Women - Don't Ask

This year has witnessed a series of rumbles that turned into murmurs and finally exploded into screeches – women asking for their space on the planet and flushing out myths that have shaped into gospels in our society…!

But one look back at our history – our Indian history should tell you what is so obvious – that women were in the forefront – walking with (and sometimes ahead of men) in all walks of life..from politics to poetry..from administration to arts..there wasn’t a doubt in their minds to distinguish women from men. So it was but natural that women were emperors of large kingdoms..that women fought battles for ideologies that mattered…that women exhibited their “craftwomanship” with equal ease at painting, music and dance.

The women of India were blessed with an equality that was so in-born that their contribution and participation was a “way of life” – never needing a gigantic push nor needing a powerful pleading for equality..rights that were so alien to Western society -  but what happened in the span of last few centuries & decades?

Why are we now at a precarious juncture where every move is tinted with the over-used “clichés” of “diversity” and “feminism”? Why is there a dramatic exhibition of “womanism” – the never-ending landslides of Women’s Day token appreciations..the “botoxing” of glamour and glitz into every face & phase of a woman..the over the top demonstration of feminism that stays at the flimsy layer of social media?

Why are we pleading and crying ourselves hoarse for something that always belonged to us? Maybe it is the continual erosion that our value system has undergone over the years… the venomous thoughts that have been cultivated into the minds of our men and …the apathy that society has always displayed in the wake of assaults & insults that women have been exposed to! All that has summed up into the imbroglio of harassment & break-outs that we see all over the globe!

So this Women’s day, women - while we manicure our “oh-so-sensitive” finger nails let us also understand that we belong in the truest sense! We are as rooted and as entitled to our space on this planet as the “other sex”..and let us also appreciate that we are as responsible for our destiny and what we make of it..

And to all the men who are trying hard to wish and offer flowers for this Woman’s day…please instead take a moment to reflect why we need a ‘special” day to appreciate the very woman who has given birth to you..who shares the burdens of your life from the break of dawn and the unjust need for her to “ask” for equality when it always was hers to keep, to enjoy and to preserve!