A Girl's Life: Story Of An Typical Indian Girl

She is born into a world of happiness. They pamper her with gifts and with love. She is constantly told that she is the apple of their eye. She is told that she is the princess of their paradise. She grows up slowly. She is asked to go to school. She is asked to study. She does her part and does it well. She plays with her brothers and friends. Then she is slowly asked to stay away from them. When she asks why, they tell her cos its not right. When she asks why, they say cos the society says so. Out of love and respect for her family she obeys. She watches them play from her room through her window. But she is not unhappy, she creates a world inside those four walls. A room filled with imagination. A room were everyone has a happy ending. An ever ever land of solitude and peace.

She grows up to realize the differences between the sexes, she grows up to understand the realities of life. She is told, she is the giver of life. But what she doesn't understand is that despite all this why is she still inside those four walls. Why is her place in the kitchen. Despite having the same education as her brother and having scored better than him, why is he studying further not her. Why is it more important to learn to cook more than what she wants to learn. When she walks out of her house, why does she feel like a sheep for slaughter. Why doesn't she feel safe in her own country, which promises her the right to freedom and the right of expression. Why does she feel violated a 100 times a day even without anyone touching her.

She falls in love. A man she knows will keep her happy. A man she knows will do good by her. He reminds her of her family. An innocent romance of words and eye contact. But they found out about it. They tell her its wrong. They don't ask her about him. They don't want to know why she loves him. But they tell her it is wrong. Why she asked? They don't have an answer. She asks again. Why? They told her that the society says so. They say they will kill her if she doesn't leave him. Out of love, out of respect she obeys. She forgets the man of her dreams. Out of love she forgets. She is asked to stay away from strangers especially men. She is doubted despite her innocence. She is asked to go back to her room. The four walls she is so accustomed to now. Only now, it had somehow lost some of its magic. She starts doubting the capacity of life to offer happy endings. She wonders if this is how the world treats its princess's.

Then one day she is asked to serve coffee to some random man. After he leaves, they tell her, he is her groom. They tell her she is a lucky girl. She knows, that's not true. She know within that, its not right. Before she can figure out what is going on, she is inside another room. Only this one is unfamiliar and strange. The very people who warned her to stay away from strangers, locked her inside a room with one. She is scared. But she doesn't give up on her parents, she trusts them and finds love in her new life. She understands that the game of life is filled with sacrifices. She is happy when she realizes that she is pregnant. Her family is happy and so is her husband. She gives birth to a boy. She raises him like a prince. Happiness finds her again and this time she is blessed with a daughter. Her children grow up together. She pampers her son. He told her she was his queen. She loved her daughter. She becomes her daughters best friend. She inducts her into the kitchen. When her daughter tells her that she wants to study further, she tells her, that's not her place. Her son climbs the ladder of corporate life. But her daughter eloped with her boyfriend. She felt disgraced. She felt rejected. The society told her she was a bad mother. She started hating her daughter.

Years have passed now, she is alone. All who she knew, have left her behind. She was staying with her son who had barely any time. His wife, the girl she chose for him, had no time for her. She was left alone to fight her battles. She wondered, if this is the way the world treated a queen. One day she ran into her daughter. She looked older and beautiful. She had her grand daughter with her. The moment she saw her mother, she just hugged her and started crying. She told her she was sorry. She told her she could not leave him behind. She told her of the days she spent crying over her family. Her mother felt sad too. She was near the end of her life and her grudge on her daughter had faded away. They made their peace and said their good byes.

Her daughter came to see her today. She was shocked at the way her mother was being treated. She felt insulted that her own mother who had taught her the lessons of life was barely living on her son's mercy. She shouted at her sister in law and dragged her mother out of the house. She was now in her daughters house. She felt at ease with her. She felt like she had gained her best friend back. She learned that her daughter was working now. She had finished her studies, upon insistence of her husband. She asked her, who takes care of the kitchen. She told her, she earns enough to hire a house keeper cum cook. Her daughter seemed very happy with her life. That somehow made her happy. She wondered how some one she hated so much could make her so happy. She met him that evening. Her son-in-law. She was nervous. She was scared if she would be asked to leave. But he surprised her by greeting her with love and seeking her blessings. She realized that he was every bit the man, she wanted her son to be.

