W-O-M-A-N.
"He was back on the train remembering how his aunt had told him something quite similar to what he has witnessed just recently, about a woman whose husband was a drug addict and he would beat her casually for money and how people asked her, 'Why don’t you just leave him?' , to which she always replied with a sad smile, 'Even though he’s a drug addict, wolves lying outside do know that there’s a 'man' in the house’".
To me that's such a tragedy to be living in a society where the norm to be considered strong is to have a man alongside you, being a woman. And that is how a male dominated society works.
Most of us have often heard this phrase or have come across this statement at some point in our lives, "Mard doodh ka dhula hi rehta hay".
While I do consider that men have been given superiority over women, but that also is under special circumstances and conditions and for specific scenarios, as women do carry equal caliber as that of men.
But to brag, just because you’re biologically a male, is funny to me. To be a male and to be a man, are two completely different things.
Intermission.
"He was visiting his aunt back in January.
Everyone was cheery and talkative.
During the chit chat, his aunt called her eldest son, hardly 10 years old, to go fetch some snacks for the guests, despite his efforts of not being so formal.
The child returned with a packet of biscuits in his hand along with a few other things. On seeing the sort of snacks he had brought, his aunt said to her son:
'The shopkeeper always hands out the worst quality edibles seeing it's a child. Go back and ask him to return these and bring better ones.'
And after completing this sentence, what she said made his heart squirm, 'Even though your father is a drug addict, he's still alive and is still our guardian. He's not dead yet, and it's too soon for people to be treating us this way', while her husband was sitting just beside her.
To what he had just heard from his aunt's mouth, the words that just came out, seemed like a hopeless plead to her husband.
These words hit me like a rock. And I felt weird just being there. I’m unable to put those feelings in words. It’s impossible for me to imagine living my life with someone I do not love or feel unattached to whereas alot of women in our society are forced into marriages and have kids with men who are their father’s age, and where in certain parts, women are treated like livestock, forced to have miscarriages and forced to have children. And this is where, I believe, the slogan 'Mera jism, meri marzi' should be used.
Growing up, I did overhear stories, where families sold their daughters for money out of poverty and men who would spoil young girls.
Sometimes, I imagine, how difficult it would be to breath under a man’s shadow who has no emotional attachment to you whatsoever, and is in a relationship with you just for the sake of physical intimacy towards you. And they move on, as soon as they find someone better. Jumping from woman to woman.
Also, I do believe that there are better human beings slash men out there, but these are just thoughts that occur to me occasionally only when I witness something that isn’t aligned with my line of thoughts and I ponder, considering myself in their shoes, and isn’t this what’s called empathy? To embrace someone’s pain as if it’s your own?
I don’t know whether it’s a curse or a blessing, that I was born into an environment, where I’ve seen women living under extreme circumstances, hoping to receive love from their children which they deserved to be treated with by their husbands.
Also, I wanted to write on this for quite some time but I don’t know why I delayed it this much even though it didn’t need to be. Anyways, I came across this drama serial named, Alif, where Sajal Aly aka Momina Sultan, starring as one of the leading actresses, strives to earn, to both pay the medical bills and get a treatment for her brother, and to make both ends meet, where on the other hand, Kubra Khan, aka Husn-e-Jahan, a dancer and a film icon, strives to create an image digestible for society, which honestly inspired me more to complete what I was writing. And hence, here we are.
Being the International Women’s Day today, and the Aurat March being a hot topic these days, I believe this would be the right time writing about this and to have a decent discussion on this topic.
Most of the women, protesting in Aurat March, are not even aware of what a women from a small household has to go through. They don’t seem to grasp the sacrifices that those women make for their parents, husbands and then their children and the cycle never stops and yet they hold placards bold enough, that even men would be ashamed to hold.
Gosh! That’s a long discussion.
But sigh.
Cases like those of child rapes, acid attacks have been kept as a second preference and things like 'dupatta and burqa' have been put forward.
Also, I’m all ears to what others have to say about this, but this is all what I could think of right now.
See you soon!
