From: axs2776@usl.edu (Subramanyam Arunkumar)
Subject: About women.
Organization: University of Southwestern Louisiana
Distribution: soc.culture.indian
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 20:41:15 GMT

Hi Netters,

This's an incident a few years old yet the its impact on me is 
everlasting.

My neighbour was a sales executive and was always on the move.
His wife was pregnant for the first time and naturally there
was much anxiety in them. One fine night the woman developed
labor pains but was too innocent to know that it was the labour
pains. She mistook it for ordinary stomach upset and treated
herself for a gulkhand. But at midnight, she realised it was
ofcourse the arrival of the baby and she was too late for the
hospital. Her husband being out of town, her mother-in-law
was nothing but a bundle of confusion. My mother was asked to
help them in the process and she took me too! It was perhaps
the first time in my life that I was witnessing something
beyond my imagination. I had read, heard about the child birth
being compared to 'shitting a melon', 'trying to cover the face
by stretching the lower lip'. Child birth is something that I
cannot describe, it's something like a blind describing Taj Mahal.
Anyway, the point is that I was there through the whole procedure
and was moved.

A child is perhaps the best gift a woman can give a man. They go to
the extent of risking their lives to bring another life to existence!
It is simply unbelievable that they do it so gracefully, sometimes
not even paying much importance to their sacrifice. The pain, the
agony, the anxiety and the tension they undergo, only a woman can
explain and maybe we guys can never appreciate the facts. That night
I realised the true value of motherhood. Now I am grateful to my mother
for bringing me to the earth. I know there is no way that I can show
her my gratitude, she simply doesn't expect it from me. For her,
it was something natural and so it is for many women. Yet, only we can
know that if we are something today, it is because sometime back someone
went through hell, fought with pain, risked her life and made us breathe.
We say that if a person does things for others without expecting anything
out of it, that person deserves to be worshipped. I am sure no mother ever
expected something from her child before it was born. Dont you think mothers
must be worshipped ?

Manu, way back in history, said that
	" Yatra naree poojyathe tatra yewa dharmah..."
(Where women are worshipped, dharma thriumps there, in simple words).
When we worship our mothers, why cant we worship women in general ? It was
a woman who gave us birth, it will be another woman who will be with us
for the rest of our lives. In fact, a man's life circles around a woman.
We want nurses to be kind to us, we want air-hostesses to be smiling to us,
yet we want to call them 'bitches'. Funny, isn't it ?

But what we are doing down in India is worse than anything on this earth.
We burn brides for money. We sell women for money. We force them to
prostitution and later ostracise them. The funniest part of the dowry
marriages is that we pay for something we buy, here we pay and give
a girl in addition. This thing 'dowry' can be as small as a camel exchanged
in the Rajasthani thanda or as big as a few diamonds exchanged among 
Gujurathi families. What respect the husband can expect from his wife
after taking dowry from her folks. So, the simple solution is to burn
her. And yes, there'll another innocent life waiting to be pulled into
the circle. Your bride comes to you with so many hopes, dreams and
expectations. Dont burn her, if you cant give her a decent life. Maybe
she's capable enough to live on her own. She too is a human being, she
too has a mind, a heart and everything that you have for your life. Why
dont you realise that it is a life that we are talking about and just
not a 'thing' that you got recently.

It is disgusting to learn that women are being sold like articles. We
hated to read in history that slaves were sold once upon a time. This
is worse than that, we are still practising the tradition and to add to
it, we are selling young and innocent girls. Is it because they cant
rebel or is it because they can fetch more money ? Maybe both. Her
mother didn't create her for the sake of money, then how can we do it ?
It is we who are making prostitutes for our own needs. No one was born
as a prostitute. We created them for our queer and vague tastes and now
they are kept away from the society. We also see to it that she never
gets a chance to liberate. If by chance a man wants to give a decent
life to one such downtrodden, he is made repent for all his deeds and
result ? The girl returns to her old trade. Next time she'll never do 
the mistake of dreaming of a normal life. So, we have a very good system
that neatly kills her dreams and keeps her in her place.

So, guys, women are different. Never underestimate their good deeds. we
are yet to find out a way to say 'Thank you' for whatever we have received
from them. By treating them as human beings, you are respecting them.
Just think of the fact that your mother never created a fuss about
the trouble she took when you were born. We may never be able to
do something that is as great as giving birth to a child. They do it
for us, so why dont we be kind to them ? You may start by stopping
calling a woman a 'bitch'. So, next time you want to yell at a girl
'BITCH', STOP and think. She has all the reasons to call you a SOB.

Some of you may want to call me a feminist. You got to be something, right ?
I am atleast a feminist.



My organisation has nothing to do with my opinions, they are solely mine.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian