DAY FIVE!!

Durga giggled reading the WhatsApp messages of her college friends. They always made her day no matter how worried or bored she was. Their PJs would make her feel that everything would be fine eventually. College days were so special for Skanda - the then incarnation of Durga! Those were the days where most of the time she felt like there was no difference of gender...like she would not be judged. But somedays were difficult. Some other day one of her friends taunted her for not being able to cook despite being a girl. Like seriously.. boys said it like it was meant to be!! Some words hurt even though they were said as a joke... Like the other day..one of her friends told her "Why are you even studying here in engineering.. ultimately all that you are going to do in future is cook for your husband and kids.." and he laughed as if he had cracked a humorous joke. It was not a joke for her at all. Skanda knew well...all her life she had heard only two sentences. You are a girl so you cannot do this... And You are a girl so you have to do this only... The Mrutyulok that she lived in had deep patriarchal roots. And her generation and upcoming generations were following it without their knowledge. Like when she had heard her cousin sister scolding her son to not cry like girls.. like when she watched movies and the hero taunts villain "Are you wearing bangles on your wrists?" When she turned 18 and wanted to learn riding a bike and her parents said.. bikes are for guys and scooty's are for girls.. like when Skanda asked her maid what do her children do and the maid said.. 'My daughter is studying in Marathi medium and my son is studying in English medium convent school'. Skanda knew patriarchy was not going anywhere soon... and she had to face it every milestone of her way. She loved sports as a school girl and had been athletic but then during one of her basketball matches, her coach said Don't break your faces or else no one would marry you and laughed hysterically. She had been reminded of being a girl.. of being a woman at every moment. Daughters were paraya dhan and in laws considered them as paraye ghar se aayi hui...Were daughters mere objects of trade?? Skanda always had this conversation with her college friend... Where they discussed why only women had to leave their family and stay with the groom's family. What if she asked a guy whether he would stay at her home after marriage. How would he react? He might think it is a joke. She thought of the women who had no access to their families post marriage. Some change their wife's name to a new one. The daughter in law has to change her surname post marriage. The heir puts his/her father's name in all the documents. The identity of the woman is lost as she is conditioned to sacrifice her own wishes.. to keep her in laws before her..to feed them from time to time.. as if they were a baby..to do all household chores like a maid.. but a respectable one. Some husbands do not even care to pick up their plate post having a snack or dinner. They have to be given a bowl of water to wash their hands! Even the kings would get a complex looking at this men.. If the bride does not give in to the sayings of the in laws she is considered immoral.

This example Skanda always liked where the mother in law tells her friend "My daughter in law is so pathetic.. she makes my son do all the chores...whereas my son in law is so nice...he does all the chores and doesn't let my daughter work a bit!! " Such is the irony of the situation. Skanda had received shock of her life when she accidentally saw one of the messages of a WhatsApp group of a friend. It was an obscene photo of a woman. To her horror she learned that guys everywhere...be it college or office had their own guys group where they circulated obscene pictures of women and girls.. vulgar demeaning jokes about women and pornography. It was heartbreaking for her.. to know that her brother too would be a part of such group.. to know that her best guy friends too were a part of this group. To know that the vulgar jokes objectified women anatomy in all angles. She couldn't believe it for days. She was too hurt. The anatomy which she also had.. was being mocked at and objectified with the lowest level of so called humor. There were always some exceptions though!! Not all men were like this.. she had a few good men in her life too.. but she understood it was a man's world where women were looked down upon.. where women were not considered to be eligible for higher posts just because they might not be able to dedicate their time due to children or family or they might soon go on a maternity leave. Where...some husbands could not digest the fact that their wives earned more than them and so beat them to display their physical dominance...where... the so called lovers threw acid on the faces of girls and women just because they rejected their proposal and it hurt their male ego...where mothers and sisters are not a part of the family but have become cuss words.. which boys or men give to each other and which make them feel that it strengthened their friendship or reduced their so called stress. Nowadays even a few women have joined the bandwagon. It seems cool to them. Skanda always felt that she does not belong to Mrutyulok at all. The word feminism was never understood by some and people started interpreting it with their own perspective. Even some women could not understand this term till now. In Mrutyulok there was too much of everything and the world was turning into something artificial!! Coming back to her present... Durga closed her Whatsapp group and opened Facebook. An ad popped up. It was Avenger 220 from a website she had visited a while back. Durga closed the ad and reported it as 'Not Relatable'!!