Pritam's Blog
A Beautiful Woman
So I was watching “Mahanagar” by the acclaimed film director,Satyajit Ray this afternoon. Set in the 1950s, the movie revolves around the life of Aarti, a house wife and her evolving independence when she takes up the job as a saleswoman to meet the financial need of her orthodox family. The way reality was depicted in this movie - the reaction of her family when the “Ghor er bou” (Ghar ki bahu) chose to go out and work in order to support her husband-the father in law was acting like someone in the family had just died, the mother in law almost stopped talking, like someone just betrayed her, and the husband, who initially was supportive, too started behaving oddly, feeling insecure and all-irritated the shit out of me and at one point I felt like turning off the computer.
Anyway, I watched the full movie and I realized even after 65 years, things haven’t changed yet.
Working women in India are still looked at with a frown by most of the people. It is still not accepted by our patriarchal society: yes, there are a lot of women working in different sectors in high posts, but most of them are still expected to cook food, raise children, take care of husband and supervise all the household activities, even after a hectic day at office or wherever they work.
And if any woman chooses to remain single all her life, so that she doesn’t have to go through all these and she can live her life as she pleases, doing what she likes, everyone starting from her parents to all those distant relatives whose names she doesn’t know will come and tell her how the life of a woman should be, that she can still be self dependent and free even after marriage, that she is not safe without getting married.
Well, if you have parents and relatives like that, you are really not safe, you really don’t need any other enemies…
What bothers me more is that many of our convent read, English speaking girls who talk about freedom, women’s right and all throughout their student life end up getting married just after college, bidding farewell to their career and they are pretty excited about it.
Even the so called ‘Progressive Modern Families’ are not different. There is this Madwadi family in my locality-they run a big shop of household appliances and the entire family seats in the shop-the man, his wife, his two sons and his daughter in law. They proclaim themselves to be a Progressive Modern Family for they allow the female members of their family to run the business, especially their young daughter in law. But her face is always covered with the Pallu of her Saari and every evening, she is sent home to make the dinner.
My mother too was mocked all through her life for being a working woman, even though she used to get up at six, prepare the breakfast for a family comprising of 16-17 members, rush to office, come back home in the evening,help me with my home works and then make the dinner. She is a fiercely ambitious woman and by the time she was forty, she had already made her own house and moved there.
Of course, reality doesn’t centre around what my mom went through and what that Marwari daughter in law is going through. But having spent one third of my life in one of the biggest (and modern) cities in India, talking with people from all over the country (thanks to social media), I have realized that reality is still same as depicted in “Mahanagar” in 1963.
Recently, I came across a young, Tamilian girl, Krithiha, doing her masters on something. Her parents, however, know it to be something different. She had to lie about her course to her parents so that they paid her fees. And I was amazed to see how fearless she is-the desperation to do something she wants to do no matter how tough it is going to be, the fight against patriarchy and gender bias… Her parents are waiting for her masters to be completed and then they will get her married. Even though she is going through a rough time, she is so confident about fighting all the odds and reach where she wants to reach…
I haven’t seen her, but I know she is beautiful. For no one is more beautiful than a woman who is confident, unapologetically herself and has a desire to be fiercely independent.