Change in blog address

Hi all,

Thanks to my internet journalism classes, i decided to start a new blog. Please refer to http://www.tongueonfire.com

will keep you all updated :)

Spriha

Is mentioning the "D" word a taboo?

Often we talk about marriage and its significance in our lives but it’s also important that we also discuss the intricacies of the separation as it’s a right provided to all men and women on different grounds to separate if the marriage is not considered happy. Though it is still looked upon as a social evil, the law permits a couple to separate ways on mutual grounds. But in the Indian society, a marriage is not only between two individuals but between two families and thus even a mention of the term “divorce” is seen as a taboo to a great extent.

In many areas and mostly the rural, we observe that women are somewhat ill treated but it is only a very small percentage of women who initiate for separation. Perhaps, they can never put their foot down to the injustices around. Even after the Government passes the Domestic Violence Bill(2006) which even considers verbal abuse as a sort of violence against women, have things changed? Or maybe, this section of women is just scared to voice their disgust and frustration.

I can find an answer to this in Amartya Sen’s theory of “Adaptive Preference” that explains that any individual and mainly referring to women here make decisions or choices in deprived circumstances in response to their restricted options. Thus, many women in the rural areas or even urban areas can’t find the courage to initiate a step like divorce because they are not sure what life would be on the other side. It will end up in a complete humiliation and boycott on part of the family for the woman who seeks to separate from her husband. But that's one section of the population.

However, we also need to look at the other side of the coin. Today women in India have become much more conscious and independent of their rights and duties than they had been many years back. We surely need to look holistically but we can’t ignore that section of the women population that is brimming with confidence today and no longer require a man’s name to identify them. But things don't always have to be at extreme. Marriage, as i believe is a journey full of compromises from both sides and the time it gets one sided, it starts deteriorating.

Can we call ourselves a "disciplined" lot?

Ever since i started going to school, or maybe even before that, the word "discipline" has been like a staple diet for me and for many more kids who grow up listening to verses from their parents, teachers, elders that we need to be disciplined in order to be a good human being. We are taught to make timetables and follow them, things like, early to bed and early to rise makes you healthy, wealthy & wise. Right from putting the school bag at the right place, to eating meals on time, coming back home before its dark to finishing home work and then going to bed by 9. Seems like a roller-coaster ride in itself. Is this what we call discipline?

My question is not whether the present generation has grown up to be a disciplined lot but whether the "so-called" preachers of discipline can be called "disciplinarians" in themselves? It is well said, one must practice what they preach. But do we? We don't leave any single opportunity to spread our so called "gyaan" to people around us but when it comes to our own self, we don't even consider it a passing reference and do what we feel is right.

To take a small example, more than 75% of us would never make the effort of looking out for a dustbin or a garbage can to throw the leftover of the huge amounts of eatables that we indulge in right we step out of our homes. We find it more convenient to throw it on the road or outside the window while in the car or leave it in the park and move ahead. This attitude is very synonymous with our country, who seems to be ignoring and leaving behind the problems as they were and thriving to move ahead. But can we ever move ahead like this? Won't something always hold us back?

On my visit to London this time, i realized that it is the patience that we lack amongst ourselves. From standing in the que in a shopping mart to driving in a lane to inculcating within oneself a sense of consciousness and civic sense. I felt very uncomfortable in the beginning to get adjusted to this new place as we like to be happy in our own laid back attitude. Sometimes i felt as if these people have been taught how to stand in a line since they were kids. At every occasion, where there was huge amounts of rush, they would form a line and wait patiently. Maybe that is the reason that i couldn't really find too many slums, beggars and hunger on the streets of London. i am not denying that such a thing does not exist. I am sure it does but the beauty is in concealing the problems, not ignoring them. We are culturally much more stronger than any other country. What we need today is patience and a sense of self awareness and civic sense. And when that happens, this country, which is home to so many cultures, traditions and customs will be one of the most happening places in the world.

