Skip to main content

Ramarajya

At last, India has become a Ramarajya - no, not the ideal kind but the kind where a Sita who crossed a 'boundary' was banished, where an unsuspecting Ahalya was turned into stone, where a Draupadi who loved Arjuna was married to his brothers too, where a rape victim is blamed to be the cause for her ordeal; in sum total, where a woman's opinions are not sought or heard, where a woman is supposed to be the epitome of silence and subservience. Wonder what makes people to think that love is shown through body and not mind?
I also wonder what made sage Uddalaka, who too lived in an ancient era alien to women's freedom and equality concepts, tell his son Shvetaketu that "a woman is free to do as she pleases" when his wife went off with another man. When Shvetaketu questions his paternity, Uddalaka answers, "It is not my seed that makes you my child, it is my love.”
Who is great? A person whose confusions regarding relationships were given the name of dharma and who put another human being to hardship to protect his dharma? Or a person who recognised the individuality of a person, regardless of gender?
Above all, who loved the other more? Rama or Sita? I believe it is Sita; after all, she taught her kids to respect and love Rama, their father, even after she was banished.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Caterpillar or butterfly?

'Caught in a strange land in a net with other butterflies, I'm a caterpillar yet undecided to remain a caterpillar and perish or turn into a beautiful butterfly and live a life full of joy.' Readers don't laugh. But I came up with this one night recently when I was travelling in a train. I tossed and turned, not being able to sleep, upset over unexplainable things and frustrated over events not in my control. Then it occurred to me that our life and its usefulness depends on our decisions -- whether to remain a crawling caterpillar whose existence otherwise is either ignored by all and sundry or who is cursed for just being there and thrown out with a stick, or to develop wings of life and metamorphose into a beautiful butterfly whom everybody adores for its beauty and colour, for its flitting liveliness, for its service to the flower's pollination... I thought that I should be a butterfly, of service to others, but then again I thought, anyway, who really cares? 
8 comments
Read more

Parents extraordinaire

My friend told me a story today while we were travelling in bus. It made me think of human emotions and the ways they are manifested in relationships. On Monday, my friend got into her bus as usual and sat on a vacant seat near an old man. He was bent with age, possibly carrying the life's burden. After a while, he started talking to her, asking about the time and her destination. When the city bus stand came near, he said he had to go to Sayyaji Rao Road to buy dosa, come back near Town Hall to buy churumuri and go somewhere else for some other eatable. She just nodded thinking why he was telling her all this. He then said it was all for his son. My friend asked him what work does his son do, to which he replied 'nothing.' He is well-educated, with good computer knowledge and intelligence enough to work. But he never steps out of his house and this aged dad works for a living, not only looking after his grown son but also cooking for him and lovingly serv...
3 comments
Read more

Two separate questions

Guess I am out of touch with everything right now, so no blog entry for many days. From many days, a question is bothering me. I haven't found a satisfactory answer yet. So I'll write it down here. Maybe anybody who reads this may know the answer. "Just because we are journalists, writers, opinion creators and thinkers, do we have the right to judge others? Either personally or professionally?" I think we don't have the right to judge a person, even if we are right. But as writers, we would have to judge others whether we like it or not. And it's very difficult forcing people to think, but that's what we are doing or pretending to be doing right? Another question: "How come life is so simple if you just let it live by itself without bothering much and so complicated if you try to manipulate it or even understand it?" Blessed are the ignorant. We who can understand everything, try not to let anything go by without understanding and thus miss the b...
4 comments
Read more