I had quite forgotten it was Women's day today, until I checked the newspapers. And yeah, felt good to get an sms wishing me a `smiling Women's day' too.
Much as I would love to bask in the oh-so-generous 24-hour attention set aside especially for the womankind of humankind, I do not think women need the pittance of such hype surrounding a day.
Starting morning, it's been a pleasant surprise that the channels are abuzz with movies connected to women. Erin Brockovich, that I do not tire or watching, Dor, a story I love, The Nanny Diaries, Mona Lisa Smile and even The Princess' Diaries. A Perfect Sunday. A pleasant surprise too, that my husband who otherwise switches to AXN, sports, Discovery, or any channel playing action movies, was very interested in watching these movies.
The sad truth, is that I would prefer movies made from a woman's point of view, generally. Women protagonists. Women leaders who actually have a say in their own political sphere, women in the lead.
And I do not need to feel apologetic about it. In a few weeks from now, we vote our Parliament to power again. A Parliament full of people's representatives, whose men are so scared of a Women's Reservation Bill (asking for just 33.3 per cent reservation), they create a ruckus every time it comes up for discussion.
I write this even as the Filmfare show gets telecast on TV. Our women actors have a shelf life of say a few years, while Chiranjeevi, Rajanikant, Shah Rukh, Salman, Aamir and even Akshay, have been around for two decades now. Why? Because the male chauvinist mindset ruling the film industry thinks a woman is not so worth it post marriage.
True Aishwarya Rai has managed to survive beyond her marriage, but it is still to early to judge.
A quick look at the sitcom soap industry shows that even our post-Ekta Kapoor serials wreak regression in the garb of focus on women. It's a relief we at least have serials that now talk of the problems of a working woman and do not project her a vamp. Or for that matter, the promo of a new serial at least shows an expectant father celebrating his baby girl's birth. It is quite a journey from years ago, Kyunki..'s makers openly violated the PNDT Act by showing their characters opting for pre-natal sex-selection.
Ask me if the spurt of the more realistic women's soaps make me happy, and I would say no. We do not celebrate womanhood, nor do we teach our men to do it. And as long as that does not happen, a woman is always an object.
Back in my own life, I cringe when I recall those judgements made about my work, based on my plain-Jane dress sense. I feel sick when my neighbours project me as the one who `controls' her husband, simply because he cares for me when I am sick, he cooks and cleans when I am down and out, and we share a lot of household chores, mainly the kitchen.
They forget that when I am screaming and yelping in pain, I am doing it alone, in the confines of my home. No neighbours would want to spend those extra hours sitting by me, for they are busy cleaning and cooking to please their husbands who would return home at night. Probably envy too, for they've been forced into matrimony even before they finished studies. And their husbands control their lives now. My heart goes out to them.
I pushed my marriage for many many years. And got emotionally abused for it, indirectly, directly, by family, by extended family (mainly elders). Relatives who spoke to me on the phone sometimes had the audacity to tell me I was a disobedient girl who did not care for the welfare of her parents, simply because I was deciding my life.
For the last many months, my health has been such a roller-coaster ride that I have had the reason to hate the insensitivity of the medical system - where an internal sonography can be a nightmare, and yet you cannot complain. Because after all, `it is for your benefit'. Women's health is a complicated issue, but I think there is a billion-dollar sanitary napkins industry riding high on it. I have always wondered and still wonder - why are sanitary pads, that are so integral to a woman's health, month after month and consumed in millions, taxed in the first place? They are products that are necessities, yet the miserly attitude when it comes to lower pricing.
Should governments that go bonkers over condom distribution and HIV/AIDS campaign not have a heart for those millions of women who cannot afford them, and provide them with these vital needs too?
And have we not come far ahead of those days when one could not as much as talk about those `days of the month'? Yet, sanitary pads are too taboo to be `discussed'.
Our programmed thinking that often unconsciously and blindly follows the male whim and diktat, makes sure that we ignore not just issues such as these, but we do not as much as celebrate our women standing up for their own rights, or for others.
On Saturday, Mar 7, I got news that Irom Sharmila, who was on a fast to protest army atrocities in Manipur for several years, was released. It should have ideally made for a scroll on NDTV, or at least a news item on some channel. Not one of the news channels I watched carried the story. I was thrilled to hear about her release, and wondered why it happened just before the General Elections too. In volatile North-east, there is every possibility of her re-arrest. But who would want the frail woman with an iron grit to suffer being force-fed under arrest? And that too, someone doing it out of a sense of immense duty? Her's is a Satyagraha that the country chooses to ignore, time and again. Yet, it is people like her we must be celebrating.
Also openly wondering why Sourabhee, the Agartala girl who won the Indian Idol, was not celebrated as grandly as last year's winner, or for that matter as much as Abhijeet Sawant.
Now does that not provide some Woman's Day food for thought?
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