. The incident unnerved me and made me unsuccessful to procure solace to her desolate look.

I was a staunch feminist since I remember and as a high school teacher I have handed it over to many a students particulary girls. Taking minutes from my classes I would give them examples of women who had defied the norms of the society to be individuals in their own right. Women who had carved a distinct niche for themselves to become ideals and here was this girl, helpless and  mother elated about this accentuated submissiveness.

And I see cars being driven,the side seat occupied by purdah clad woman, stealing looks to a get a view of the beautiful world to which they have never been synonymous with., women who have happily rendered themselves to be reigned by others,who have meekly subjudiced themselves to the prerogatives of people who were a anonymous entity to them till the recent past,women for whom the only rays of warmth……..which comes as solace is the hearth where they roll out round chapattis for their household.

Dismally I say the weaker sex in diversifiable ways…………..of a republic run by the people with unfathomable belief in their religion and culture a population of 100 crores, half of which is construed and skewed,distorted images of their real self their conscience reluctantly accommodating a stranger who impeached her dreams to let others’ flower and bloom.

The data that explains it most is the male to femal ratio,which is 940 females to a thousand………

 To be precise…………counts of…………Little fairies asphyxiated in the womb.

The republic day celebrations crawl towards an end, the national daily still in my hands…….

and I ponder A republic………..with half of its population toiling  and wriggling for a simple recognition of being treated as equals in society…………….

The National Anthem plays and……………I move on……

Sitara