When they do make their presence felt it is either as unwitting participants in some plot hatched by one of the women or as guardians of the family name. Women justify their existence by decking themselves daily in expensive sarees and jewellery, adoring their foreheads with sindoor and trying to outwit each other to best of their abilities. All that they have to show by way of a life beyond the four walls of domesticity is an apology of a dance school for one of the senior bahus, coming rather late in the day in any case. Incidentally, it is the offshoot of one of the many plots and just opens up a Pandora s box in as much as it offers endless scope for more intrigue. When it comes to the question of khandan s pratishtha, men are the unequivocal wielders of authority.
All hell breaks lose when one of the numerous cousins is found to be pregnant before marriage.
That her future is in jeopardy, the tremendous turmoil she herself must be going through, is least of anyone s concern. All the mayhem is about the family name, izzat , that is at stake. Not surprisingly, no one in the family seems to have any independent existence of any sort least of all the women who exist simply as appendages to the men. Privacy being a concept that is alien to such households, you cannot be blamed for confusing one son with the other or mistaking one cousin for the other. Doors are always open not only to each other s room but also to each other s life making way for easy interference.