The boy squirmed a bit, looked around and then blurted out
the four word sentence every man in India may have asked before getting
married. “Are you a virgin ? “
I have to make it clear; it’s not every girl’s dream to make
rotis for a balding man by the time she is thirty. But, to tell you the truth –
this is the scenario in the middle class families in India.
She is married off as soon as she takes a turn to her mid-twenties.
She takes on the challenge of staying with whoever her parents choose for her,
by fooling herself into thinking that she would be the exception to the rule –
you are a housewife, you shall be treated as nothing more.
She is not worth if she has brains, the first thing her
parents will say when the ‘dekhne wale’ will come over – ‘B.A Pass hai, khana
banana aata hai aur ghar ke baaki kaam me bhi haat bata leti hai’. In a
nutshell for the ones who don’t know hindi – she is as good as the maid who
comes to our house, just that she has been sent to college, since that is the
pre- requisite now-a-days.
There is a value for education. Like the auspicious time when
a man is speaking in English, the woman can then understand his requirements;
she can keep track of the work and money at home. Speaking of work, women
working rights are uplifted now. Till the time she doesn’t earn more than the
husband he is fine with her working outside. Till the time she returns to the
house just in time to take care of him, she is allowed to work, till the time
she stays in the limits of her being a ‘Sabhya Nari’ whilst providing for the
children, she is allowed to work, otherwise, the best job is ‘being a mother’.
I understand that being a housewife is a huge job in itself,
however the fact that it has been such an exploited position till date, I squirm everytime someone says ‘I want my wife to be a housewife.’
The only image I get in my head when I hear those ominous words together, is a
woman sitting at home, watching television all day, losing her neurons bit by
bit. Cooking, mastering her skills in an action that goes unnoticed, until
there is no salt in the curry. Cleaning, which lasts till the kids come home.
Keeping track of the expenditure, out of the ‘pocket money’ that the husband
provides. There is no fault in being a housewife, my mother was one, her mother
was one, and her mother was one. However, the fact that the mothers were never
treated as ‘mothers’ claws at the walls of my hear t till it bleeds for repose.
The man squirms again and the next question is purged out, “
So, how many boyfriends have you had before?
Yet again I have to make it clear, not every girl has the
dream of putting together her balding knight’s corroded armour. Not every girl
has the dream of staying up in a tower for twenty years, till Shrek comes in
and breaks the door. Not every girl has the dream of locking herself up in a
chastity belt, clawing at it and begging her husband to free her from the
shackles.
The amount of worth a man gives to dating, love, experience
in bed, is the same for a woman in the 21st Century. Though I do
believe that there are women who prefer to remain single till they are married
and I respect them, I resent the fact the rest of us are judged by the number
lovers from our past. Somehow, the breaking of a hymen hurts the man more than it
does the woman. May it be from a man, an explicit toy or just the seat of a
cycle, the cynical would always picture his wife with mounds of men before he
came to her rescue and saved her from the shame she had burdened herself with.
This rambling may seem too anti-men and I will say this, not
every man thinks the way I describe them above, there are men out there who are
understanding to the fact that women are equal individuals, but the fact that
there are many who still carry around the dusty intelligence thrown down by our
ancestors makes me want to shake those brains out and save them for
Frankenstein’s next experiment.
The hoards of questions that are piled on after that are in
line with whatever topics I have been stumbling on.
