Genderification of Everything

 

No,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no! It is what a girl listens to every day in an orthodox Indian middle-class family.

Sometimes, even if the question is incomplete, the answer is NO!

When we say, how far have we come? Let me tell you, we have just come from keeping the ghungat on the shoulders, which was earlier on the head. And that’s it…. Nothing far than that. If you are a girl in India, even today, you need to ask for everything. Each and every part of your life is governed, and you are bound to ASK. You are accountable to all the family members about everything.

Even if you have the best behavior, you are supposed to ASK for everything. Because you are not self-sufficient to make your own decisions. You are not allowed to step even the border of your door because what if…..

This WHAT IF… list has more than 2000 scenarios in it. It never ends. Every time a new question, every time a new DISAPPOINTMENT with a new “what if”

We say, where are those girls who topped the 10^th boards, of course, they are cleaning utensils in their kitchens, protecting the RESPECT and HONOUR of their family by NOT stepping out of the household. They are making the house PROSPEROUS by wiping the floor and washing the clothes.

You can watch movies like The Kerala Story and tell us to stay away from such girls. Stay away from x, stay away from y … if a girl is going to college, she has a 200-item list of STAY AWAY FROM…. people!

If you live in a hostel, they will give you a longgggggggg speech about what NOT TO DO. E.g., do not engage with this or that, do not go out after 7 pm, do not make male friends, do not go to birthday parties, do not go on dates, do not wear short clothes, and whatnot. Again, it is a never-ending list.

To keep check on you, they will also go through your phone now and then like a spy, as if you are going to plan some terrorist attack on the family. All the burden of keeping the name of your family will be in the hands of that one innocent girl who is hearing the word don’t, no and never almost half of her life.

Mental health? Nah. There’s no such thing for a girl. Her parents don’t believe in such words because they are the BEST parents, so they are doing great parenting... how can the mental health of such a child be disturbed? Even if they scold you every now and then, treat you as a maid, taunt you for small mistakes, and question your abilities, but still, is it going to affect your mental health? Nah [according to them, she is just acting]

She is a good girl if she has good grades and does all the household chores, but when the same good girl demands to go to a college in Delhi, then suddenly you question her integrity…. Then there’s a new set of WHAT ifs….. you worry that she will get spoiled by going somewhere, and hence, you put water on all her efforts and make her settle with the bare minimum. Dreaming of changing the family’s conditions by sitting in a cave can’t make those dumb caves turn out to be Ellora. You need to provide the axe and spade. But you don’t care about it… bcoz, you think that she is going to kill your respect and honour with that axe and spade. So you give her a small knife to carve her future in that huge rock.

She is doing that, but you want that process to be faster, without any distractions, hahaha.

Have you seen a jungle? Is the lion killing animals all the time? No. He isn’t. Still, we call him the king of the jungle. Not because he is the strongest but because he has the ability to be the best. But if you were standing in front of a lion, you would be scared. You won't question his ability to kill someone because you know what his strengths are……

Can you apply the same to a girl? No, you don’t. You choose not to. Because you are scared. You are scared of her extravagance, and that’s the reason this fucking Indian society is always up to suppress every woman.

You can quote that if Lata Mangeshkar was not given a chance to step outside, we would never get the best singer and all that…. But how many of her do we have? A few?

But EVERY boy has that same freedom that those FEW women got. Why? Because he got the fucking privilege to be born with that extra masculinity…. What is different in them like that, which iron-coated body have they got to be safe in all those unsafe places on earth?

This is just an UNJUST world!

"She walks with chains they do not see,

Bound by rules she did not weave.

Each step she takes, a whispered shame,

A world that fears her voice, her name

They dress her up in threads of gold,

Yet silence wraps her, harsh and cold.

"Be kind, be pure, stay in your place,"

She learns the cost of her own grace.

They carve their laws into her skin,

With words like "honour," "shame," and "sin."

A daughter's dream, a sister's fight,

A mother's tears in silent night.

In streets, in homes, behind closed doors,

She battles wars they call "her chores."

Her laughter measured, steps confined,

A world that cages her own mind.

But fire lives behind her eyes,

A storm untamed, a sun will rise.

And when she shatters every chain,

They’ll fear the woman once in pain.

For ropes of honour turn to dust,

When she stands tall, when she is just.

No longer tied, no longer small—

She is her own, she is her all."