Dear Society! by Atul Singh

Dear Society!

Scene 1: 

A couple of dozen 13 year old girls, my daughter included, are playing Lacrosse in the school grounds. It’s late May and sports season is in full throttle. So is the 80 degree heat. These girls are sprinting from one end of the large field to another, making their plays, taking and giving passes and scoring. They could out-run most boys in their class and have strong athletic teenage bodies. Some may pursue athletics in college, other will go into medicine, law, engineering, politics, social sciences.. what have you. They will also run households, bear and raise children and be the economic and social engines of the society, right alongside men. 

Scene 2 

A few dozen women are celebrating a festive time together hosted by one of them. They are all decked up in traditional fineries, loving the warmth of this “all women”, fun get together where they are laughing, eating, touching and appreciating each others fine clothes and jewelry. Generally having a gala time together amongst themselves as women do when they socialize. Some gossip, some laughter, some rolling of eyes. It’s all fun. In this fine group are several doctors, senior business executives and other professional power players. They combine that with being mothers, homemakers and it’s just one beat and rythme. On average they are likely just as much of seasoned professionals in the workforce as their men are, and just as big income earners as their husbands. This they do while bearing and raising kids along with their husbands, but mostly driving that aspect of life, aside from their careers and orchestrating the social lives of their households too. 

Scene 3

There are four people by the lake, one father and three daughters. The daughters are all in Burkhas. They are taking pictures. I ask them if they would like me to take theirs, and they are delighted for the help. These are beautiful happy women and proud dad. But I only see their face. I do not know if they are on average as strong economic producers as the women in scene 2. I also do not know if these beautiful young women ever got to run across the field with wind in their hair and on their skin as the girls in scene 1. Whether the growth of lumps on their childhood chests and some blood stains on their knickers were too much for the society that they grew up in, to handle, and so they relegated them to looking at life through a veil. I do not know for sure. Seems like it though. 

Scene 4

An unequally yoked couple is dealing with marital stress through the most obvious tool at the man’s disposal. She yells and he slaps her. She is stunned. He slaps her and kicks her to the sofa and slaps her one more time. She realizes that this is an unequal fight. She relents, for that moment and for life. Navigating around this threat, never self actualizing, living with the expectations that are burdened on her. In the society she lives, she never had the opportunity to build skills that could make her a decent living. And she has children. She was married at 19 and had a baby each at 20, 21 and 22. Her body is is tired and so is her mind. And so she protested one day and got herself a lesson. She is in an unequal fight. 

She is afraid to leave the shelter that she and her children have and that her family says she mush adjust to. So she makes peace with playing the second fiddle in her own life. 

Scene 5: 

Her dad is sick. He may be dying. He has yet another bout of Asthma attack and it is almost 9 pm. Shops close in this suburb of Northern India by 10 pm. She has to go out, even though it is dark. He needs that inhaler. He needs it now. So she runs down the narrow stairs of her dilapidated second story rental house, while her mom, also old and worn out, provides succor to her dad. As she turns the corner, she sees them. Four young men around the paan shop. She is the only woman out and about right now. Her colorful salwar kameez immediately draws their attention. She has to go past them to the medicine shop. She keeps walking with head down so as not to catch their hungry eyes. She hears the first whistle. Then a dialogue from some movie… akin to “please stop, why ignore us so”, then some laughter. It’s all a buzz in her head. She paces past them and reaches the shop, picks up the inhaler, without counting the change and rushes back to her humble dwelling. The same scene repeats on the way back. When she shuts the door behind her, her heart is racing partly due to the fast walk and partly due to what she went through. Par for the course, her mother expresses without saying a word. They both sit down by her dad’s bed as she puts her hand on her daughter’s lap and looks at her daughter, with I am sorry, eyes. She knew. Moms know you see. 

The results are in. The next Chancellor of Germany is Angela Merkel. The next Prime Minister of Britain is Margret Thatcher. The next Prime Minister of the largest democracy in the world is Indira Gandhi

It is 2022, 

There is is yet another woman Chief Justice at the Supreme court. India’s President now is a lady. Treasury secretary of United States, Nobel

prize winners…the list goes on. 

This year yet again, the most number of Medical Students in US colleges are women. The most number of law students too are women. The most number of toppers in High School exams in India are girls. More and more medallists in international sports competitions for India are women. 

Dear Society,

Please visit the scenes shared with you. They are all from real life. Please see the data also. It is all true. 

So, can you not encumber her unnecessarily. Can you please let her realize her full potential? She can carry you and all that it entails on her shoulders alone if need be. Just don’t chain her, beat her, veil her, tease her, stop her. Don’t cage her, don’t limit her. Just don’t.

Let her play. Just let her be!

Your’s Truly

A Dad