Thursday 7 March 2013

The new day will dawn in a few hours, it has officially started as we have just passed the midnight hour. Another day of reckoning, International Women's day...... I for one, have my reservations about the many "days " that we have added to our already full calendar, we need  "Mother's day " to show our love for our mother or a " Father's Day" to show him how much we care and so on and so forth. I would think that these are what most people would express automatically, why do we need special days our expression. I may seem not 'with it ' in others opinion and definitely conservative in my thinking but there it is .

Women's day !!! A celebration of women !!! We will celebrate her on a particular day and then from the very next go about our business as usual. It is laudable, however that such a day has been thought of on an international level, we all know that women have been considered from the very beginning, somewhat lesser than men. The fact that men are stronger physically is perhaps the foremost reason for this. Man as the hunter and woman as the one who stokes the fires and keeps the hearth warm....a scene from an ancient hieroglyphic, the man with a spear and a woman at the fire, there have been changes since then but have there really? Women, because of their make up are better at tending to needs and men, to bringing home the bacon. What seems to have happened as society progressed is that men took the position of command as initially there were battles for territory and men were always on the forefront. As society became more stable and settled the ones who led in the battlefield were those that made the laws, they were looked up to, the women who tended to their wound or their nurture were given a second position and in many cases no position at all, and while we see some women rulers, men outnumbered them.

Coming to the present era, the plight of the " weaker sex " is apparent, whether it is in the workplace or at home or with some of the horrifying atrocities committed against them in the name of tradition or culture or what have you.... We read of them in the newspapers and magazines, we see it happening all around us and it is not necessarily perpetrated by men, women are just as responsible, for if a woman is in collusion with anyone else, be it a man or a woman to continue practices which should have changed with time but are prevalent even today , she is just as equally to blame for that which makes her a victim
.
 Swami Vivekananda's words over century ago..." There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of women is improved" and then again  ........."It is very difficult to understand why in this country [India] so much difference is made between men and women, whereas the Vedanta declares that one and the same conscious Self is present in all beings. You always criticize the women, but say what have you done for their uplift? Writing down Smritis etc., and binding them by hard rules, the men have turned the women into manufacturing machines! If you do not raise the women, who are living embodiment of the Divine Mother, don’t think that you have any other way to rise."
He also says...."  The idea of perfect womanhood is perfect independence."...
We have only read them and nodded wisely but have failed bring about any real changes.

We may celebrate women today and again on this day next year and the next, we may make pledges light candles, the real change will start only when men and women are equal in every sphere of life and when women are not considered as the 'weaker sex' to be protected by their able bodied counterpart. True celebration will begin when the " abla nari " become a 'sabal nari '. We will not then need one day to celebrate womanhood, we will be celebrating a progressive inclusive mankind everyday and in every way.

Climbing up a rugged mountain has never been an easy task.

1 comment:

Anamika said...

Well said Nandi....Abla ko Sabal banne do....fir equality deni nahin padegi....