International Women’s Day, and Why I Celebrate Being a Woman

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Come every March 8, and the world celebrates International Women’s Day. And yet every day I feel the pain of women around me, and wonder, if celebrating a day for women is good enough or not.

I don’t believe that this day is for you and me, women with technology within their reach, and money in their savings account. I’d like to believe this day is for my neighbour’s maid’s daughter, who gets beaten by her father everyday, whose cries fill the nights, and I think I saved her life the other day, when I shouted at her father who was about to throw a huge brick at her. This day is also for friend of mine, whose husband thinks that it’s imperative for her to go out and earn, even if it means she drives 25 kilometres to work, and keep her sick two-year old daughter in her office, because she cannot afford to take a leave. I can’t help think about my cousin, she who secretly helps out her parents with her salary, and thinks if her in-laws will come to know of this they will never accept such behaviour, even as they accept their son when he monetarily supports his parents.

Today I am remembering the story of Swati, an educated mother of two beautiful daughters and a teacher; she was molested by her colleagues when she went on an official visit to a rural school. She was drugged, disrobed and molested, and then dropped home. She vaguely remembers what happened to her, but her husband thinks that’s not good enough to register a police case. She was so much traumatised by the event that she started making up stories about it, where fact and fiction often changed sides. Her husband did not listen to her, her parents and brothers thought if they take her home, her husband may not want her back. So they feigned indifference. And then one fine day, she disappeared, just like that. Her husband changed jobs, and shifted to a different city. No one knows where is Swati. This International Women’s Day is for all of you, my friends, who think they have no choice.

You, my friend, you always have a choice, even when you think you don’t. You have a choice of walking out of a bad relationship, even when people will tell you to stick on. You have an alternative of ringing the doorbell, when you hear your next door neighbour beating his wife and daughter, in a drunken stupor. You have the choice of telling your parents that you will not marry a man, if his family asks for a dowry. You always, always have a choice.

My parents raised two girls, thinking that education and moral values build characters. They taught us the power of making a choice; they taught us the strength of taking a decision. You are what you make yourself to be, my father says. Today, I can proudly say, that I don’t need a reserved seat in the bus; I can stand through the entire journey, offering my seat to my elderly neighbour. I did not marry a man because his family asked for dowry, and I am raising a single child, a daughter, because I believe I can teach her the power to create her own destiny. This Women’s Day, I am going to tell her, she is not alone, neither is a burden, and teach her to take decisions, and step into the road less travelled, if that’s her choice. Yes, I think this time I am going to celebrate being a woman, with her.

 

Hello, and thank you. Yes, the photo is of me

 

Thank you Pallavi4me.

 

Glad that you liked my writing, Anisu. Thank you.