why am i being worshiped today?
asks a bewildered little girl.. and she has good resaons to pose that question, as on all other 364 days she is never treated like this..
today is ashtami the eight day of Durga Puja.. today the very people who wish for a boy, are willing to abort a female foetus with impunity, curse the existence of their daughters and the burden they are, those very people will seek eight little girls or kanjanks, bring them to their home and treat them like goddesses..
even at project why most of the girls did not come and were seen scurrying from one home to another, to be 'worshiped' and feted. but tomorrow will come, a tomorrow when things will go back to normal: the same little girls will once again bear to the burden of being a girl!
It is strange that a land where Godesses are worshiped and prayed to, girls and women find no place... is also one where their very being is a matter of sorrow, where one who does not bear sons is riled , no matter how educated you are... where even law of genetics are reinterpreted..
I was asked by a western friend about the 'missing girl syndrome'. I guess the chilling scene of a female newborn being drowned in a vat of milk in the film matrubhoomi has had its impact..
I guess such a reality shocks but then does one think about the other one: the life of the girl child who is never made to forget that she is unwanted.. everyday we see this in subtle forms: she is never given the same care as her male sibling be it food or medical attention; she is rarely taken to the fair or even if she is, only her brother gets the ride or the special treat; she is ladden with housechores at an age where she should be playing with her brother; she is the one whose school fees money is often not found thus leading to her droping out.. she is babli who is left to die as she has a hole in her heart and repairing it would cost money...
and as she grows into becoming a young woman she also becomes the repository of the family's honour while her brother can go on chasing girls.. she is then married off to someone she has never met, someone who will treat her the same way: as an object to be used, misused and abused..
she will come of her own one day maybe, as a mother in law.. but by that time bitterness and hurt would have taken possession of her, making her the one to accuse her own daughter-in-law of giving birth to a girl child so that the pattern continues with no possible escape..
so now you understand the chilling question of the little girl who wonders why she is being worshiped today...Labels: girl child