A woman's biggest enemy

My mother has quite an in depth knowledge of society and how it functions. Experience counts.

So, once she told me, "Aurat hi doosri aurat ki sabse bade dushman hoti hai". ( A woman is another woman's greatest enemy).

Fair I think. In fact, I feel a woman can be the deadliest enemy ever to any sex possible in the world (Male, female, gays, any). Almost all ancient wars in all of the lands had a woman being listed as a big reason. Think of it. You need flowers for your lady. Precious agricultural land is being used to cultivate those roses that won't even last a day.

Coming back to the point of one woman versus the other. Recently, in New York, one Indian mother threw her girl in river (I think it is the Hudson) and tried to commit suicide herself, to prove a point to her husband. This happened this month. Last month, allegedly, Nirupama Pathak a journo with the Business Standard was killed by her own mother. The lady has not managed to get a bail yet. I think.

Now one incident happened in New York and other in Jharkhand. I come closer to my own State, Punjab and our neighbors Haryana. Female foeticide the highest here. The kill of the girl in the foetus. Now, men may be insensitive, demanding but women? How can you expect your son to respect you, to give you proper treatment, when you never hesitated to kill your own girl, for she was a girl? And why should anyone consider you worth empowerment when you go around burying infants after not being satisfied with its sex?

Yes. While foeticide is widely reported and severely checked, infanticide in villages is so well concealed that you would never get a word out of anyone. Why an infant should be buried alive under trees or bushed for the couple wanted a boy and not a girl is a question straight away pointed to a woman. It is a woman to woman thing.

My dad likes watching sports, is fond of his car, likes to smoke. I understand. It is a man to man understanding. Same way, where is the woman to woman understanding? Now that we have seen to the foteus and infants, what happens to the plight of those girls, sold in their teens for as low as 5000- 15000 Indian rupees in several parts of my country and numerous countries in the world? If you read stories related to such incidents, mothers have often known what would happen to their daughters. Relatives, friends would know of the consequences and won't react. Then if they themselves don't act, why blame men for not treating them right?

Next comes a stage of a girl's life that is called marriage. Honor killings are happening all over India as if I am stuck in barbaric ages. You marry the boy of our caste or we kill you.

It looks to me like Dharmendra wanting the kill the villain in a bollywood movie to take avenge of some sort. Pointing pistols all around. How can anyone do it? Kill your own daughter for not towing your line? Thank God for making me a man. I have too much of my own mind to tolerate such things.

That's it, I guess. Mothers of today hush up their girls and ask them not to tell anyone about the way some uncle touched them or molested them. That is the reason why so many rape cases go unreported. For if it is a family member, mother would usually be the first person to convince the girl to shut up. Or mothers of our modern era would give their daughter so much freedom ( actually double for their age, so as to compensate for all that freedom that they never had in their times) that their actions, dumbness, vulnerability have become a cause of social concern.

But most amusing is the way still mothers act in marriages. Be it a boy or a girl, when it comes to bargaining on the dowry or settling down a price, women folk are wonderful. When recently a guy's mother and a girl's mother were bouncing around between the price range of 80 lakhs to 1 crore (If the girl's mother would have said 1.5, deal would have been sealed instantly, and the boy's mother was certain that she would get out that price from the lady) I who is used to all this matrimonial alliances, quitely remarked to my mother,

'You all high society people are reminding of pashu mela that happens in the Animal University next door. Where they auction off animals to the highest bidder.'

The positive side of the whole essay kind of write up that I have written is that the whole World in general and India in particular has fallen so low in treatment of women, that we cannot stoop any lower than this. So, cheerz to that.