Unfairness!

As the candles flicker in India Gate,

Staggering crowd move with disbelieve and hate

Chattering sounds of what to be done, who to be blamed,

Is every time a different victim to be named?

There must be smiling faces at a distance,

Officers wearing the tainted Khaki and their assistants

Wondering if protectors are turning predators,

How happy they are being the creditors!

With such quake, there is a lot of money that they make

Being placed at easy shades,

Charging innocents going to the lake

With their concern very fake,

To them only money can shake!

Zoomed in an Audi playing loud music,

Change in their attitude is very drastic,

Nodding at the underage driving the car

Probably being paid to have fun at the evening Bar

At the red light we stopped,

With the Auto wala I started to talk,

Meeting his ends was his biggest worry,

For his daughters marriage he was saving every penny,

Came in a man with smile in his mind and stick in his hand,

Rudely asking my Auto driver to park at the stand

On showing his licence and every document

To charge him for the wrong lower was the consent

Quivering the Auto wala said,

His license to drive has been snatched,

4000 is the amount in question,

For not wearing the same color lower was the reason

I try linking the sudden awareness

The reason to make the innocents life a mess,

Linking Who is protesting? Who is gaining? And whose heart  is paining?

Perturbed by the height of unfairness!

Give her 'her' life!

Pull those curtains down

High time she sees the world

One is trying to reach the moon

The other don’t even know whats may? and whats june?

Pull those sketches down

Why is she always a symbol of despair?

She is light but she can fight

And she will fight, she’ll pass the night

Cause its her right.

Pull her out of that suffocated kitchen

She has work outside

And if its painful and itchy for men to do that

They may slide and hide.

And not take her for another ride.

Pull ‘him’ out of  his delusion

High time he has a clear vision

Years have passed 

And today she knows what is a constitution.

Pull him away

Let her just live her dreams once..

Shes sincere, shes hardworking

She’ll manage her papers along with her son’s

She will know about economy and astronomy

And yet,

She will be a sister, a friend and a mommy!

Food for thought!

As we go on to celebrate women's day, celebrate the victory, the dignity we hold up as a woman, smile for her who has reached the moon and for her who is ruling the country, Is she, she who is working in the kitchen still in any better off position?

When we talk of liberating women do we really mean all women? or are we actually respected? Well I clearly believe that our country is divided into two societies. One where we see her in a black dress with red boots holding a glass of wine and the other where we see her covering her face everytime a male walks by. And the problem that I  understand is the growing distance and the vacum between the two societies.

If she can fight for a Jan Lokpal Bill or report us from the Kargil War, she clearly has all the required potential. Then why are they still subjugated to so much discrimination? Is it the insecurity of the male ego? 

Well, I got down to write this as a recent situation is preoccupying my head for quite some time. An helper of ours, who is a married female went back home as her husband who was working in Chennai returned home. Her mother who I call Bai, is also working with us. Few days earlier I noticed tears in Bai's eyes. I tried talking to her and finally Bai broke out. Her daughter is beaten up in her in-law's house. Everyone including the husband, the mother-in-law, husbands sister got together to beat her up every evening. What took me back even further is that the neighbours all know about it and they called up Bai to inform as her health is really detoriating and she has to be admitted in the hospital. When I asked Bai on the neighbours intervention, her reply was that wife-beating is still a very prevalent act in these villages. The husband and the mother-in-law pretended in front of everyone that they had to beat her up because she was trying to run away, I sat there wide eyed,open mouthed.

I told her that under no circumstances can they beat her up, but I soon realized none of them knew this. They also do not know what to do in these kind of situations. Police gets easily bribed and Bai kept weeping regretting to give birth to a daughter and inviting trouble for herself and not being able to take care of her.

Is this the age that we are living in? Yes, this is happening at the same time when Saina Negwal is earning our nation fame and Kiran Bedi is fighting for a corruption free India. As I am almost about to graduate from the best women institution of the country among all the hard core feminist and their liberating ideas, from an institution where we seek equality in all grounds and leave no stone unturned , this situation gets me thinking.It is probably time for a few of us to go back and get the rest who could not study in these institutions into the ratrace. It is probably time to share, teach and grow awareness among all the other females who are still subjugated and cry behind the walls and this is what I call bridging the gap. It is probably time to reduce the growing distance of both the societies. Probably then a day would come when these women will not cry for being a woman and cherish and be proud of being one. A friend of mine updated her facebook status saying 'The best bit about being a woman is wielding the power to create and nurture while enjoying the thought of being a beautiful creation herself', Probably a time will come when all these women will feel this way and that is when we will probably enjoy celebrating womens day..:)

A shivering voice

Loafing around most of my time at home, constantly blabbering non sense all the time, I strike a great chord with the girl at my place, I call her my friend and one really close to me as she sees me in all my moods; sad, happy, angry or crazy.

Staying  up late hours at night in the pretext of studying I mostly land up completing stages in Angry Birds or fighting with Gravity Guy, and on one such day when I completed Gravity Guy, I felt myself gravity less and let out a sudden shriek of joy. Without realizing it was 2 am in the morning I disturbed her in her sleep.

She jumped up from a bad dream, not being able to go back to sleep again, we both started talking. Night time is anyway a time when emotions are the weakest, what I did not know was I was not the only one who adhered to such a theory. The girl who smiled with me in the broad day light also felt the same and she slowly started speaking,uncovering her life.

She started asking me if I knew what was love or how would I choose someone I would marry? Not know the exact emotions that I was going through at that point and after a quick smile to myself I gave her an unconvincing NO, the tone of which she probably did not realize. Finding the second question a little difficult to explain I cut it short, saying ma deta would probably be the right person to decide for me.
But then she gave the conversation a different turn. In a shivering voice she started uncovering her life. She blamed it all on luck, not being totally convinced I asked her to explain.
She also wanted her parents to decide her groom for her. But at a tender age of 16 when her mother left her at her sister's place, she was raped by a 35 year old man. She screamed and shouted, gathering the entire community around her but not having a platform to voice her opinion or rather not knowing where to go, the community only thought about the image of the man and without her consent and without even letting her mother know, they got her married. She got married to a 35 year old man who was a rapist.
Not being able to hold myself back I asked her, what made her sit through the marriage?  The reply to which was, she thought who would marry a girl who was not a virgin. The sharp contrast of societies got me thinking.
 Her life after marriage was also not  peaceful, she was often beaten up by her drunk husband and thrown strong remarks at by her mother-in-law. Where I always had an image (which I mostly developed from bollywood flicks) of pregnancy being that sweet,pampered phase, she was beaten up and not given food to eat. On delivering her baby, she was sent back home without her baby in her lactating period. She was never again welcomed back to her in-laws place. She gave them what they required, a son.
Such stories, I thought only existed in sociology case studies. But the stark reality hit my face hard. I did not know that  in the middle of Guwahati city, girls get forced to marry a rapist and such actions are directed and supported by the community. She is probably just one example of such a case and there must be many such voices unheard. In one of the largest democracy, they still wake up to scary dreams and only speak their heart out during the night.