There is a little creature in most homes who winds herself around your heart, with a winsome smile and makes your knees go wobbly with the power of her charm. She gambols around like a puppy, eyes filled with mischief, and deep secrets yet to be explored. Her hair flies about in wild disarray, her lanky limbs move with coltish grace. She is a piece of your heart; when around, she tries your patience to the maximum, but the moment she goes out anywhere, you miss her desperately. She is as elusive as the pot at the end of the rainbow, and infinitely more precious. She is the girl child.
However, the girl child is still looked upon as a burden, a curse, a commodity with a limited guarantee, even in this enlightened age. The delivery date is awaited with great trepidation. The parents-in-law hover over the hapless girl, vultures waiting to swoop in case she commits the grievous sin of delivering a daughter. The husband is all set to prove his manhood, and god save his wife if she proves him wrong. The fault is all hers, despite the various messages flashed on television. The ‘Y’ chromosome turns into the ‘WHY’ chromosome, since matrimony is often a matter-of-money, isn’t it?
Does anyone pause to think of the young woman who has gone through the agony of labour to deliver a bonnie wee lassie? The birth pangs are no less, and if anything, they are compounded with the realisation that her troubles are only starting! Thoughts of dowry are already in place. Luckily the ‘laddoos’ have not been ordered.
Newspapers scream of mothers strangling their babies, drowning them, poisoning them, starving them... in luckier cases, girl babies have been left in baskets on the steps of orphanages.
The discrimination begins early. “Meena, fetch a glass of milk for your brother. Look how hard he is studying,” orders her mother. Meena obeys, with a fire smouldering in her heart. How does her brother wear good clothes, while she herself walks around in cast-offs? Why does he get an education while she stays at home doing the housework? The major difference between homework and housework comes into play here. After a whole day of back-breaking work at home, why is she expected to take a glass of milk to her brother, who has done nothing more strenuous than studying and playing? But of course, he is the son of the house, the apple of his parents’ eye, the one who is going to raise them above their poverty one nebulous day in the future. Hope lies eternal....
Meena, in their eyes, will only graduate from unmarried drudge to married drudge and live her life in abject slavery.
Isn’t it time for young men to brush away the cobwebs that have formed silver strands across the minds of their parents, and for parents to think of their own daughters when marrying off their precious sons? Retribution has an uncanny way of descending on guilty heads. Cast out the belief that once married, a girl ceases to be part of her own family.
Imagine the plight of this delicate creature who has bloomed from a playful teenager into a beautiful woman. Let us reverse the trend and care truly for our girl child. Get a man to bear a baby, and doubtless he will pray to the deliverer to deliver him from future deliveries.
The New Indian Express
June 28th, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Shoppers’ Paradise? God forbid!
I had heard of a couple of shoppers’ paradises in Purasawalkam. My sisters and I needed to buy some steel plates and so in we trotted into one of the biggest stores which boasts of branches all over Chennai. The crowds were daunting, which only proved that the sales were skyrocketing. What put us off totally was the attitude of the salespeople within, who had most certainly made a habit of getting out of the wrong side of their beds! They wallowed in their misery, not a smile or polite remark cracking their grumpy exteriors. When we asked for the plate section, we were pointed towards an even grumpier soul. Miles and miles of plates littered the area, but not the kind we were looking for, mom being rather particular about her choices.
Meanwhile I had bought something small, and I made my way out to call up Mom to ask if we could pick up some other plates. Cell phones have a nasty habit of switching off at inopportune moments, much like the staff within the store, and even as I made my call and moved back in, two huge bulldog-like men growled at me, asking me to deposit my bag outside. I protested that I had only gone to make a call, but the growls increased in intensity, and they only piped down when I asked for the manager in my sternest voice possible.
Meanwhile the plates had been located but the snails disguised as salesgirls took their own sweet time in making up the bill, sending us all over the place to collect our parcel. And finally at the collection counter, the frowning beauty there sent our packet flying across the counter, even as our plates landed with a giant crash inches away from us. That was when I took a grave vow, like Bhishmacharya... never again would I set foot on this store or any of its branches, where, despite being named after a gem, the people within were no gems... just a whole lot of boors who should never have been in sales ever!
The day had not ended yet. Off we went to another huge store, which claimed to have everything under the sun, except good tempers! Once again we waded our way through to find an onion pink printed polycot sari, again courtesy Mom who had loved it on someone else! As we made our winding way across bales of cloth and baleful glares [since all we wanted was one measly sari!], my sister decided to buy a blouse piece. Half an hour later, she regretted ever having walked into the shop, for one blouse piece warranted no attention whatsoever. The salesgirl was rude since the sale was just a drop in the ocean! Another vow was taken, this time by all three of us! Never again!
By this time we were hungry enough to eat a horse apiece, and we needed to find a good vegetarian joint. But the best one was off limits, because we had just got in foul moods, out of the store with the same name! God forbid!
Meanwhile I had bought something small, and I made my way out to call up Mom to ask if we could pick up some other plates. Cell phones have a nasty habit of switching off at inopportune moments, much like the staff within the store, and even as I made my call and moved back in, two huge bulldog-like men growled at me, asking me to deposit my bag outside. I protested that I had only gone to make a call, but the growls increased in intensity, and they only piped down when I asked for the manager in my sternest voice possible.
