Thoughts for Women's Day

A few days ago, Sagarika tagged me to write down my thoughts for International Women's Day. According to her post, "Gender Across Borders is hosting a new event this year called "Blog for International Women's Day". It commemorates the United Nation's 2010 theme, "Equal rights, equal opportunity: Progress for all!"

I don't know how much my ramblings are going to tie in with the theme, but these thoughts have been swirling about in my head for a while now.

After DaddyDearest passed away, the issues that I have with certain aspects of my religion and of Indian societal norm, just came thundering to the fore, leaving me full of simmering rage and a sense of disquiet. I won't go into the specifics and the who-said-what's, but why is a married daughter's relationship with her parents so insignificant? Why are our rights and rituals so few? Why is our mourning period so short? Are we not allowed to grieve?

And what really gets my goat is that "it's all over", I have to start thinking about my "real family" and take care of them. My MaaJanoni, who has just lost her husband, who abhors being alone, has to learn to fend for herself; after all, her daughter "can't just throw everything aside and go running to her" whenever she needs her.

I really don't know how this post of mine transcends boundaries, but it definitely hits home where equality is concerned. Until the norms of patriarchy are overturned, we cannot be an equal society.

Most urban men these days think that marrying a non-virgin is a sign that they are not an MCP. Yet, these very same men expect you to put their family before yours, without returning the favour. Chauvinism lives on...

This Women's Day, my thought for equality is that all children, regardless of gender and marital status, be accorded equal relationship status with their parents. That they be given an equal opportunity to serve their parents as they wish to and not according to how society tells them to.

Gentlemen – The New Endangered Species

A friend asked me to write this. He wanted a few lines...it became an article! Go figure! Anyway...I hope you enjoy...
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They say chivalry is dead and that ‘gentlemen’, as a breed, are extinct. I beg to differ. Chivalry ain’t dead, it’s just comatose and in the ICU while ‘gentlemen’ have probably boarded their father ship and gone back to the planet from whence they came. Or maybe they’re just hiding out in the bathroom with a smuggled TV set, watching hours of mind-numbing Test matches and James Bond flicks. Well, whatever the case may be, there’s not one to be spotted for miles around!

And if truth be told, I think it’s us superwomen who have scared them off good and proper! And we didn’t even need to show them the door. To preserve their sanity and their family jewels, they clawed through the walls to high tail it out of home and hearth. Seriously. Let’s sit back and review, shall we…

After years of male oppression, suppression and domination, we have finally broken out of the formulaic a-girl-is-born-to-get-married-to-worship-her-husband-and-give-birth-to-his-many-babies cycle. We have shaken off the patriarchal dust with a violent, Shakira-like flourish of our hips and stepped out of our keeper’s (read ‘Male’) shadow and into the light. We have trampled upon their innate God complex with Mother-Durga-astride-Her-lion like intensity only to establish temples in our glory in the form of designer boutiques and other places like the neighbourhood mall.

We climb corporate ladders with the grace of a ballet dancer and the skill of a chimp, often holding our laundry in one hand, a baby in the other and a grocery list dangling from our mouths. We can be Kamasutra babes in the bedroom yet Yashoda maiyya in the nursery, all the while keeping our CEO persona in the boardroom firmly intact.

Bras burnt and Wonderbras firmly in place, today we revel in our hard-won independence and god help the poor man who tries to get in our way. Like the mascot of our female tribe, Lady Praying Mantis, we just might bite his head off. Except, in our part of the animal kingdom, it’s called ‘bobbitizing’.

So, the last few gentlemen who were left ran off scared. “I am woman, hear me roar!” By the time we finished roaring, the poor dears were left cowering and unsure of themselves and their many intrinsic deeds and acts.

Were they still supposed to hold open the door for us? Or would we push the doorknob into their beloved nether regions for thinking us helpless?

Were they expected to always pick up the tab at restaurants? Or would we break the wine bottle over their heads for being so chauvinistic?

Was sending flowers still considered an act of sweet thoughtfulness and tender romance or condescendingly silly mush-mush?

And if they did lose their hearts to one of us, were they still expected to get down on one knee with diamond-ring-in-a-box and ask us to be theirs forevermore or were they supposed to wait for us to do it over an SMS or e-mail?

Poor guys. It’s no wonder they disappeared.

Gentlemen. The royal Bengal tiger. The Puerto Rican parrot. Water. Petrol. Precious, few and far between. And all in need of saving.

My Mother's Daughter

Wanted to post this yesterday, it being Women's Day and all, but with the EO still battling his fever and the YO gearing up to succumb to it, I never got a chance. Anyway, better late than never, I hope...

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My Mother’s Daughter

I am Eve’s daughter.
Yes,
I am she.
Still punished,
castigated
raked over the coals.
For what?
A bite?
Lust?
Running around naked?

For being human?
For
being
woman?

The joke’s on you.
I revel in my body;
it’s curves,
dips
and valleys.
I feel,
I think,
I lust,
I live.
I have a brain!
No puppet am I!
I love making love,
having sex,
making babies
having them too…
The act of creation
is mine!

I am Eve’s daughter.

I am Draupadi’s girl-child.
Her blood
is on your hands.
Her shame,
smeared in your psyche.

She whored for five men,
the God of Fire
her witness.

Not enough.
Humiliated,
stripped
shamed
and exhibited
in front of the lusting world’s eyes.

And for what?
For being beautiful?
desirable?
For bedding five men?

For being a queen.
For
being
woman.
And,
because
you
could.

Yet,
it was not enough.

Today,
You murder me in my mother’s womb;
drown me in tubs of milk when I’m born.

I dwindle in number.

Who will wed you now?
Who will you rape
in your marital bed?
Don’t expect me to whore
for you again.

I have a voice.
I will laugh,
scream
and curse.

I am not my mother.

I am Eve’s daughter,
Draupadi’s girl-child
am I.