There are days on which I feel an unrelenting anger. When I look around and find much to appall...no, I am not being judgemental...I do my very earnest best to climb into the skins of people and walk around in them, following faithfully Atticus's sound advice. I see much more good, in its many manifestations, than bad. I wait patiently, I try and listen carefully. I look within, and weed out my faults, so as not to let them draw me back...and I am sure there is a lot of scope for improvement in my own personality. My friend told me that I must use this blog to talk about social issues which disturb me...my nature is a cautious one, and I find reason to praise Diplomacy when it borders on sensitivity.
But I have been irked by something, for the longest possible time...gender issues should I call them? Something I used to do with my cousins and freinds, occasionally back at home, would be to laugh over the adverts in the Matrimonial Section of newspapers...some of them were absurdly funny, like one which said that only someone who possessed the beauty of a potential Miss India, need apply, but she had to be 'simple and homely.' This time, when my friend and I tried to resume the same activity, I recoiled and found little reason to laugh...here were people, 'educated' people who were perpetrating the very systems our country has struggled to fight against. "Educated boy seeks fair, {high caste, not getting into naming} wife." "Educated boy seeks very fair, simple and slim wife." "Educated boy wants a fair, tall, non-working, (high caste) wife with matching horoscope. I am not running down Astrology. It is one's prerogative to believe or not believe...but is that one vital, critical basis of forging a match? How come no one describes the kind of personality he/she would be compatible with? How come the first criterion is always caste, colour, vital stats or star signs? I am not undermining the importance, in some ways, of physical attraction. That is an undeniable aspect of a relationship. But I suppose when it is put across like that, in that bald, exclusivist way, it is difficult to read it and not squirm with discomfort.
What happens to girls, (and I am speaking of the ads which the boys/their families have put up,) who do not fit into this stencilled and crayoned idea of beauty. What if a different shade of colour fills their brows and skins? What if they fail to reach the desired, assigned height? What if she is born under an 'inauspicious' (as if) star sign? What if she isn't 'simple?' What does the word mean anyway? Every human being, in her or his own way is complex...we have millions of thought processes competing with one another in our minds...is being 'simple' a reference to being non-manipulative, non-'not-nice?' Or is it someone who is cheerful and joyous? If that is what it means, simple was never a synonym for any of those words.
Or is Simple someone who can be manipulated and cheated, but is too gullible, naive and ingenue-like to respond? I don't know what the term implies, but it disturbs me...what does 'homely?' mean? Home-loving? How many of us are NOT home-loving? I am sure all of us, irrespective of Gender, ache for aspects of our home...and as for house-work, it is something we all must, once again irrespective of gender, pitch in and help out with. There is nothing salubrious about sleeping on an unmade bed, or redeeming about not knowing how to rustle a meal up, or cool about not dusting drawers...it is just the insidious suggestion that we, having being born into the gender we have, should have been born with these skills...no, we have not...we learn, and believe me, we do learn, we need to learn to survive...but why is this so 'gendered?'. Boys should learn as well, they need to maintain their health and hygiene and satiate their hunger for food as well...and as for the caste and complexion fixation...I don't know what to say...I have heard people argue that people from similar 'caste backgrounds' will more comfortable in adapting with one another, and I have actually heard someone say this (groan)...but somewhere along this line of thought, the value of human characateristics get lost...and what of educational backgrounds, (and I mean love of similar subjects, etc) or common interests? ...and we still discriminate against those considered "lower" than us, (and I use the word with much, much sadness, that we still think like this)...that we cannot 'condescend' to scale ourselves down on our constructed heirarchical ladder ...education gets reduced to merely a qualification, a degree which will translate into a job, and this simplistic reduction of a field as rich as knowledge is doen in the name of being practical, pragmatism...we are forcing ourselves into this blatant and obvious state of Myopia...and the value of Universal Feeling gets lost...and as for the complexion bit...some may argue it is an aesthetic choice...but somewhere in the sea of demands for porcelain complexion, the obvious marginalisation occurs...and the media also pitches in, to capitalise on this sick obsession, forcing girls who do not blend into this prescribed palette of colour, to suffer unecessarily from entirely avoidable issues such as low self-esteem and depression...even the most casual of comments in regard to such sensitive aspects can scar a person deeply, or atleast compel someone to feel the need to use skin whitening products...and this compulsion is what is lethal...to say nothing of the eating disorders brought on by the highly unrealistic expectations of body types imposed upon so many of us...what has Education taught us? Oh, heaps of things, Undoubtedly...how much have we progressed, though? How open are our minds? Let us Give people a chance for their own sakes, for Personality's Sake, for human traits' sake...please. It is really, really a shame if we cannot extricate ourselves from the mire of such petty thoughts, if we are caught in the disgraceful cobweb of discrimination, using 'caste, creed and colour' as the essential components of our guiding compass, then we should feel ourse;ves burning with shame of the highest order.
