At times in a bus while on occasions
in the train;
At times in a school while on
occasions in a college;
At times in the work place while on
occasions at home;
I am bruised and battered;
Hurt and shattered;
And you give me a day;
A single day as Woman’s Day!
Talking
about woman’s rights in India is akin to shouting on top of our voices from a
roof top in a dead ; secluded hamlet. Why the facade of dedicating a single day
to us women when it is essentially sneered at? We certainly don’t need charity
from this bigoted society. Woman’s Day is like a painful reminder of the fact
that our plight is still abysmal in this nation.
To the men
out there; stop and think for a moment of the women who are raped. Do you think
they deserve it? Give a few minutes of your life pondering upon the predicament
of girls who are victims of acid attacks by your very kind. Look around you and
think of the woman in the next cubicle; doesn't she work just as hard as you?
Do you know she probably goes back home where an in-law awaits to suck even the
tiniest shred of joy from her? Forget all that; think about your own wife,
sister, mother or girlfriend; what is she worth to you? Cooking, cleaning,
antagonizing in-laws, children and a husband; isn't a woman’s life worth more
than being stuck only in this humdrum cycle? Does one day dedicated to her
relieve everyone of their responsibility of making this dismal country of ours livable for women?
A woman in
Kerala is rewarded with a case registered against her when she stands up to
malicious men harassing her. An audacious police officer somewhere in Haryana blatantly
blames women for gang rapes; going as far as branding them as prostitutes even.
A woman asking for help from police in Punjab is beaten up in full public view.
And every day women are slighted, snubbed and chastised in their households mostly
by in-laws or if further unlucky by their own parents too. But here we are again;
duped by the facade of Woman’s Day! Really what is the point?
I see no
reason to celebrate a day which is nothing in substance. We women are special
every second in a day; every week in a month; every month in a year and at
every step of our lives. Heck, if we are not there this damn world would cease
to exist. We do what we do and we do it darn well. There is no man on this god
forsaken planet who can do as much as we do and do it in a good way! So we
don’t want a packaged deal where we are given a day which is supposedly for us
while nothing really changes.
When you stop the rape,
When you stop the shame,
When you stop telling us what to drape,
When you stop making passes lame!
I shall celebrate this escape,
Till then all celebrations are vain!
We too
want to breathe and soar high. Why should we worry about wearing a dress that our
heart wants to? We too want to be able to come back home after a hard day’s
work and just rest. Kitchen is not what our life is all about! We don’t want it
to be that way. We will give birth to a child when we want to not because
somebody else deems the time is right. In-fact we won’t if we don’t want to and
nobody can dare judge us. Let us lead our lives like we want to. Don’t trample
us and suffocate us on the pretext of us being your wives, daughters or
daughters-in-law. We are human too; we are not slaves to every whim every man
has on this planet. Don’t force us to
lead the lives of sixteenth century convicts! If you can do that, then wish us Happy Woman’s Day; else take a hike!