Darlings of Earth...!!

Re-blogged from my post published in 'Darlings of Venus'.


What comes in your mind when in you hear the below mentioned incidents? Like when we hear any crime news  in some 'breaking news' channel, most of us has somewhere in our mind that it doesn't happens in our social circle. Read this:

Incident 1: A mother who delivered her baby 7 months back and has been working in a MNC prior to her delivery has to stay back at her parents' house. Her husband has visited her only twice and MIL once post delivery even if the distance between two places is within 30 Kms. All the expenses of delivery and post that is taken care by the parents of the girl as her own salary/savings account is controlled solely by her husband who happens to be a well known orthopaedic surgeon. They made her and her new born feel uncomfortable & unwelcome in all possible ways. Should I have to mention here that new born is a girl!!!

Incident 2: A single mother who works in a bank is beaten black & blue by her brother. He along with his family members justifies this action as an action he did to discipline (!!) his sister. As per him just because she is earning and has 'no man' in her life to control her therefore he obliged to volunteer for taking up the task of controlling her.

Incident 3: A hearing-speech impaired girl is married off to some person (hiding the truth) by her family members. Obviously they find out & send back the girl to her parent's place while she was pregnant. Her husband was furious that girl's parents have fooled him by passing on a 'defective piece'. Her kid was born at her parent's place and she takes care of her baby whole day. After 3 years, husband comes back and offers to take her back. However he seems not interested in taking responsibility of the kid. Her parents again bundle her up with him and keep the kid with them. They are happy now that their girl is 'accepted' by her husband but completely ignore the pitiable mental condition of the girl who was estranged from her 3 year old.

I am not reading out any newspaper to you. I know all these families and couple of them are even so-called 'well educated'. They stay in this millennium city in up market areas. But how that education or their residential location does make any difference to their Neanderthal mindset and thought process. The XX chromosome is always unwelcome in their families. They want the wholesome control on the women folk of their life. This baton of control is passed on to another man by the institution called 'marriage'. Since childhood she is conditioned to surrender her lever of control to the man of her life...it can be grandfather, father, brother, husband,FIL, BIL, son. Independent thinking, decision making, taking control of her own life are considered a sin for her. Her conditioning make her believe that she is ought to be treated this way and thus even a women also reinforces this biased fact to her children.

While the hate groups of Amir Khan increases manifold after he took up to discuss sensitive topics through 'Satyamev Jayate', can we still choose to behave like 'ostriches in storm'. Amir is not showing something new or bizarre, these are naked truth which lies beneath the various layers of our society. As an individual, we can stand against any discrimination by passing on the right mindset to at least one person or make a difference to at least one life around us. I start this trend by bringing up my daughter with right attitude and groom her to become an independent individual devoid of any gender stereotype...What about you??

Looking forward for that day when all "Darlings of Venus" would also become "Darlings of Earth" in true sense :-D

Let's talk...

We as a nation love to talk, chat, discuss, debate about any issue under the sun....and mind it without being a part of the solution of course!!. I read an update in FB by some person after the third episode of Satyamev Jayate was aired which states that Amir Khan should have spent more episodes on each issue....only 1.5 hrs is not enough to discuss such serious topics. I just fret....why we want to discuss more?? How would that have helped more if Amir had covered these social evils like female foeticide, child sex abuse, dowry spread across tons of episode?

Then there are these bunch of cynics who frown since the first episode. There are so many craps crabs around. They shout over the top of their voice against this 'push -button activism'. They tweet, update, blog, speak how Amir Khan is trying to hog the limelight by pulling the strained nerves of common man...yes saying this strangely  they accept the existence of these 'strained nerves'. I was never an ardent fan of Amir Khan , but liked him as a performer .....(I must admit however corny it may sound but I had been a huge fan of SRK for many years and still have some soft corner in my 'Dil' for him !!!). But personally I like the initiative & research done by Amir Khan to construct this show. Even if he is trying to grab the attention but still I prefer his choice of work to do that is better than some Yoga- guru who keeps on oscillating between Pranayama-politics-black money. Amir is doing a fairly decent job by making people go through those issues which we are aware of but always prefer to keep them in back-burner. 

When this show took up the issue of female foeticide or child sex abuse it did not show something which we never knew but have a 'hush-hush' mindset about it.

After crabs, there are ostriches who live in their rosy world and keep on saying "Arre Amir kitna gandh dikha raha hai!!!( what crap Amir is showing!!)". This species did not welcome this concept of reality shown on TV...they prefer scripted Rakhi Ka Swayambar or Bigg Boss more!!!

Third episode Amir took up 'Dowry'....quite a balanced episode where he not only showed perils of this evil but also other crooked customs born due to it like 'Pakrauwa Vyah (kidnapped marriage)'. As per me dowry is an evil which has taken many lives till now and is the mother of 'female foeticide'. 

So, in a way this show is conducting a crash course on the so called 'Gandh' of our society which has engulfed our society & lives like termites.....The whole syllabus is far more ugly but the need of the hour is requesting us to attend at least the crash course which covers the important points for final examinations.

Crushed Petals....

Fear, guilt, anger, frustration, pain, hate and above all helplessness....these assorted and jumbled feelings numbed their existence. In some cases, multiple times, repeatedly they went through the trauma. Devastated & shattered they suffered those nightmares alone.