Days passed by and once again she started feeling like a queen. She started feeling like, part of a family. Her daughter felt the same way. She was excited to have her best friend back. They would talk till the end of the night. She fell in love with her grand daughter. She was an angel.

But then that fateful day she fell sick. She knew she was not going to make it. She asked for her grand daughter. On seeing her she started crying. Her daughter told her that everything was going to be alright, she asked her not to be sad. She silenced her saying that she was not sad. She was happy for her grand daughter. She was happy that she would be brought up by her daughter. She was happy that she would not have to live through the circumstance of her mother. She was happy that she was her grand daughter and not her daughter. She placed a hand on her grand daughter's head. But the hand fell limp as life left her body. But there was a smile on her face. Because in that ultimate moment when life was leaving her she realized that she was now going to REST IN PEACE.



Courtesy: Harikrishnan G Nair

I am Indian!!!

I am Indian.

The Indian film industry produces almost 3000 movies a year.

95% of them are love stories of some sort or the other.

The same society that consumes thousands of love stories for its weekly entertainment, has an arranged marriage rate of 80%+ in urban middle-class areas, and ~100% in rural areas. Inter-caste and inter-faith marriages are almost like a statistical error.

They are the same people who feel no cognitive dissonance when they go about denouncing dating and love-marriages as a hedonistic, narcissistic western fabrication trying to destroy Indian society. Even as they bankroll and spend thousands of rupees watching movies depicting individuals overcoming social norms (of some sort or the other) to find true love.

This disturbs me very deeply. It makes me think that as a society, we have become so utterly jaded that what we think of egocentric requited love is analogous to what a westerner thinks of magic in the Harry Potter series.

A pleasant distraction, a nice idea, but at the end of the day- an unattainable fantasy.

LOVE AND INDIAN SOCIETY: A LIVELY DEPICTION WITH NURSERY RHYMES

Love has been a four lettered word in conservative Indian households for more reasons than just the actual letter count. But that was 30 years back. Things have been changing rapidly with the onset of globalization. But India is a complex multilayer-d  society with the changes penetrating at varied extent at different strata levels in an already highly heterogeneous society. So what I would attempt is to present how a typical conformist individual from a conservative middle class family would find love. I have tried to use the medium of English nursery rhymes to portray the same to keep the narrative a bit lively.

Let us start where it all begins: when the parents feel their children have reached marriageable age.

Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said 'What a good boy am I”

At this stage, the boy and girls are rather naive and obedient. Or at least the parents expect them to be so. At this point, the process begins. The parents approach a matchmaker/relatives.

Match maker, Match Maker, where have you been?
I've been down to Chennai to visit the girls’ dad keen.
Match maker, Match Maker, what did you there?
I frightened a little girl, under her chair

Once the match maker finds a match, the parents of the boy and the girl interact.

Bah, Bah a black Sheep,
Have you any Wool?
Yes merry have I,
Three Bags full,
One for my master,
One for my Dame,
One for the little Boy
That lives down the lane

The black sheep (the girl’s dad) promises goodies for the master (the boy’s dad), the dame (the boy’s mom) and the little boy who lives down the lane. (The bridegroom) Next it is time to introduce another key actor in the process: the astrologer.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky

The astrologer consults the stars and decides if the stars want the marriage to take place or not and on what date and time. With this done, we move to the next phase: the girl and the boy begin to interact over the phone. The girl is very curious about her future husband.

Johnny Johnny
Yes papa
Alcohol?
No papa.
Smoking?
No papa
Girlfriends?
Ha ha ha

Once this phase gets over, we approach the actual day of the marriage.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again

On the day of the wedding the bridegroom would be placed on the marriage altar in front of the fire place like Humpty Dumpty. And who said one can only fall in love? One can fall in marriage as well. Once he is into it, his whole life changes and no one can put him together again. With the marriage done, the girls’ parents sadly bid farewell to their daughter.

Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep,
And can't tell where to find them;
Leave them alone, And they'll come home,
Wagging their tails behind them
The girls’ parents are left feeling like Little Bo-Peep having lost their daughter as the daughter heads for the honeymoon with her husband.

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.

With the budgetary constraints of a middle class family, the honeymoon can be a bit too adventurous at times and the newly married Jack and Jill may have to overcome quite some obstacles. And then tiding through various obstacles they manage to sail through one full year.

