The Society has changed

This incident dates back a couple of months from now. It was a not very pleasant summer evening. I was waiting at the park near my house for a friend, when I heard two women having a very raunchy discussion; happily criticizing someone very harshly. They were talking about a woman, measuring her vices very carefully, and by their tone it felt that they were very close to holding that woman responsible for the eternal damnation that humanity was about to face! I was and am well aware of the fact that eavesdropping is discourteous, still out of sheer curiosity I couldn’t hold myself back from doing so. And it proved to be quite a revelation.

This concerned woman that they were talking about was married to a man who served in the Army and was posted away from home. So, she had a very meagre nuptial life with her husband. The woman was very friendly with the younger brother of her husband, primarily because both of them were almost of the same age. Apart from that, since her husband had to remain out of town for long stretches, her brother-in-law was there to look after the family including her.

The woman and her brother-in-law always had each other’s backs. They shared a warm relationship with each other - going out together for shopping or movies – all within the knowhow of her husband, who took it very sportingly, and appreciated their maturity and trusted their bonhomie. He also knew that they would never deceive him in any way. But not everyone had the same opinion. Her parents-in-law aggressively defied this friendship and closeness between their younger son and elder daughter-in-law and never abstained from speaking their minds out in front of their elder son. The elder son would do away with all their gibberish taunts with a smile paying no serious heed to their complaints. Her parents-in-law even tried to restrain their younger son from interacting with his sister-in-law, but needless to say they failed in their ploy. In the absence of her husband, the woman was also subjected to rude comments, accused of infidelity and her characters were questioned brazenly; the woman never protested. These theatrics, which till a particular point of time were staged within the closed door of the family, were soon joined in by kins, neighbours and well-wishers of the parents-in-law. These outsiders soon added enough salt and spice to the private life of the woman and started ridiculing her in public with support from her parents-in-laws.

As they say, “no one knows where one’s destiny will take him to.” One day, the family received the news of the elder son’s sudden demise, while on a special operation against a group of terrorists. The family was suddenly sucked in immense grief and desolation, unable to come in terms with the sudden loss. But the lord above probably had some other plot ready for them. The widow of the elder son, our protagonist, soon confirmed that she was pregnant. The news helped to douse the grief of the family temporarily. The parents-in-law took it as the lord’s blessing and looked forward to welcome the child, who, they felt would be their son’s rebirth. The parents-in-law became extra cautious towards the well-being of their daughter-in-law and somewhere in all these activities, peace and happiness were gradually settling in the family.

But this happiness was to be short-lived. There are people around us, who, instead of basking in the happiness of others, would always attempt to drive a peg through the smooth wheeling of life. So this family also had such ‘well-wishers’, who in an attempt to quench their curiosity, openly asked the parents-in-law of the woman, whether they were sure that the child in her womb was actually that of their elder son or someone else’s. Our minds are like a hot tea pot. The moment you try to touch it with your bare hands, you will get burnt. When faced with such a question from an outsider, instead of confidently quashing his authority to raise such a damning question, we tend to fall prey to the hideous mindset of the world outside. So did the parents-in-law, and how could they not have? They were one of the biggest critics of their daughter-in-law’s closeness to their younger son and they were the ones to have provided the world outside a poisoned conscience. Now the same poison was returned to them and there was no turning back for them.

While a new act to this drama was unfolding, both the woman and the younger son placed a proposition in front of the family – that of marriage! The younger son volunteered to father the child shaping up in the womb of the woman. The proposition couldnot have come at a worse time but now and it convinced one and all including the woman’s parents even that the unborn child rearing in her actually belonged to the younger son of the family. The log-jam got stretched a little too far now. There were more and more of embarrasments waiting to get piled on to the woman from every corner. Some family members (including her mother-in-law) even went to the extent of blaming the woman to use black magic in ensuring her husband’s untimely death. According to them the woman and the younger brother were already having an affair and this child was the result of such heinous act. Her husband must have known the fact. And since he loved both his wife and his brother too much, he could not take any decisive action. It must have pained him a lot and distracted him in the battlefield, resulting in his death.

