08/03/2011:
So I celebrated my version of Woman's (or is it Women's?) Day by doing, what many men out there, would consider a real woman's JOB as they put it, cooking( something which I have'nt done in months). I spend my day toiling in the kitchen to make a decent simple dish of dal, rice, fish and beans only to open the kitchen door and have my father, semi-enthusiastically, mention out to me, that it is International Woman's Day. Why he said this, the precise reason I am still unaware of. Perhaps he'd thought that I had forgotten about it just like how I had forgotten to tell him that drinking water was over the other day. You know, as a matter of fact.
To which I responded, "So?"
Really, who came up with this concept of having a Day for every day? Some ludicruously bored soul or a highly intelligent being who never had a grasp on dates, but on events and henceforth wanted to master them all, dates???
And while doing the dishes, I was thinking about that woman who has been rejected a euthanasia after 37 years of lying in a vegetative state with nobody to care for her save a friend who'd probably got a deeper psychological insight into a lesser suspended state of the mind of the victim. If Aruna Shambaug's rapist could walk away with seven rigorous years of imprisonment for committing a crime of this order of passion, then probably we should think twice the next time we, as women, wish each another "HAPPY WOMENS DAY TO ALL MY BEAUTIFUL GALS OUT THERE".
We preach about the greatness of being a woman standing on a platform of thorns which include human trafficking, sexual exploitation, inequality in terms of unemployment and ruling-the-roost, inability to make a firm decision in the household, deprivation of nutrition and education equally. Pages can be written quoting instances as to how a womb in certain circumstances can be considered a bane. A fifteen year old being maimed for life to escape an attempt of being gang raped by a group of men "brimming with youth" portrays how far we have allayed ourselves of discrimination against the fairer sex. Or recently, closer to roots,last year when the "50% seat reservation for women rule" was implemented in the Panchayat elections it was indeed interesting to hear how some coy women candidates were eager to hand over the steering wheels to their husbands and content enough in posing themselves as poster girls essentially because 'Its worldly affairs- its a man's job' agenda was the slogan of the campaign, a public secret at that.If religious scriptures can categorise women among the ranks of lower beings, my question to God is : "Did you really tell that?"
The main reason as to why every feat a women achieves is lauded is owing to the fact that its clearly still a man's world out there. We work, we take care, we nurture. Some of them do it with humility while some of them add 'Mother'also to their professional designations. Obscenity knows no height then. This is where we degrade ourselves as women.
To quote a thoughtful one " Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition." To know that equality has only come to this far in 21st century is disheartening. We dream and have ambitions, not because we are a man or a woman but because we have a spirit. And having such Days to earmark the nobility of a woman just makes the men think " Ah there they go again!" Do we need that? Not me..
Because it is, no matter how much ever You and I try dissuading it away from our thoughts, a man's world out there, at least as long as a man ceases asking his woman counterpart " Hey do you know how to cook?" .
For the time being I am quite happy listening to Enrique's "To love a woman" every now and then to know how truly beautiful it is, also, to be a woman.
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