It is true that i kept losing patience at every step, owing to my own laid back attitude but at the end of my trip i did learn that somewhere each one of us has to change our attitude within ourselves than to go about advocating a mass change programme.

Back from a Sabbatical!!!

Haven't really been finding time to sit down and update my blog for quite some time. Have been tied up with various things in life and the thought of sitting down to voice my opinion on any issue seemed like a distant dream for past few days, mainly owing to professional and personal commitments that sometimes seem to be going out of bounds.

It's been a couple of months and sometimes feels like a sabbatical from my own world of blogs. I realized the significance of having a blog spot during my recent visit to London. I met a lot of people belonging to various professional walks of life and on a close interaction with them, i realized how apart from carrying out their daily heavy professional chores, they found solace in voicing their opinions on issues close to their heart. And, thus each one of them possessed a blog spot. A "Brain Cooler", as they would call it.

Somewhere down my heart i realized how much i had been ignoring my daily food - "thinking & creativity". And maybe that is the reason, i would end up feeling a little lost at times. I guess we all need a bit of food for thought to keep us going on - maybe a kick within us to be a little more aware of what is happening around us and at least be able to form an opinion on it. Freedom of speech & expression as we call it - Dare you snatch it away!!!!!!

Being Single?

If there is one way in which a woman can feel that she is not the weaker sex is by remaining single all her life. This thought came to my mind after being questioned several times in the past few days on my "single" status and after heavy thinking, I realized how life was suddenly so beautiful for me. Beautiful not in terms of clouds of love hanging on my head, or flowers falling as I walk. But beautiful because I realized how by being single, I could rule as a woman. How I could again throw my weight around and not bother about the issues of emotions and sentiments which seldom works in today’s world. How I was so free that I didn’t have to be answerable to anyone? How i could concentrate on many more things in life which I had left pending for a long long time now. And how I could look all around and pamper myself with “eye candies” everywhere. I mean do we really need a man to create an identity for ourselves? I guess its just a misconception and i have risen much much above it now.

But the question is not why this happens? The question is “how” this happens. The “so called” inhabitants of the planet mars called “MEN” probably forget their golden concepts of reasoning and practicality when it comes to wooing a girl. In just one instance, they can hand over stuff ranging from their wallets to their hearts. I mean this is one phase where we girls can actually make a guy run on his toes and he can still manage to be as sweet as honey, which probably one would never find once he becomes your boyfriend. The usual issue would always centre around “why aren’t you like before?” “How can you change in just one year?” And the usual answers normally are “Things Change”

But do things change so much? This “short lived” phase my dear friends, is what marks as a moment of victory for women. It satisfies the feminist instinct in one self to say that “women rules”. The problem with us is, that we end up falling prey to this “wooing” too easily, and after some time, end up loosing our importance. The solution is playing “hard to get”. If we play hard to get, there are two advantages in that. One, the guy will actually realize how lucky it is for him to be with the girl he loved and he would consider it a sort of an achievement (as normally guys do). To quote an anecdote, a friend of mine while talking about his girl friend said, they are like competitive exams, you fill up 10 of them but only the one where it is tough to crack, you work hard for it. Secondly, to be a little more selfish, it gives a great relief to one’s own feminist instinct to see men drool over us, even if it is for sweet nothings.

Which husband or boyfriend gets flowers or chocolates everyday? Which husband or boyfriend keeps complimenting you for every thing you say or everything you wear or sometimes for nothing at all? I guess this is one phase where we all have to reach at some point in our lives, then why not enjoy a phase where we are considered important for what we are and who we are. A phase where, women can actually drive men crazy. And people say being being single is a bane? All you girls out there, I say enjoy till it lasts…after all this is our moment of victory!!!!

Isn’t dowry “Reverse Commodification”?