Both the woman and her brother-in-law tried to make others understand their point of view but to no avail. They even tried to make them understand that their family would lose its only heir but the results were futile. The woman was turned out of her in-law’s house and was also branded a whore by her parents, before showing her the door. She lives all by herself these days. She gave birth to a baby boy, who is around 8 months old and she is trying to get two ends meet while raising the boy. Her in-laws have not maintained any contact with her, although they suspect their younger son to support that woman till date, economically.

The way one of the women blabbered out the story to the other, I guessed her to be the mother-in-law of the woman – our protagonist, sharing her ‘misfortune’ to have such a daughter-in-law to some friend, relative or whoever. I could actually guess it based on her body language, the pitch of her voice and ofcourse by her age – around 55 years. And what better way to bring solace to your heart than to spew out as much venom as possible against anyone you hate the most! Her younger son, I collected from their discussion, hasn’t married yet, and to add to their dismay is intent on continuing with his celibacy.

This discussion did open up a new avenue in my mind where I started contemplating a chain of thoughts that took me back to the age of “Ramayana”. Such trauma was faced by Tara, who was the wife of Bali, the King of the “Vanaras”. After the death of her husband in the hands of Lord Rama, she was quick to realize the gravity of the situation and managed certain things to suit her interest to later become the wife of Bali’s brother Sugriva on the condition that her son Angad becomes the heir to the throne. She was very brave to take this decision of marrying her brother-in-law just for the sake of her son who was the heir to the throne and could have lost his right if she hadn’t done so. We find ourselves facing another similar situation if we go through the life of Mandodari, the wife of Ravana. Vibishana, Ravana’s brother offered to marry her in order to save her from committing self immolation after Ravana’s death at the hands of Lord Rama. And the society didn’t resist them at that time. They did marry each other.

Today’s Tara and Mandodari, in the form of our nameless woman of the above incident, also wanted to do the same but people in the “Treta Yuga” were probably far more wise, mature and understanding than those of our current era. A woman, who is still fresh in memory of the loss of her husband, soon finds herself being pitted as a whore, as a wretched, an immoral, characterless woman, just because she had maintained a cosy, friendly and warm relationship with her brother-in-law. And even if that woman had desired him, what mistake did she do? She did carry out the role of a wife and a daughter-in-law, but it was just her desire to satiate her inner urge which otherwise was left unattended by her husband, who spent months and even years outside the home at the borders or at the warfront. With no one to apply any balm on her wounds that she was inflicted for such a long time, salt was rubbed on to her wounds by blaming her for her husband’s death!

As I have said earlier that our society is like some old wine in a new bottle but unlike wine the taste doesn’t get sweeter, but sours and even gets bitter. Our perspective gets a strong ground in this incident as we find our society, mainly the way we think and our outlook to life and relationships, are still light years away from “true” progress. Who is going to answer all the questions that the woman would like to pose? Who is going to shoulder the blame of the servitude that the woman was subjected to? And the questions just continue to build up…

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Agnipariksha in 21st century

“You never get bored while travelling on a train”. This rather enlightening discovery was made by me while returning from a field trip from the outskirts of Delhi. I overheard a co-passenger who was sitting next to me narrating a story to his friend about some incident that had taken place in his locality. And I found their little gossip to be rather hilarious, but insighful. And naturally, “philosophical” questions started creeping up the walls of my mind pondering over the insanity of human beings. Can human beings be such preposterous? Maybe only human beings have the ability to be such.

There was an emerging and young social worker in the narrator’s locality. He was a very honest man, and his activities had got him quite the attention of everyone. He, with great responsibility, cleansed the whole locality from antisocial activities. A few months back he got married. And eventually the newly weds went for their honeymoon. But somehow, their life and finally their relationship, took a new turn, once they got back.

Being a social worker, this man used to stand up against various elements, obviously more powerful than him - in money and contacts. Unknowlingly, he had gained for himself a lot many enemies who wanted to avenge their losses. One such element, a local goon, got his wife kidnapped within a few days of their return from honeymoon. Her husband filed a missing report with the police and started searching for her frantically. But even in the midst of this mishap, some peers of the family started suggesting that the girl had eloped with someone else.

