The Strength of a Woman

I was sitting on the train to Victoria Terminus. As the train started moving from Kurla station, a woman came and sat next to me. She was wearing a black purdah, but her face was not covered. I could not help but look at her. She was tall and healthy, very much like me. She had a beautiful face. Her smile was so pleasant that you would want to smile back at her. And underneath the purdah, she was wearing a colorful salwar kameez, which somehow made me feel that this girl has a colorful personality herself.

After a while, she takes out an ultramodern phone, dials a number and starts speaking. In perfect English! I was completely taken aback. She talked for about a minute or two, and then hung up silently. As her station approached, she adjusted her purdah, took out a black scarf and tied it across her face. Now the only parts of her that were visible were her eyes, her hands and her feet.

This particular incident made me think in 2 ways. The first thought might have struck you as well. Here’s a woman, young, spirited, educated and beautiful who may have all the same habits that I have. But only because of her religion, the world cannot see her smile. Only because of her religion, she is not allowed the freedom that the girl seated next to her, dressed in a colorful shirt and a pair of jeans, enjoys lavishly. But the second thought was very positive. Here’s a woman, young and spirited, who did not allow religion and the dogma attached with it, affect her life. She’s living just like other women except that it is beneath the blackness. She is the best that she could be, even under the restrictions imposed on her. That’s strength… that’s energy and that’s what all women should be able to replicate.

With this somewhere in the back of my mind, I set out to work today. On my way to office, I caught today’s newspaper headlines. A bridegroom in Delhi was arrested for raping his ex-girlfriend. The ex-girlfriend claims that she had consented to sex because he promised that he would marry her. And then a hundred other articles about the rape incidents that have happened this year (including the recent one where 2 shopkeepers raped a women in a busy Delhi market) and the legal and social aspects of rape.

There was another article about girls in a slum in Malwani; some had gone missing and some were found dead after being raped brutally. There was also an article about a court order banning women to work on night shifts. All this made me start wondering: When will the woman’s agony cease to be?

Being an Orthodox Christian, I grew up learning that Eve was made out of a rib bone of Adam. And from young times, I have been seeing women as subordinate to men. I have seen women being treated brutally by their husbands just because there wasn’t enough salt in the food. Even working women are expected to prepare food and wash clothes even if she comes in along with her husband, as tired as he is.

Over time, I started respecting the things that women do. My mother herself is a shining example of a woman who had to face both sides of the coin. She initially was the working woman that I mentioned above. She had to come back home after work and cook and look after two extremely notorious kids. That was the time when we were all together as a family in Kuwait.

As time passed by, my father moved to Dubai and my mother, my sister and I moved to Kerala, where we built our house. Since then, my mother has been proving herself. She proved it not to herself but also to the whole world. She managed an entire household herself. She brought up 2 girls, giving us the best facilities and sacrificing a lot of her own joys to ensure that we had it all. She took care of, at different times, almost 16 dogs, 45 puppies, 2 cows, a goat, some cats. She even had a broiler farm. When I was in high school, she saw a great opportunity in anthurium and orchid farming. Our backyard was soon full of beautiful flowers and she made a decent fortune out of the business. My mother got herself involved in a lot of businesses and in my dad’s absence, was a great source of support for me and my sister. My father of course used to visit once in a while and was a significant contributor in our lives. But our mom is the one who inculcated in us a sense of pride in being a woman. She is the one who made us realize that by no means is housework subordinate to any other work. She is the one who told us through her life that you don’t have to restrict yourself to housework thinking that’s your destiny. In fact, I sometimes feel that housework and rearing up children is a huger responsibility than anything else. You have to take care of so many things and bringing up children is no mean job.

What I am trying to say by all this is that women need to be proud about the achievements that we make in our fields. Mothers have brought up amazing men and women, daughters have taken care of their parents and finally wives, their husbands. If it weren’t for the women in their lives, men may have managed, but I don’t think we as mankind would have reached where we are.

Feminism and all the crap – its just like reservation in education – If equality is the target, it’s never going to happen. Feminism in a way is just like socialism. Equality is a great concept, but practically, I have my doubts. All the rules haven’t helped in liberating women, have they? Now the law itself is curbing women from being equal to men by preventing night shifts. How is this helping in equality?

Women should be proud and happy about their contribution to the society. There are a large number of activities towards women’s education and women’s societal upgradation. That’s definitely good. Let that go on. But that shouldn’t be seen as a fight against men. Women need men as much men need women in their lives. Its all a matter of self esteem. It’s a matter of satisfaction. I mean, there are certain things that women do well. Be it cooking or research, women are equal to men. But there are certain physiological and psychological differences between men and women. We were not born equal that way. Just like men are good at certain things, women are good at certain other things. It’s just that over the years, the male ego has titled women’s work as inferior. If we women realize that the work we do is equally important and that it has its place in this world, we would be a better lot. Forget the men who are always waiting to exploit us… let’s not let them win. We can win on other racecourses!