HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH FOR WOMEN?

"It all started,when she was given a cell phone,my father thought it was good for her to have a college degree,though my grand parents persisted my father to get her married off,after school" - says, Kausalya's brother, as he is interviewed by a documentary filmmaker on the eve of judgement in famous kausalya shanker honour killing case, that rocked the state in 2016. ('Honour killing' is a practice where a family,intentionally kills their own child,mostly daughter to have brought 'dishonour' on the family). kausalya's parents and family members, who were initially convicted for conspiring to murder kausalya's husband Shankar, who belonged to a different community,were later released on the grounds of, lack of evidence.

To those who followed the case closely,the facts of the matter are Caste atrocities in this country, dalit oppression, Justice for kausalya and so on. But,amidst all the unprecedented media attention this case had gathered,what fascinated me is how the family viewed Kausalya before she chose to marry Shanker. The statement - it all started after she was sent to college,and was given a cellphone,was unremitting inside my head,as though I wanted to get inside his brain and understand his beliefs and motivations behind that statement and free myself of this conundrum.

THE WALL

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Imagine,there is an INVISIBLE WALL, and what could this wall possibly symbolize ?

Kausalya's world is bound by this wall,nobody comes in,nothing goes out. At times, she tries to cross the wall,you know it may have all started with college,what if learning had expanded her world view? How dare right? Women are not evolutionary human beings after all,they simply existed since millennia for the sake of having to exist! But then Kausalya tries to cross the Wall,remember what cell phones could do to women?

To break the rules, is to risk the wall collapsing. Now,every power behind the wall comes together to stop her, because if you let her cross the wall,then a group of identical kausalya's may follow her, to know who built the wall? why? And what would the world look like, if the wall didn't exist? If The Wall is your pursuit,then the question is how far a woman can go,until she comes across that wall, and how much is she allowed, to seek about the wall?

It got me thinking,how far can an ordinary woman given her circumstances,in all walks of life are allowed to ask for, to achieve the sense of purpose she has set for herself?

How much,is too much for women,who are constantly in battle with themselves and the world? The idea of FEMINISM as a philosophy is been tiring. It is easier for a man to add his voice to the feminist narrative,than to give up his privilege. And today words like EQUALITY AND FEMINISM are content for memes ,and every other girl you meet is suspected to be a FAKE FEMINIST! she's complaining about nothing,and has grudges about 'bad' men. In a patriarch's world ,"these women" are the problem, apparently their opinions are not genuine enough. A woman scientist in a saree, seen inside an ISRO satellite control room is perceived as empowerment (rightly so),but a young girl who openly talks about her sexuality in a YouTube video receives waves of abuses and is mercilessly trolled and slut shamed. Women at large are conditioned from day one, to pass the test of "Ideal women" at cost of anything. What convinces the collective imagination of society, is viewed as EMPOWERMENT, but anything that slightly causes discomfort, will be labelled as the enemy of empowerment by majority!

In today's world what a woman can ask for, has a 'Measurement problem'.

How much is too much?

It's easy to measure whether men and women are receiving same kind of education.It's also easy to calculate whether men and women are paid equally at work, all you need is a basic statistical graph.

But how do you measure Struggles and Oppression? How do you measure the day to day anxieties of ordinary women in a toxic masculine world? If a family has a liberal view towards son's decisions, than to her daughters, is it because she is a woman or because her judgments were flawed on merit? How did we get here? why are basic mundane things in life,like consent,respect and decision making made harder for a particular gender?

Across cities and small towns women have personal and professional aspirations as men,but as both of them climb up the hierarchies of life,hand full of women make it to the top and the other 'missing women' are never spoken of, and the bright young girls who started of with gleaming dreams,are trapped into the vicious cycle of what is asked for and what is received. The majority of women,devoid of opportunities melt deep into the walls of kitchen,never to be seen again..

In this tricky life of Unlearning things, that have been imposed on us for decades, is a journey in itself. In this hard business of changing people's perception and brains for better, it is important to acknowledge the choices women in our lives make,both big and small. To men, be an ally and to women, never say its over.

In the end, THE INVISIBLE WALL continued to stand tall, but the wall which was previously unshaken, started to feel cracks from within,and it quietly sang a song of farewell -

BRICK BY BRICK I MAY FALL,

LIKE THERE WAS NEVER AN INVISIBLE WALL....