With the police, thankfully quite active and under immense public pressure, tightening their noose around all the local goons, it would be a few more days before the wife would have been rescued. Realising that all escape route was blocked, the wife was left behind at her doorstepgagged and in an unconscious state, with a threatening letter of dire consequences next time. The man, along with his family, were all relieved to get her back and she was gradually nursed out of her trauma. The woman, who had actually gone into a state of shock because of the entire episode which lasted for around 5 days, also responded to the therapies and was slowly returning back to normal life. But everything doesn’t end well. Within a month’s time, she was detected pregnant during one of her regular check-ups. The woman was thrilled and excited and shared it with open heart with her in-laws, only to realise that the initial euphoria amongst one and all has mellowed down to a state of shock and dismay. She could read the body language of her kins, who seemed to avoid any eye-contact with her and maintained a distance from her – all these, quite suddenly!!

The theories that the girl had eloped with someone, and returned when she had her share of fun; or that his kidnappers ravished her and then threw her away were suddenly the topic of discussion among the elders in a hushed and cold tone. And the news of her pregnancy added the required dry woods to a dying fire and reignited it further. One day, she overheard her mother-in-law speaking with someone over the telephone, acts of misadventure of this woman and how she has brought embarassment to the family name. This shell-shocked her. She soon realised how her husband was also sailing in the direction of the current as he had also started distancing himself from her upto the extent of shifting to another room to sleep at night.

She soon realised that people can’t be kept in the dark anymore. They all have the right to know what happened with her in those 5 days – that she was physically untouched and she had only copulated with her husband during their honeymoon, a few days before she was kidnapped. All her attempts were turned away by sneering remarks that pierced through her heart and made her weaker and ill.

Her husband, being a sensible man, demandedher to get a DNA test conducted on the foetus, and this girl, though having no fault on her part gave into this idea of “Agni Pariksha” of the 21st century. When the DNA report came in, it was proved that her husband was the fact-of-the-matter father of the child being reared in the woman’s womb.Suspicions and prejudices are hard to rub off, once they have formed a thick layer in one’s brains. Her in-laws were not ready to accept the results as valid and authentic. Even her husband questioned the authenticity of the test and even went to the extent of questioning whether the woman influenced the test results to suit her needs. The husband demanded a retest from a different clinic and once again the obvious was revealed. He was indeed the father of the child.

What were they thinking? In the 21st century, wherescience and technology haveattained the status of God, where death thinks twice before taking his prey away, lest the dead is brought back to life, where medical science has been creating miracles day in and day out, what drove these people, the in-laws, to question the authenticity of such a conclusive test like the DNA test, was something that I failed to decipher. Was it too hard for them to remove the layers of prejudice from their eyes and see the world as it is? See that they were becoming more inhumane than the goons? Feel that they shouldn’t make true innocence face such trials? Human beings behave in the most mysterious and unusual ways and they are incorrigible. It was all very hilarious in a very twisted way. I tried to laugh to myself a bit seeing the ignorance of these people, but couldn’t, because such stupidity was disrobing the honour of a woman. Leaving these questions to roam freely in my mind, I strained my ears to know the rest of the story.

After many such tests and retests, still her husband and his family couldn’t believe her and continued to suspect her of infidelity, and branded the child to be illegitimate, born out of sin. Their rough edged words, poisoned with the bitterness of their heart, punctured the woman everytime, pushing her to the dark alleys of her thoughts, while crippling her mentally. They even threatened to throw her out of the house. Still she patiently and with all due respect to everyone tried to make them understand that she wasn’t wrong, neither she had deceived her husband nor the DNA tests were fake, buther attempts to reason with them were of no avail. Gradually, matters worsened and they started torturing her and her situation became worse; and all her trials to prove her innocence were of no use.