I mean, Seriously? What is wrong with us?
But I have been irked by something, for the longest possible time...gender issues should I call them? Something I used to do with my cousins and freinds, occasionally back at home, would be to laugh over the adverts in the Matrimonial Section of newspapers...some of them were absurdly funny, like one which said that only someone who possessed the beauty of a potential Miss India, need apply, but she had to be 'simple and homely.' This time, when my friend and I tried to resume the same activity, I recoiled and found little reason to laugh...here were people, 'educated' people who were perpetrating the very systems our country has struggled to fight against. "Educated boy seeks fair, {high caste, not getting into naming} wife." "Educated boy seeks very fair, simple and slim wife." "Educated boy wants a fair, tall, non-working, (high caste) wife with matching horoscope. I am not running down Astrology. It is one's prerogative to believe or not believe...but is that one vital, critical basis of forging a match? How come no one describes the kind of personality he/she would be compatible with? How come the first criterion is always caste, colour, vital stats or star signs? I am not undermining the importance, in some ways, of physical attraction. That is an undeniable aspect of a relationship. But I suppose when it is put across like that, in that bald, exclusivist way, it is difficult to read it and not squirm with discomfort.
What happens to girls, (and I am speaking of the ads which the boys/their families have put up,) who do not fit into this stencilled and crayoned idea of beauty. What if a different shade of colour fills their brows and skins? What if they fail to reach the desired, assigned height? What if she is born under an 'inauspicious' (as if) star sign? What if she isn't 'simple?' What does the word mean anyway? Every human being, in her or his own way is complex...we have millions of thought processes competing with one another in our minds...is being 'simple' a reference to being non-manipulative, non-'not-nice?' Or is it someone who is cheerful and joyous? If that is what it means, simple was never a synonym for any of those words.
Or is Simple someone who can be manipulated and cheated, but is too gullible, naive and ingenue-like to respond? I don't know what the term implies, but it disturbs me...what does 'homely?' mean? Home-loving? How many of us are NOT home-loving? I am sure all of us, irrespective of Gender, ache for aspects of our home...and as for house-work, it is something we all must, once again irrespective of gender, pitch in and help out with. There is nothing salubrious about sleeping on an unmade bed, or redeeming about not knowing how to rustle a meal up, or cool about not dusting drawers...it is just the insidious suggestion that we, having being born into the gender we have, should have been born with these skills...no, we have not...we learn, and believe me, we do learn, we need to learn to survive...but why is this so 'gendered?'. Boys should learn as well, they need to maintain their health and hygiene and satiate their hunger for food as well...and as for the caste and complexion fixation...I don't know what to say...I have heard people argue that people from similar 'caste backgrounds' will more comfortable in adapting with one another, and I have actually heard someone say this (groan)...but somewhere along this line of thought, the value of human characateristics get lost...and what of educational backgrounds, (and I mean love of similar subjects, etc) or common interests? ...and we still discriminate against those considered "lower" than us, (and I use the word with much, much sadness, that we still think like this)...that we cannot 'condescend' to scale ourselves down on our constructed heirarchical ladder ...education gets reduced to merely a qualification, a degree which will translate into a job, and this simplistic reduction of a field as rich as knowledge is doen in the name of being practical, pragmatism...we are forcing ourselves into this blatant and obvious state of Myopia...and the value of Universal Feeling gets lost...and as for the complexion bit...some may argue it is an aesthetic choice...but somewhere in the sea of demands for porcelain complexion, the obvious marginalisation occurs...and the media also pitches in, to capitalise on this sick obsession, forcing girls who do not blend into this prescribed palette of colour, to suffer unecessarily from entirely avoidable issues such as low self-esteem and depression...even the most casual of comments in regard to such sensitive aspects can scar a person deeply, or atleast compel someone to feel the need to use skin whitening products...and this compulsion is what is lethal...to say nothing of the eating disorders brought on by the highly unrealistic expectations of body types imposed upon so many of us...what has Education taught us? Oh, heaps of things, Undoubtedly...how much have we progressed, though? How open are our minds? Let us Give people a chance for their own sakes, for Personality's Sake, for human traits' sake...please. It is really, really a shame if we cannot extricate ourselves from the mire of such petty thoughts, if we are caught in the disgraceful cobweb of discrimination, using 'caste, creed and colour' as the essential components of our guiding compass, then we should feel ourse;ves burning with shame of the highest order.
I mean, Seriously? What is wrong with us?
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