'Satyamev Jayate' gave few of them a chance to open up their heart. The show startled many of us by highlighting the huge percentage of Child sex abuse victims. Yes, in India, almost every second child unfortunately goes through this trauma.

That day I heard somewhere which was quoted on a funny note "We are descendants of monkeys....but the problem is that still we have not stopped descending!!". On a serious tone this is so true...those pedophiles have descended far below the human level.....just that these sickos roam around freely in our society in the garb of a human face. SMJ tried to negate many myths involving CSA. Those who are in blog world might have already been aware of the facts behind these CSA myths through well penned posts during CSA Awareness Month. But for rest of the people it was indeed an eye-opener. I am sure there would be many parents who are not comfortable with 'sex education' of their kids must have been  shuddered with the horrifying tales of the victims in that show.

We need to understand that nor are the CSA victims from any different world neither the abusers. Here at this platform now I can also admit being a CSA victim once. I was never able to muster the courage to tell anyone about it that time. But why?...I shared a very open relationship with my parents especially with my dad. Even then I never opened up with him about this matter. I gave subtle hints but they went unnoticed. So, you see it is not only healthy & open relationship with your kids that would help but you have to be observant about their  body language & changed patterns of behaviour as well. Communicate, be aware & come out of your shell of ignorance. Those scars maul the soul of the child which they carry throughout their life...I might have escaped with a bruise but everyone is not so lucky. However memories of those incidents still leaves sour taste in my persona. 

Today SG told me that they were discussing episodes of SMJ in his office when one of his colleagues said that  "Man, What this Amir Khan is serving as Sunday Brunch, they are showing too much reality, It is so depressing. These cases are only there in newspapers...He could have chosen some other theme for his show". Poor man, I think his taste of reality show is limited only to Big Boss or Splitsvilla!! This mindset of 'ostrich in the storm' would only keep up the spirit of heinous monsters. We can always be in our La-la land and believe that it can never happen to our kids but would that make the issue disappear!! 

One very important quote mentioned in the show was "Respect the behaviour, not the age". This can be quite a controversial statement in reference our Indian Culture. But I  personally support its validity.

But the most important point which was raised  in SMJ was that CSA should be considered as a crime and strict laws should be there to punish those pedophiles. Whoa!!!...can you believe that it is still not there in our law books and this bill is yet pending ( lying in dust) in Rajyasabha.

I can continue to pour my disgust on this issue endlessly but ending here quoting Amir Khan:

I’d like to leave you with a thought: perhaps the more closed or narrow minded we are about sexuality, the more repressed it gets, and then it manifests itself in ugly ways. I’m hoping that as a society in time we will reach a stage where we are not frightened of our sexuality. Rather, we learn to deal with it in a dignified, open, responsible and healthy manner.

Amir Khan conducted this workshop in the show and it is developed by Dr. Bhushan Shukla

O ri Chirraiyya .....

The show 'Satyamev Jayate' ended with this heart-wrenching song. I sat there gaping the TV set moist-eyed. How can people stoop so low and act inhumane? How can a grand-mom try to kill her infant grand-daughters? People lose their sanity to pacify their crazy want for 'boy'.......No, they are no aliens, they are someone amongst us. We cannot save our skin saying that this does not happens in our family. We have to be the part of the change......and change starts at home. 

Amir Khan meticulously sailed us through the episode and explained many points & facts in a simple language like it is the father and not mother who is responsible for the gender of the child, what is a sex ratio of 914 : 1000 actually means, etc. so that the message reaches every strata of society. He highlighted the myth that this crime is rampant only in remote rural India. When a lady who is doctor by profession narrated her horrendous story which involves active participation in crime by her medico husband, parent in-laws who were in teaching profession and other highly qualified family members sent shivers down my spine. I felt pity on our judicial system when a lawyer narrated the apathetic and insensitive way of the judge who handled one the female foeticide cases and the way even after seven years nothing happened to the exposed doctors openly conducting illegal female -foeticide. 

I really like the way this show brought up the fact that multiple crimes like human trafficking, gang-rape or eve-teasing are all inter-related with female foeticide.But, somewhere I feel that only curbing female-foeticide with iron hands won't help......might be that way more and more baby girls would be abandoned or killed as they still remain 'unwanted' by their family.  So, we have to dig the question "Why they want a boy" at first place.

A son is essential to carry forward one's 'vansh'. 

Girls are always 'Paraya Dhan'. Also, so much real-time 'dhan(money)' is required to get married this 'Paraya dhan' that people are scared to have daughters. You see, how another monster 'dowry' comfortable popped here unnoticed!!

A son would take care of his parents in old -age. Why can't a daughter take care of her parents like a son??

There might be many more reasoning going on in those people's minds who transforms into cruel cannibals for the want of a male heir.  So this issue needs to be addressed first and then other would follow eventually.

This show also highlighted the people who showed enough courage to initiate the change. We saw an illiterate vegetable vendor voiced her liking for a daughter while many highly-qualified and so called educated lot rubbed their grey cells to device more cruel way to kill unborn girls. Contrary to the common belief it is not always men who danced in this death carnival but are equally supported by female counterparts. I loved the sensible way this show was conducted and appreciate the research done to air this episode.

Being a optimist, I just hope that this show strikes the right chord in the mind of these diseased people and brings in the required change in their mindset and thought process.