Feeling dejected and really pestered at this uncivilised behaviour, she decided to leave her in-laws’ house and went back to her parents. There she gave birth to her child, filed a divorce against her husband where obviously she won, as the court didn’t question the authenticity of the DNA tests, and started her life as a single mother. She started working and bringing up her child away from the shade of these narrow-minded people who were once her family.

My journey was coming to an end. As I stepped out on the platform, I was faced with some harsh questions in my mind. What has literacy gifted these people other than eternal ignorance. Weare now facing the “Sita” of the 21st century, whose plight is not a bit different from the plight of “Sita”, the wife of Lord Rama the most enlightened being to have walked the world in the Satya Yuga. Maybe the name and process of “Agni Pariksha” has changed but the views of the people around us have remained the same. There is no sympathy for someone who has been kidnapped, no happiness in the fact that one’s wife is bearing his child, his love in her womb; only the gory fangs and claws of suspicion is present laying bare the true nature of the society. This monster is slashing and tearing apart all the humanity present in this world, showing that we are not better but maybe worse than animals. In Ramayana and in our present day society, it was the anger against their husbands that brought doom upon their wives. But the ultimate price was paid by the wives, who were disbanded and their lives were destroyed because of the grudges of men. And sadly, none is “masculine” enough to acknowledge the price paid by them.

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AcharyadevoBhava??

I was returning from my hometown to Delhi by train. It is a real long journey, and quite monotonous if you have been already done with your laptop. Fortunately, a lady was also traveling sitting opposite to me. She couldn’t have been more than twenty five years, though she seemed careworn. She was travelling with a young girl. After my lunch, I went up to the door to get a whiff of fresh air, when I suddenly saw that little girl running up and down the corridor, playfully. After sometime, she came running towards the door where I was standing and I caught her in her stride and told her with a grin that she had been wandering too long and she needed to get back to her guardian. I decided to escort her back to her seat. When I reached her seat I saw that the lady travelling with her was nowhere to be found.

Not more than five minutes had passed when that lady came running towards our seats, with a great cloud of anxiety all over her face. It was evident that she was very worried, or to put it better she was scared. I put up my most presentable face and with a genuine smile I said to her that she need not worry that much because all the passengers were very honest and civilized people. I thought that it would ease the situation and her anxiety but evidently she was not relieved. She smiled very sarcastically and thanked me in a cold voice and pulled the child back into her lap and sat down.

I was surprised at her lack of modesty, and decided to delve the matter further. I struck up a conversation with her. And in due time I asked her what was her relationship to the child. “I am her mother”, she replied in the same cold voice she had used before on me, but now it seemed that her tone was of a wounded person, and something in her tone intrigued me. I kept the conversation alive for some time discussing about trivial matters and then I asked about the kid’s father. “I am a single mother”, she retorted. I was shocked and a bit abashed by her way of replying, and immediately understood that I was trespassing on some very private matter of her. That very moment I apologised for being too inquisitive and returned to my world of boredom. I don’t know whether it was my “good-looks”, or my “charismatic” attitude, or because I had kept an eye on the little girl; but the lady started to soften up, and started pouring out her heart to me.

She was just seventeen when she was having an affair with her private tutor. She was deeply, desperately and quite madly in love with him. Within a year or so they got quite intimate with each other and started exploring new avenues of her physical self with him. Naturally, she got pregnant. When she conveyed this “happy” news to her beloved, he, instead of supporting her with the idea of marriage, denied the fact of being the father of the newcomer and turned her down. She even accused her of infidelity, and turned tail. She was angry, disgusted, depressed and forlorn; and turned to her parents for help. But they forced her for abortion. She wanted to keep the baby. But her parents were rigid on their decision of abortion as they were afraid of what others would say. In our society it is impossible to rear a baby that has no father; May be according to some it is even a sin to give birth to a premature child. So if they did not abort the baby they would be turned into social outcasts. But she was adamant and unswayed; and did not feel that she had the right to destroy a life. Marriage to someone was impossible for her as our tradition and society still dictates that to marry; a girl should be “aksata-yoni”, a virgin. It has been referred in the “Vedas”, the “Mahabharata” and almost everywhere that we hold true and pure. And sadly, this twenty first century world believes the same.

