THE FAULT IN OUR "GIRLS"

Well , I sincerely hope Mr.John Green ( Author of "The Fault In our Stars") won't mind for borrowing his title and making some slight alterations here and there. I could never make out a more suitable title than this - "the Fault In our Girls".

Have you ever imagined a world where both genders , males and females are treated equally??.....To start with , I'm not a feminist , please don't get me wrong. But yes , I BELIEVE  wonders can happen in our society if we are treated equally. Admit it , we still stare   if we see a girl of 16 cycling (It actually happened with one of my closest buddies.....Stares , wolf-whistles , comments and what not.........but unfortunately for them , she was quite an expert in self-defense). If you walk to your home at 7 at night , people again stares at you shamelessly as if you are dancing on the public road. We are banned by our own family from wearing jeans , shirts , shorts and skirts saying it will "TEMPT" the opposite gender. Even if your family has not restricted you from wearing all this , don't worry at all. You , yourself will soon give up all those being fed up with the unnecessary comments and the stares. (but no , don't blame the "boys" for wearing the pants in the low-waist fashion which looks like its going to fall off at any second........after all "BOYS ARE BOYS" , right?! ).

I first felt there was a barrier in the case of equality between a girl and boy in my lower classes itself. When a girl cried no one actually cared about it saying the whole "senti-thing" was in her blood. But when a boy cried there was such a fuss about it.Why??..........Because they are "NOT SUPPOSED" to cry?? In most of the films,an actor's name is shown first , even if it is a women-oriented film.Why is that???? (And no we can't imagine a film without the glam and glitter of the heroine , can we? ). The little things , like , cutting your hair short or adopting a tomboy style , or even to their horror , getting a tattoo make the whole society gawk at us. We are labelled as "a girl with no limits.....beware of her".

Things doesn't end here. It seems that the moment a girl is born , the whole of the society cannot wait to attend her marriage. The sooner,the better.  As soon as you get a job and you turn 24 , you are ready to be married off. It doesn't matter even if you don't want to. Its for the society - in other words , we are not creating a chance to raise their fingers at us. You have to be married off as early as possible. Its the verdict of the SOCIETY  and you HAVE to abide by it. Guys can remain unmarried , but after all they are "boys"!!!!! You cannot because you are WEAK , FRAGILE and just a WOMAN . You are not safe out there .Even Manusmriti , the earliest metrical work on Brahminical Dharma in Hinduism states, "Balya va………………….” – 5/150. A female child, young woman or old woman is not supposed to work independently even at her place of residence." But the same society remains dumb and unresponsive as the number in dowry deaths and rape cases increases day by day. Why pray , it happens like that??????

We were all outrageous and enraged when we came to know what happened at Delhi just two years back. We did everything we could. Rallies , protests , more talk - time and shows in TV , magazines and newspapers were splashed with the "so-called news".New and interesting versions everywhere. We made the victim , a silent martyr. Speeches and debates all around said that she was very brave. Channels competed with each other to make her life story and what happened with her in to a series of soap with more drama each time. Some said our society has sunk into levels we could never even imagine.  And like every other sensational news , it all settled down after-a-while. After all , we all had a life to live. We cannot spend our entire life mourning on what happened with her.

Just a month back , another rape case in the country made all of us dumb-founded. But , mind you , no candlelight vigils this time. NO protests, no rallies , no soaps. In the long list of such crimes against Dalit Women, against ALL women in this country, this one has been noted. We have run out of words. Rapes are not minor items on the crime pages. But at the end of all this, when yet another horrendous crime is reported , what do we do ????? We READ , we RAGE and then we turn the PAGE.  And I’m surprised beyond measure , even after all this people actually blame girls for it and support those who did the heinous crime saying  “Boys will be boys . They make mistakes “. Behold girls ,you are living in a world where you have no value. You are like a china toy that can break at any second . In this male –dominated society , you cannot dream , let only breath. If someone misbehaves with you , its your mistake. May be the way you dressed provoked them . Or it’s the way you look . Or they are just bored and you are the new “item”. But its not their mistake. They belong to the MALE gender. Its in their blood. If anyone is to be blamed , its you. THIS IS YOUR FAULT……………

 This is what a girl wants to ask to our “society”, our culture, our tradition , our superstitions……..She wants to scream this out to the whole universe. In fact , this is the one and only question that lingers in her mind – “Is it my fault that I was born a “GIRL”?????????

Pause for a moment here. Think . Is this what our girls deserve? Is this what your mother , sister , wife or daughter deserve?. An honest answer would have been NO. I didn’t knew those who were brutally raped and hanged . Yet , I’m doing what I can do against this atrocity . Which I can do within my power. Raising my voice , against all the odds. This is not the voice of a single girl .Its the voice of all those who are waiting out there in their mother’s womb  to be tagged as a “GIRL” . It’s the voice of all those who have tasted all the bitterness of BEING a girl. We can still change the situation in our society tremendously by raising our voice against what is WRONG. As we mourn for all those who have been victims in this male-dominated society , we must stop and ask ourselves : Is this the society we want? If not , what  are we doing to CHANGE IT?????