“Arrey kalmuhi kab tak mere kaleje pe bojh ban kar baithegi”. Statements like this are quite evident in Indian society whenever we talk of women as a burden. And to top it all, the concept of dowry has sparked the flames and is continuing to subordinate women in the society today. Dowry or Dahej is the payment in cash or/and kind by the bride's family to the bridegroom’s family along with the giving away of the bride. To trace back the history of dowry, it originated in the upper class families as a symbol of gifts given to the bride by her family. This later got converted as a sort of a help in marriage expenses and a sort of “stree dhan” which could be later used by the girl in the time of crisis. Although, this practice has been legally banned in India since 1961 but it continues to be in great practice. The situation today is such that the groom and his family demand dowry in the nature of hard cash, electronic items, furniture, cars, house and the list is never ending.

The Indian society can be characterized as extremely duplicitous. We are a bunch of hypocrites who say something else and mean something else. On one hand, we equate women to the three goddesses, i.e. goddess of power, wealth & intellect an on the other hand we go on to weigh these women in comparison with gold, silver and sometimes even hard cash. If a bride is not able to fulfill the dowry demands of her in-laws then it is her who has to face the brunt of humiliation in the family. In few cases, situations go to the level of “Bride Burning” and in very few cases; women actually come out of their homes courageously to fight against the evil. It is quite evident that there exists a huge amount of prejudice against women in the Indian society. It is these practices that make repress women in the society today. It doesn’t let women grow from her original position. Today, women are doing so well that in many areas they are performing better than men. Then why is dowry symbolizing women as a burden on her parents?

But my question is not what and how of dowry. I wish to bring a different issue in front of everyone today. We have been hearing the term commodification from a long time now. And every time we hear this word, what comes to mind is a skimpily clad woman modeling for a bike or a car or maybe an alcohol brand. But is commodification restricted to women? Aren’t men being commodified in a very invisible manner? Something which they don’t even realize is happening to them. A sort of a “reverse commodification’?

In the Hindu marriage, the parents of the bride give huge amounts of gifts, sometimes cash and other items as ‘dahej” to the bridegroom, which means they are paying a sum for the bride groom. To look at it from the other angle, the parents of the bride groom are happily demanding and accepting dowry and selling off their sons. Which comes to mean that they have simply “commodified” their sons? I mean just come to think of it. The groom’s family makes note of the amount of money being spent from his diapers to his drugs converting him to a mere commodity who is being sold for a price much more than the actual cost price. The only difference here is that the bride’s parents have to loose on both their daughter as well as the huge amount of money spent on dowry.

Let’s look at the lighter side of the picture. In many states in India, the dowry rates vary depending upon the level of education and occupation of the boy. So if a boy is a bureaucrat then the bride’s parents have to be well equipped to pay as high as one million rupees. So considering the fact that marriage today is a market and the grooms as per their levels of occupation are characterized according to the big brand names. For example, the bureaucrats can be characterized by Shoppers Stop, MBA’s by Westside, doctors by Globus, Engineers by Levis and so on. So the concept is that the prospective bride can go to the brand name that suits her taste and pocket and pay a certain amount of money and buy the groom forever. Wow…this indeed sounds interesting. As a feminist, it gives me immense pleasure to think that men who don’t stop commodifying women are in the end commodified by their own families and sometimes by themselves.

Which means all we need today is money? Well, to look at the brighter side of the picture, women are quite self sufficient today. In the past few years, many cases have proved that women can’t be subordinated on the issues of female infanticide, foeticide, purdah and especially dowry. But the need is still to bring awareness for those women who continue to suffer subordination, being afraid of the fact that life outside maybe worse than what they are actually going through. The need is also to teach those women a lesson that becomes a helping hand in spoiling the lives of their daughter in laws by instigating their sons.