So, she went against all odds and gave birth to the baby. She moved out from her parent’s place and settled separately with her baby. She had already passed high school, so she got a job and started to support herself and her baby out of her meagre income. She had to face many hardships as society didn’t accept a prenuptial (or premarital) baby and her single mother. People criticized her, some on her face and some on her back; but she fought against everything, with only one dream driving her, to raise her baby properly. As the baby grew, people even pinched her about her father. They gave her names (out of which ‘illegitimate’ is the most presentable, others are worse) which started affecting the baby. She felt desolate and forlorn and even sometimes she blamed her mother for giving her birth. Still the lady kept her calm and made the child understand the whole situation. Things got even worse when she went for her daughter’s admission, as every school in the city demanded the name of the father of the girl which she was unable to provide.

Tired and helpless of such situation and unable to bear the constant gnawing of the society at their lives, she applied for a job in Delhi for which she was selected. She is going to Delhi to take up that job, and with renewed hope in her heart that maybe the capital would approve a mother to be the sole and efficient guardian of a child. Maybe she won’t have to face such problems in a place where no one knows her. Maybe her child won’t have to lose the opportunity of studying in a good school just because some coward denied his responsibility for their daughter, which was her birth-right.

It felt really good to know her and her fight against our “paralysed” and “decrepit” society. We have reached an era which is modern but its values are still rooted in the era of the “Mahabharata”. Though we should not forget our values, still progress over the ruinous mentality should be achieved in order to make this world a “Kingdom of Heaven”. In the “Mahabharata”, Kunti conceived a prenuptial baby with the Sun God Surya which she abandoned in a basket in the river, as prenuptial baby was a taboo in the then society. She shirked her responsibility as a mother and left her child to an unknown fate. Having a prenuptial baby is a taboo still now. Kunti, fearful that her virginity would be lost to Surya, pleaded the God to go back. But Surya however assured that even after being blessed with a son, she would still remain “aksata-yoni” (as was the custom in those days and till now for unmarried girls), and would not suffer any opprobrium.

But it really feels great that today’s “Kunti” is vocal. She can fight against the society, even her own parents and keep the child; suckle it, nourish it, and do everything to fulfil its need. She doesn’t need the child’s irresponsible and weakling father for their support. It made me think that if “Kunti” can change then why can’t the society and its entire “civilised” people change? Should we still cling on to some of the values of the era of the “Mahabharata”, which are despairing and derelict, or should we strive to broaden our sense of humanity?

After having an engaging conversation with her, I retired to take a nap. As soon as I looked out of the window I saw that the sun was setting down and preparing for the coming of the night. The day had ended. The Sun would rise again over horizon the next day, and maybe it would bring a sliver lining of hope for the lady, maybe it would take us all out of the darkness that we are engulfed in right now. But as of now, I do not know as there is darkness all around and night is coming. But I still do hope that one day will come when the purity of heart will be given more preference over the virginity of a woman.

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Women on sale

My blissful sleep was suddenly interrupted today morning by the loud, gruffy voice of our maid. She was probably arguing with my wife over any of her probable agendas – overwork, low wage or lack of holidays. I grudgingly rolled down from my bed, went to the balcony and let the clear morning refresh my whole being. It was a Sunday and I had hoped to sleep late. But my maid had other intentions. I called out to my wife for my tea, freshened up and sat on the easy-chair, relaxed, and started enjoying the morning. But a single similar incident came up from the deep abyss of my mind and flashed before my eyes as if it were yesterday.

I was very young then (maybe around ten). My Sunday slumber was rudely affected because of our maid who was crying remorsefully in front of my mother. My room was just beside the kitchen and I could hear their voices, my mother trying to console our maid, who was sobbing noisily and trying to explain something to my mom.  With much anger because of being robbed of my sleep, I sat up on the bed and tried to devise the best possible way to idle away my time until I was to “officially” wake up. Nothing came to my mind and somewhat inattentively I started to take in their conversation.