Mary had a little lamb,
little lamb, little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb,
whose fleece was white as snow.

The stork comes and delivers the little lamb to the family as love finally begins to blossom between the couple.

With such a long and elaborate pre love process, no wonder from here on love has only one direction to go.
Though I don't agree that marriages in India last longer than those abroad. That is simply because women abroad are financially and emotionally more independent than women in India. And they KNOW that marriage is not everything. Indian women on the other hand, believe they have no choice, and certainly no world beyond their 'pati-dev' therefore they just put up with everything.

Again, we are confusing marriage with love. Just because a couple is married need not mean they are in love. They just agree to tolerate one another ;-) in easy companionship. OR for the sake of their children!!! neither of these means they are in love :-) with each other. Anyways Indian women are changing too... But it would be an Long process to break the myths.

Is India is an Rapist Society??? A big shame for India.

Rape! Rape! Rape! Is this country going to the dogs? The thought can't not be brushed aside easily. So much of hype about rape! So much of protest against rape! So much of politics around rape! Has this country woken up to a new era of rape? 

What is the truth? When a father rapes his own daughter, an uncle his niece and a female child of five is raped by an elder, isn’t it time to ask what is wrong with our society? And why and how conditions have deteriorated in Indian society?

What else can you expect from a country that has established ceremonial and sanctified rape in the Devadasi system?

The Delhi rape may have brought the student and activist community spilling onto the streets in protest, but as long as society accepts and endorses the ‘invisible violence’ occurring everyday, crimes against women cannot be stamped out.

Our society considers street sexual harassment and domestic violence ‘normal’. When young boys whistle at a girl on the streets, or comment on her clothes or her body, society brushes it off as ‘boys being boys’. Eve teasing is considered an expression of masculinity and we teach girls to get used to everyday harassment, and ‘ignore’ the perpetrators, this is the problem that had deep social roots and had nothing to do with manhood or hormonal youth.

When India became Independent in 1947, the “middle class” averaged around 2.4 per cent in a population of around 300 million people. By 2011 this percentage has risen to an astounding 37 per cent in a population of 1.2 billion. It is this middle class that rules the country and consciously or unconsciously lays down social behaviour, in terms of dress and deportment, man-woman relations, inter-caste marriages and the like arousing envy, jealousy and hatred among the lower castes and classes, which feel frustrated. It is this frustration, one suspects that is the main cause for the kind of violence we see today in everyday life.
Unlike western developed nations which are largely mono-cultured, India is sharply divided along caste and class lines each functioning along established and well-laid out rules of social behaviour. It is when such classes co-exist with the middle classes literally cheek by jowl, as in Delhi that tension prevails which, in turn, ends in violence.
Our middle classes don’t seem to realise that they are living in a multi-cultured society functioning under different sets of values, often in contradiction to each other. It is a fact that we ignore at our peril. And yet it is a fact that the middle classes constantly forget only to be reminded of it when violence takes an ugly turn. Then all hell is let loose. Instances of rape and molestation are not confined to one class or caste. They seem to cut across all social group. But why? And how come? A woman accuses her brother-in-law of raping her. A 22-year old woman from Delhi was allegedly raped and dumped in a Faridabad jungle by the driver of a car who had offered her a lift. A report from Gurgaon noted that a 27-year old woman employee claimed that she was gang-raped by two persons, including a colleague, in a moving car.
  From what one hears, in certain sections of society, for the average middle class male, an educated, self-reliant and self-confident female is an anathema. Unlike Khap which is largely prevalent in the inner regions of north India states like Haryana, west Uttar Pardesh, parts of Rajasthan and Punjab, the aggressive middle class male is a common phenomenon throughout the country. It is for our active women’s organisations to address themselves to societal changes in India and do something constructive. Laws can only lay down rules, they can’t change mindsets; to achieve the latter should be a matter of immediate concern to our thinkers.

Let us then safely conclude that the caste forces, the religious forces, the political forces, the ruling oligarchy and the different pillars such as the media are raping India on the whole. Many are clamouring for the blood of the rapists. ‘Kill them’ ‘hang them’ is the far cry of the so-called protestors against rape. 
 The law may have allowances for hanging and punishing criminals but this will not change the situation. Our behaviour is not controlled by laws; it is the internal control or self-control that stems from each individual’s conditioning that determines his actions.