Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.
- Cheris Kramarae
I had to drain my pain somewhere, and my elixir was always Subhashree..
I visited Subha’s place after a very long time. We hadn’t spoken much after her marriage. She had purposefully avoided my calls and messages on several occasions. But I didn’t have another choice now. I didn’t care whether she ignored or avoided me. I had to talk to someone close, or I would die of madness…
So, I made my way to her house.
I told her everything that was going on in my life.
She stared at me and started speaking after a moment’s pause:
“When do you plan to have kids by the way?”
“Kids? You should be crazy. I am talking about all the stupidities that are happening in my life, and you are asking me about kids. Do I look like a fool to you?”
“Answer my question”
“Not now. I will not beget a kid with a bankrupt beggar. May be after a year or two if he learns to respect me. Not until then”
“Don’t deny a man sex. Have kids as soon as you are married. Else, they will call you a ‘transgender’ – that too in front of your parents. How would you like that? Don’t you think your parents are already going through hell? Don’t make it worse for them.
And don’t expect your husband to help you with household work. No ‘normal’ man will do it.
Don’t expect him to allow you to do higher studies; no man wants a wife to be more qualified than him.
It will be better if you quit your job after marriage as it will be tough to handle both family and profession simultaneously.
Even if you know more, even if you are more intelligent than Kannan – don’t show it off. It’s always safe to be a dumb obedient wife than to show off your knowledge – the society will call you arrogant.
If your husband tortures you for sex or money, don’t complain to anyone – it will be a waste. This world will not pay heed to your pains. According to them, that’s what women are meant for. Even if you feel like scolding your husband in public, scold him within your heart and always say nice things to him. There is no other way. If you find that your husband is unfaithful to you, ignore it. Else, there is only one thing that will happen. Your husband and his family members will call you a whore, and chuck you out of home.”
Her voice was shaking. She stopped a little to regain herself. Then suddenly she looked straight into my eyes. I never expected Subha to say such things – no –this was not my best friend. I hadn’t come here for this. I wasn’t taking this.
She continued:
“All a man wants is to feel like a man. Feeling like a man means having a woman to control. That’s all. So if you think you want to be free or independent throw that shit in the trash bin, and keep going. There is no such thing as freedom. Your mom was always right. ‘Bank account will be controlled by parents before marriage and by husband after marriage’. That rule isn’t changed. We thought our parents were too old-fashioned and they are not in tune with the modern society. The truth is that men are still old fashioned. We are the ones who are too modern for this society”
I wasn’t able to take it in anymore. I stopped her angrily.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Your dreams were mine too. I know how it feels when you expect a man to treat you like a queen, and all the treatment you get is that of a slave. It’s what all women go through. We are no exceptions. I want you to be prepared. I don’t want you to go through the horrors I went through. I want my best friend to be safe. I don’t know what the anti-dowry laws in India are doing. When the practice of taking dowry hasn’t stopped, we can obviously see that anti-dowry laws are of no use. We can’t do anything. This is how our lives were meant to be doomed. Get used to the idea. We are goats that are raised to be slaughtered. Miracles happen only in Harry Potter’s life. In ours, only disaster happens”
Her eyes were watering.
“Subha, I don’t know what I am going to do. This can’t go on forever. I am not marrying someone because my marriage with someone else got called off, or because he has to close his debts with my father’s hard-earned money. My dad definitely did not earn with the motive of fixing a beggar’s loans. Give me an idea”
“If I had the idea, I wouldn’t be leading the life I am leading. Even I had ideas as you do. ‘Of course my husband won’t be like that. He will be decent enough. He will definitely respect women’. No! I was not fooling the people around me. I was fooling myself. I just want my best friend to be aware”
“How much dowry did you people pay?”
“Oh forget the dowry. Dowry is a very small part of the problem. There are many other towering ones. That’s just the starter. If you shudder so much for the starter itself, how will you handle the main course?”
“Why are women so dumb that they know married life is such an injustice to women, and still they shamelessly live it? Are they that senseless? Eh.. Sorry. I didn’t mean you. I meant it in general”
“Yes. May be they are. That’s the way the laws of the society are. We know that they are fools. But the problem is, they look at us as fools. ‘What kind of a woman doesn’t want a man’s security?’ ‘What kind of a woman won’t use sex as a weapon against men?’ yeah. Don’t stare at me that way. That’s how the society’s brain works. May be we are a little different. So, we possibly can’t escape this shit.”
“I am not living through this shit”
“Even the former Miss Universe Aishwarya Rai can’t escape this. Then how will you?”
“Of course Aishwarya Rai can’t, but Sushmita Sen can. You forget that Sushmita Sen is more intelligent than Aishwarya Rai. That’s how she became Miss India, beating Aishwarya. She was a beauty with a little more brain than the most beautiful. That makes all the difference. It’s not Aishwarya who awes me. It’s Sushmita. How did she manage to adopt a child at the age of twenty-five when she was still unmarried? The world would have raised eyebrows at her. Still, she did it. Indeed, she seems more intelligent to me. She made a difference in this world, an example most women can only awe at, but few can dare to emulate”
“No matter how hard a woman works, or how hard she dreams, at the end of the day, all the world wanted to call her is a “whore”. Dreaming of change, for a woman, is waste of time. May be Sushmita Sen can, not you Karthika. If at all you do that, do you believe that your parents are going to support your decision? Think again. Sushmita’s family will stand by her decisions no matter what. Will yours? Will they be with you through thick and thin? Even when you ask them for some more time to forget Aravind, you don’t get it. What makes you think they are going to allow you your way in anything at all? Forget all these fantasies. Yes, they exist in imagination, just in imagination. Cautioning you is my duty. Looks like you are not going to change. I don’t want see you suffer. Hope you understand my concern for you dear.”
“Yes your majesty!” and I walked out of her house disappointed.
Yes, she was right, absolutely right. Parents who would not allow me just some more time for marriage, will possibly not give me anything else in life, the way I want it. There were no doors left open to me. I was doomed. So, I turned to contemplate death on a serious note. Frankly, that was the only remaining option.
I stumbled along, thinking of Subha getting scoldings from her husband, being called a ‘whore’, doing all the household work without support or concern from her better half, simply because she has to save the relationship, simply because she needed someone in life. I shuddered. To think that this was the very life every woman ought to have an orgasm for was unthinkable.
I went back retracing my steps:
“But do you remember days when they said getting good marks, and getting a job was all that mattered. I toiled away, getting scolded for bad marks, and not landing a job when everyone else had. Now, it looks like nothing but being sold and oppressed (for which education and a job were a basic necessity) ever mattered to them”
“As Long as Women Are Less Safe Than Men, We Are Less Free”