But I heard our maid use a strange, new word repetitively during her conversation, which made me seat up attentively in an attempt to evesdrop on the ongoing commotion. She kept on using the word “Prostitute” again and again, quoting what her husband told her. It seemed to me that she was actually not putting up a fight infront of my mother, but instead, was complaining about something she really felt bad about in her personal life, back home. From the bits and pieces I could collect from her conversation, what I made out was that her husband was an alcoholic and never had any knack of getting a job or doing something respectable to sustain their family. She is the only bread winner for the 4 member family and her wages supported the education of her two children and the eccentricities of her husband. Recently, her husband’s demands have been rising and he wanted more and more money from her. She has been denyin outrightly to give any more money to him and they have been having a very hot argument over the last few days. Things worsened by now  and her husband has started bringing some of his friends and acquaintances to their house when their children go to school. And the wicked, selfish man has now gone to the extent of letting his friends, ravish her in return for money. If she protested, he told that he would let out this “dirty secret” to their children. But she couldn’t let that happen. She often thought of running away from her husband with her children, but is unable because her children love their father very much and they would be devastated if separated from him. So, she has to go through this intolerable torture every day, and it has been over a year since all these had started, and is still going on. She had been turned into a “prostitute”.

I could not grasp the whole meaning of the conversation and all these heavy words were already putting me back to sleep. But I did remember the word “prostitute” because it was said with such contempt that the word got etched forever in my brain. Later, when I grew up, I did understand the meaning of that word, and could feel in my heart the contempt, and my ears rang with the pitiful sobs of our maid. Maybe for the first time in my life I felt real hatred against a fellow human being.

Prostitution obviously is just like any other profession; but only for them who are in it by choice; though I do feel that most women would never take up this profession willingly. Is it correct to force someone into something? Are women some commodity which can be traded for money, or any other gains? This brings us face to face with the Indian epic “Mahabharata” where Draupodi, the wife of the five Pandavas, was put at stake in a game of dice, and when the game was lost she was disrobed in front of all in the court of Hastinapur. Their husband watched the heinous act without any protest. I was faced with the same question which Draupadi asked the whole court, did her husbands have any right to put her at stake? Or rather, does any husband possess the right to put his wife at stake? During marriage, a husband takes the divine vow of protecting her wife and upholding her honour at any cost. Did it happen then? Is it happening now? Are we better than our forefathers? Some questions don’t have answers, because we do not possess the courage to find them.

I do not know what had happened to our maid. Was there some Krishna too who came to the aid of our maid ? Or he was present just in the “satya yug” and not in this “Kaliyug”??  She just stopped coming to our house after about a year of that Sunday. None had any news of her. “Here is your tea”. My wandering mind was brought at the bay of reality by the sweet voice of my wife. I looked at her face and wondered how can anyone desecrate such a sacred relationship? I thanked her twice for the extra liquor she had put into the tea and turned my mind towards the day’s newspaper.

My tea was finished and I was still benevolently absorbed in the newspaper when suddenly an advertisement caught my eye. The details of a massage parlour was given along with a phone number in the personal column. I couldn’t help but laugh. Maybe it was sarcastic. Or maybe the laugh was intended for our helplessness. We all know the truth behind such “massage parlours”. They are nothing but a front for “sophisticated prostitution”. But do we care? Have we ever wondered about the cruel fate faced by countless women who are lured here, or have to take up this profession due to some pang of desperation?  And the society says nothing. It does nothing but watch; in the same way the whole court of Hastinapur watched the disrobing of Draupadi, maybe with shocked but silent faces. They did nothing to stop such a sin. That day, only the great warrior Bhishma offered any kind of explanation for her ill fate to Draupadi. He said, “The course of morality is subtle and even the illustrious wise in this world fail to always understand it.”

Has that era passed? Has anything changed? How long will we wait for the subtle course of morality to take its proper course? Husbands themselves still put their wives at stake, while the society watches their disrobing silently. Even the birds chirping outside my window couldn’t make me happy anymore as they always did. I felt cold, naked. Something was gnawing inside my heart, the same bug that is gnawing at the very roots of our civilization and destroying every single seed of ethics that it ought to have.

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