Are we justifying Marxian concept of class struggle here? Are we the women the “have nots” and the Men the “haves”? And thus it is the exploitation of the dominant on the oppressed? Then let me warn you my dear patriarchs that Marx talks of something called “revolution”, when the exploited class rises up in revolt to overthrow the dominant class. Is it then that this brutal system of patriarchy would realize the pain and agony that they have inflicted upon the women since time immemorial? Let us just hope that this society brings about a change in itself without a sort of revolution. Let us be optimistic and work towards the achievement of a society that is marked by gender equality, where women are free to speak for themselves. It is then can we expect our country to progress. Only then can we feel secured about this country being a better place for our future generation of daughters to come. It is then can a girl’s parents happily think of getting their daughter married without having to spend huge amounts of money on dowry and the daughter in law receiving full respect from her husband and her family. My eyes are already waiting to experience such a society. Let us just hope I am fortunate enough to experience it before the doors of heaven open up to receive me in the world where there is no state, no society and thus no inequality.

Women & their "soapy:" woes...!!!

The day starts with surya namaskar, innumerable rituals while worshiping to god, sending kids to school, then husbands to offices & getting down to the much awaited bitching sessions. And through all this, they are dressed up so amazingly that one might start thinking “Are they super women?” Well..you guessed it right. They are the much talked about adarsh bahus of the “so called” fanciful, morphed and the corrupt world created by Ms. Ekta Kapoor & her clones.

In today's world, when we are trying to get over our unreasonable customs & traditions and helping women rise above them, these so called TV soaps force us to look back and start thinking about them again? In a country where widow remarriage has been propogated since time immemorial, why is it depicted in the tv soaps that a widow should not give blessings to a newly bride because it brings bad luck? Why is it shown that if a woman cannot bear a child then she is thrown out of the house and the mother forces her son to remarry for a child and in many cases for a son? Why is it shown that if a girl from a middle class family is married in a rich family(which always remains the central theme for ekta kapoor), she has to face the brunt of humiliation for a long time till the time she can succumb to the whims & fancies of her mother in law and sister in laws who would be potrayed no less than a vampire loaded with jewellery with “bitching” as their only aim in life?

Why are the TV soaps portraying women in two extremes? Either as “tulsi” who is the embodiment of patience, compassion & affection and who would not utter a word even if her children throw her out of the family every other time? Or like “kamolika” who enters the family with the main aim of breaking the family? Are they the only two roles a woman can do? Have women become so aimless today? Women are worshiped for their ability to nurture and not for playing games with their families and sometimes their own children. I dont understand why Ms. Kapoor wants us to go hundred years back when we are trying to move forward? Why does she come up with serials like “kahaani ghar ghar ki” or “Kasauti Zindagi kay” and so on which go on proving the fact that relationships dont mater in a family? Everyone in the family enjoys an extra marital affair. There are no legitimate children and women normally end up getting married in same families maybe to different brothers. Why are serials named “Betiyaan...paraya dhan” reminding everyone that daughters are burdens? That always remains the central concept in these serials.

I wish to make an appeal with my folded hands to Ms. Ekta Kapoor and all those people who come with such derogatory concepts for a tv soap. The need of the hour is to move forward and not to go on reminding the public of all the social evils that we have left behind. Why are you delineating the concept of a house wife and limiting her role to gossiping, back biting, loaded with jewellery and selfishness? Today the middle class constitutes almost half of the population and it is this middle class that forms the educational intelligentsia of society. Then why are you portraying the girls brought up in middle class families as those who are unaware of the world outside them? Why are you emphasizing on the materialistic aspect of life so much that we start to forget our academic and family aspect of life which holds much more importance?

As an individual each one of us has to make an effort to bring about at least a small change in society in the best way we can. And by being a woman, that effort can be made even more strongly. So heres an appeal to Ms. Ekta Kapoor & her “clones” that please dont stop with your tv soaps, they are an entertainment to lakhs of people. But since it is an entertainment for so many people, prove yourself to be responsible by potraying what is beneficial for the society. And not for yourself & your never ending pockets!!!!