A journey with the Indian women

(Debunking the crumpled bibliographies and the most wanted websites, Srilaja Prazad unveils the real face of today’s Indian woman, through a cross section of the peninsular landscape)

‘The day when passion is accepted as a mark of woman hood, it will mark the beginning of the end of feminity”

When I begin to talk about the women folk of present India, I cannot simply rule out what Baba warned about its impending evolutions.Indian woman has grown a lot, from its medieval harems- through the zenanas of the royal suits, to the present tinsel blinks. Burnt in the communal flames of Sati and Jauhr, she proved her chastity to the royal dominance. Being a widow at the brim of adolescence, tonsured, she made the society around, reflected on her head. Wearing purdah, she kept her beauty unseen only to display it to her master. Her education hemmed inside the tim-tims of the dirty utensils and the grayish walls of the kitchens. ‘By the road side, waiting with tired patience, hoping for a miracle in the morrow’ she dwelles upon the flogged-to-death subjects.

Thanks to Gandhi

It was after Mahatma Gandhi’s intervention, that she got the courage and strength to come out to the world around. When Gandhiji, strongly argued and fought for her equal rights, she simply obeyed

the whims and fancies of her in-laws. When Iswar Chandra Vidya Sagar inculcated that in any Hindu Scriptures, the gender division was not encoded and it was a concocted jugglery of the men folk to keep her subordinate always, she sighed out her religious fears. Ultimately Gandhiji, took out his last weapon that found the target. He said “the responsibilities of household are important for women but it should not be the only one. In fact, she should come forward to share the responsibilities of the nation.”

It was the birth of modern Indian woman.

The saga of the gems of Indian women personalities expanded from Vijayalaxmi Pandit, Sarojini Naidu,…….until Indira Gandhi whom the world adored as the epitome of intellect and talent. I won’t put a full stop here, but I definitely need a breach here.

Old wine in a new bottle

When we think of today’s women folk of India, it is somewhat paradoxical. A sight-seer journey from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, through the convoluted and narrow trenches, along the lush groves, through the sky-kissing metro cities, along the dried up rivers, in the crowded streets, inside the air-conditioned cabins of the multi national companies, inside the sweating second class compartments of the passenger trains, in the front yards of the temples and churches, along the empty foot paths at nights… we see her in different shades, but with the same stuff.

It will be scathing for the feminist folks if I brought all under the same banner. Anyway, a rummage through their life journey will reveal, the same outlook with which they live in.

The male dominationComing to the paradoxical situation in which Indian women live is something to brood over. India is always having a male-dominate

d society. The bias of male chauvinistic policy worships her as Mother Goddess or Saint Mary on one hand but denies certain privileges destined to her human self, on the other. The adored ones are destined to accept their permitted abodes on top, from where they are inhibited to come down. Meanwhile, brothels are being set up throughout the streets for the protection of the women inside the homes.

The changing scenario

House wives get the promotion as home makers while, prostitutes are entitled as sex workers. Women were portrayed as just romantic lyrical kinds, who personify the desires and dreams of men. Once a veteran Indian writer himself admitted this conscience like this: “until I read her (Simone de Bouvoir), I thought about women, just as images to dream, the only participation is as the images in poems and paintings” . But when the Indian woman began to write, liberated from the male vision, their write-ups also got marginalized, as a pastime like embroidery.

She got more kicks than half penny, when she cried out through the wolf whistles. Ever since she fought with tooth and nail, she had been receiving threats and stigmatizing unto death. When assaulted or gang-raped, she has to run from pillar to post to get the justice, but in vein. Eve teasing when becomes a hobby for the moral police, inside a crowded bus or a noisy market; she is being portrayed as flirtatious.

The venomous villages

This tendency is rampant in the once adored village scenarios, of which bards sang hymns of being the abodes of innocence. Lives bespattered by the scandal mongers will be there behind those who swam against the flow. Most of the Indian village premises are not fit for a calm life now; since they lost their green fields and the breeze left there is polluted with the concocted scandals against the native nubiles, who are confined to be clogged between the extremes of the so-called moral conservatism. That is why Kamala Das left her village to the busy metros, loved to return only to spend short vacations. Pelting stones towards the odd one to be out is a common criteria practiced there. Men seemed to have never seen women before, is a customized outlook prevalent in some rustic villages, if a nicely clad girl passed by.

The’ welding ‘lock Coming to the insides, most women are victims of nuptial tangle. After marriage, whatever a woman thought of herself and her feelings was conditioned by her husband or in-laws. Women are expected to play certain conventional roles and their own wishes and aspirations are not taken into account. Domination of the male and the consequent dwarfing of the female inhibit the expression of the essential feminine tone here. But these kinds of post marital problems are decreasing of late, thanks to the global concept conceived by some, though minimum.

Another pernicious moot point is regarding dowry. Some statistics say that in every 93 minutes a woman is being burnt by her in-laws, as an end to the dowry combats. This may be wrong, according to the latest reviews, since such headlines are not seen in the news papers, of late. But a custom of sending daughters with maximum gold and currency to the in-law’s house is an accepted one here regardless of cast or creed. This is a part of show casing one’s status co now.

Why curse the male folk?

See, why we pelt stones at the male folk now? It is the girl who pursues her family to have this much gold and this brand car specifically, when she goes to her new home. Even though the groom’s family didn’t’ ask for any, the bride and team ‘does what all they can’, which creates some sort of unhealthy defeatist attitude among the community.

While the common woman faces loads of problems thus, see the other side of this same community. Gone are the days here, girls are being modeled by their character and behavior. Now prudishness and, then the showbiz rein the youth wing. Onrush of the television channels has a remarkable part in changing the mindset of such a value-based community.

India became a celeb-obsessed society and whatever the celebes raved through the channels became the hymns of the youth. A passion for the fame engulfs the personalities and for that they shed off whatever values they have. Through the foreign channels, their culture, mannerisms, and dress codes everything flown in and we surrendered to the pomp and splendor of their feasts. Bollywood copied the teeming rhapsodies of Hollywood . Tollywood, kollywood and like folks gulped it without water.

From the tinsel world, voluptuous beauties proclaimed that they were happy to be entitled as sexy. In the cell phone screens of the adolescence, the titillate gutter press prepared chat shows. The skimpily clad women on the ramp told the news men that they wanted to emulate Mother Teresa. Heroines of the filmdom are honored as bombshells. They advised the young girls through the channels and bombastic women magazines, the inevitability of having curves in the body line.

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See, Indian women have grown a lot from the medieval harems. Culturally, economically, socially, and like every facet of life they etched their own marks. When Kalpana Chawla flew to ethereal heights, P.T.Usha, lost an Olympic medal for a whisker, Arundhaty Roy and Kiran Desai were honored with Booker prize, the world came to know the potentials of Indian women. Long before that, it was known for the unparalleled chastity and modesty of Sita, Arundhati and Savitri. Now the only change is in the names and shames; but we compromise it with fames.

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