The anatomy of change in India is very interesting. You need to speak up for change. But boys are taught that anger is the only acceptable emotion for their gender, while for girls, tears are said to be the only way for them to express their woes.
Thanks to changing times, we have an entire generation working towards blurring the lines between genders, trying to get in touch with their emotions and working on themselves to break these barriers for each other.
Resistance against age old practices come with a certain amount of awareness. And anger towards the older generation for wanting to continue with those baseless traditions.
This awareness, however, isn't directly proportional to education. The norm of higher the education, higher the dowry demand goes; is proof in itself of that.
Here, there is a code you need to follow for any kind of change.
1) Do not question the elders
No matter what they say , no matter how insulting they sound, DO. NOT. SAY. ANYTHING. HUSH! He may be the uncle who always has a quick insult for you ready under his sleeve, she may be the relative asking inappropriate questions about things that do not concern her. Do not react, unless you want to listen to an emotional monologue about "what a hopeless generation this is!" - because irrespective of whether you made sense or not, that is going to haunt you for the rest of your living life. Respect age, not behaviour.
2) List of people you may 'impose' your rules upon , without explanation
*information courtesy: sexagenarians
- Those younger to you
- Smaller to you in status
- Lesser to you in educational qualification
- 'Spare the stick, spoil the child' - toddlers ofcourse!
3) Gender rules
If you are a woman , stay silent. Do not speak up. Smile and make your point. Do that repeatedly , if it doesn't work the first time. You may cry, if you get frustrated. Please don't cry more often than the eldest person in the crowd deems to be necessary, because then, you will be called 'too sensitive, 'too weak''- and your whole argument, however logical, will definitely go to waste. Discuss- only if you can't bring yourself to be silent any more. Someday , if and when we find it convenient, we may make minor adjustments for you in a way that doesn't affect us .
Every kind of change comes with some amount of anger at the way things are at present. Does suppressing this anger really help anybody? Are we really as helpless as we think of ourselves to be?
Women are killed in the name of dowry. Yet, we continue to get married covered in gold, and the woman and the man getting married say nothing. Because it's their parents' prestige at stake? We know full well that there's nothing prestigious about the whole system, and no marriage is going to survive because of just that.
We also know that it's ridiculous that parents continue to take decisions for their adult children. For, do these parents know these children well enough to do that? No. Then why do we let it happen? Is there an age cut-off, when it's ok to tell the parents or relatives that you can take major decisions on your own, thank you..? 28? 33? 35? Or never? Since when did becoming a good son or daughter mean giving somebody else the strings to your life? 'Your' life. 'My' life . Those words mean something. When do we plan to really start owning up to our own lives?
Communication has come such a long way, thanks to technology. Inspite of that, even today, disagreements between countries are evened out through war. The man who destroys the most , wins. This is the logic that people who rule the world go by. They don't care about the civilians suffering, as far they win. Hasn't this become the crux of everything today? No matter if what's happening is right or wrong, as far as the person who is imposing the rules wins- no matter who suffers, it's all ok in the end.
The people of the younger generation have turned into hapless victims of these stubborn, age old rules, torn between the choice of being submissive to keep everybody comfortable , and raising their voice for things that they evidently know to be right, only to be guilt- tripped into being called disrespectful, with a generous topping of 'after all that we have done for you, this is what we hear.' .
Mental health diseases are on the rise. According to WHO, 56 million Indians suffer from depression and 38 million suffer from some kind of anxiety disorder.
At the professional front, every single person is a part of some or the other rat race. At the personal front, nobody is ok. Majority of us, suffer in silence.
The present system is helping noone.
Should we continue to stay disconnected from what we really believe to be right , to satiate somebody else's skewed idea of life; or do we finally acknowledge the fact that we have already crumbled into a million pieces around us, and begin to build a life from scratch, where we are true to ourselves, even if that means beginning to create change within the very walls that we grew up in?