Meanwhile the plates had been located but the snails disguised as salesgirls took their own sweet time in making up the bill, sending us all over the place to collect our parcel. And finally at the collection counter, the frowning beauty there sent our packet flying across the counter, even as our plates landed with a giant crash inches away from us. That was when I took a grave vow, like Bhishmacharya... never again would I set foot on this store or any of its branches, where, despite being named after a gem, the people within were no gems... just a whole lot of boors who should never have been in sales ever!
The day had not ended yet. Off we went to another huge store, which claimed to have everything under the sun, except good tempers! Once again we waded our way through to find an onion pink printed polycot sari, again courtesy Mom who had loved it on someone else! As we made our winding way across bales of cloth and baleful glares [since all we wanted was one measly sari!], my sister decided to buy a blouse piece. Half an hour later, she regretted ever having walked into the shop, for one blouse piece warranted no attention whatsoever. The salesgirl was rude since the sale was just a drop in the ocean! Another vow was taken, this time by all three of us! Never again!
By this time we were hungry enough to eat a horse apiece, and we needed to find a good vegetarian joint. But the best one was off limits, because we had just got in foul moods, out of the store with the same name! God forbid!
Shoppers’ Paradise? God forbid!
I had heard of a couple of shoppers’ paradises in Purasawalkam. My sisters and I needed to buy some steel plates and so in we trotted into one of the biggest stores which boasts of branches all over Chennai. The crowds were daunting, which only proved that the sales were skyrocketing. What put us off totally was the attitude of the salespeople within, who had most certainly made a habit of getting out of the wrong side of their beds! They wallowed in their misery, not a smile or polite remark cracking their grumpy exteriors. When we asked for the plate section, we were pointed towards an even grumpier soul. Miles and miles of plates littered the area, but not the kind we were looking for, mom being rather particular about her choices.
Meanwhile I had bought something small, and I made my way out to call up Mom to ask if we could pick up some other plates. Cell phones have a nasty habit of switching off at inopportune moments, much like the staff within the store, and even as I made my call and moved back in, two huge bulldog-like men growled at me, asking me to deposit my bag outside. I protested that I had only gone to make a call, but the growls increased in intensity, and they only piped down when I asked for the manager in my sternest voice possible.
Meanwhile the plates had been located but the snails disguised as salesgirls took their own sweet time in making up the bill, sending us all over the place to collect our parcel. And finally at the collection counter, the frowning beauty there sent our packet flying across the counter, even as our plates landed with a giant crash inches away from us. That was when I took a grave vow, like Bhishmacharya... never again would I set foot on this store or any of its branches, where, despite being named after a gem, the people within were no gems... just a whole lot of boors who should never have been in sales ever!
The day had not ended yet. Off we went to another huge store, which claimed to have everything under the sun, except good tempers! Once again we waded our way through to find an onion pink printed polycot sari, again courtesy Mom who had loved it on someone else! As we made our winding way across bales of cloth and baleful glares [since all we wanted was one measly sari!], my sister decided to buy a blouse piece. Half an hour later, she regretted ever having walked into the shop, for one blouse piece warranted no attention whatsoever. The salesgirl was rude since the sale was just a drop in the ocean! Another vow was taken, this time by all three of us! Never again!
By this time we were hungry enough to eat a horse apiece, and we needed to find a good vegetarian joint. But the best one was off limits, because we had just got in foul moods, out of the store with the same name! God forbid!
Meanwhile I had bought something small, and I made my way out to call up Mom to ask if we could pick up some other plates. Cell phones have a nasty habit of switching off at inopportune moments, much like the staff within the store, and even as I made my call and moved back in, two huge bulldog-like men growled at me, asking me to deposit my bag outside. I protested that I had only gone to make a call, but the growls increased in intensity, and they only piped down when I asked for the manager in my sternest voice possible.
Meanwhile the plates had been located but the snails disguised as salesgirls took their own sweet time in making up the bill, sending us all over the place to collect our parcel. And finally at the collection counter, the frowning beauty there sent our packet flying across the counter, even as our plates landed with a giant crash inches away from us. That was when I took a grave vow, like Bhishmacharya... never again would I set foot on this store or any of its branches, where, despite being named after a gem, the people within were no gems... just a whole lot of boors who should never have been in sales ever!
The day had not ended yet. Off we went to another huge store, which claimed to have everything under the sun, except good tempers! Once again we waded our way through to find an onion pink printed polycot sari, again courtesy Mom who had loved it on someone else! As we made our winding way across bales of cloth and baleful glares [since all we wanted was one measly sari!], my sister decided to buy a blouse piece. Half an hour later, she regretted ever having walked into the shop, for one blouse piece warranted no attention whatsoever. The salesgirl was rude since the sale was just a drop in the ocean! Another vow was taken, this time by all three of us! Never again!
By this time we were hungry enough to eat a horse apiece, and we needed to find a good vegetarian joint. But the best one was off limits, because we had just got in foul moods, out of the store with the same name! God forbid!
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