We look for certainty for all we want when the world only lives on ‘maybes’. We speak of stories as if they were facts when they’re only just the discrepancies between our ‘almosts’ and ‘maybes’. But then maybe, the only truth is that there is no absolute truth in the world. We see beauty in clouds and shapelessness in humans. And then, we lose track of when ‘beauty’ begins to sound ‘painful’ perhaps because the first person who called us ‘beautiful’ treated us like part curse and part currency and expected us to open to them like the street markets on a lazy and foggy Sunday morning. And yet, we only teach girls how embodying this hollow word is the only thing worth being. We tell them through fairness creams and anti-wrinkle ointments that were just disposable when we start ageing.
It’s so very hard for a woman to acquire that even in this era of so-called equality. We are so often explicated by what we give others rather than as deserving in our own right as individuals often as good wives, mothers and daughters. This type of belonging is only salubrious when there is also potentiality for psychological and physical liberty if required. They say, “I’m a woman”, but I wish I could say this doesn’t cause them fear that they’re not weary of this body. The others they tell us women to be strong and not to be a damsel in distress, but that’s the issue because everyone wants women to be temerarious, unflinching and audacious and the whole lot of words that are synonymous. And when they actually stand strong and project their voice, suddenly it’s too much. Suddenly, a woman has forgotten her place. The truth is people love strong women as a mere fantasy. It has often been quoted, ‘A man likes to feel like a man’, but all they actually mean is ‘A man likes to feel superior to you and it’s your job to make him believe it.’ And when your coach tells you that you run like a ‘girl’, tell him that if he could run a little faster, he could too. Yes, we are feminists; and we don’t hate men, but if women are considered fragile, I’ve never seen something as easily wounded as a man’s pride.
The right to freedom is one of the Fundamental Rights guaranteed by the Constitution of India. It gives citizens basic freedom with respect to speech and expression, freedom of personal liberty, freedom to live a life of dignity. A woman often is given the dressing down regarding how her attire should be. Conservative because that’s what is termed ‘Sanskar’. If a girl is comfortable with her own body, isn’t that something we should be supporting? Why should we chasten a person who has enough confidence to show off their body in public? I’m a fourteen-year-old girl; and if you’re subjugating me, you are the problem. Conservative backlash against visible, outspoken and educated ‘modern’ women has been gathering pace over the years. Why is the word ‘Sanskar’ never used to castigate male behaviour? If there’s no rudimentary intellectual transformation, if as a society we don’t come up to the scratch when it comes to embracing our Constitutional principles of equal citizenship of rights of men and women, if the assaulted woman becomes the villain and not the victim, all these slogans and all the laws will remain meaningless.
What, then, does it mean to be human in the age of machines? We delve into so many skins to find out what is left behind just because we can’t salvage the remnants of what we used to be. We put on a false front to hide what we are, but when the curtains are drawn and only the echo of the character you played remains, who are we? Who are we when the seats are empty, when we’re no longer on the stage and no longer a part of the games? Instead of saying ‘act like a lady’, say ‘be polite and respectful’ because it’s not just the women who need to be told this. Instead of saying ‘man up’, ask them to be ‘strong and courageous’ because not only men should do these things. And next time you ask your daughter, wife, sister or mother to embrace ‘Sanskar’, remember that you’re just protecting women dear to you from the ‘men’ you allowed your ‘sons’ to grow up into.
As a message to all the strong women out there, we’re all born with a fire inside us and the world is determined to stamp it out. If everybody else asks you to cut the cackle and learn, remember that the greatest thing you need to learn is that everything you ever needed has been inside you all along; it’s just the world that convinced us otherwise. You’ll be told to quiet down because your opinions make you less beautiful, but you weren’t born with a fire in your belly for it to be put out. And when they tell you about all the things you can never be, know that you’re both war and woman and nobody can stop you.
(The writer is a Standard-X student, DAV Public School, Unit-8, Bhubaneswar)
