Durga puja is just about a fortnight away. We are all geared up to welcome the daughter at her parent’s abode, The Earth.
India has been worshiping its daughters for ages, in all forms. Goddess Durga, Laxmi , Saraswati, Sita, Ganga, Yamuna and so on, the list is inexhaustible.
Though the modern day women deny to accept the fact that we really respect the daughters of our society.
Yes they are right.
If you open an epaper (hardly anyone reads newspaper) you will find bunch of news stories about rapes in several parts of the country.
Rape rates are so high that we tend to ignore the cases of eve teasing and abuses.
I personally get really confused.
A person who visits a Durga puja pandal offers his prayer and while leaving touches a fellow women visitor inappropriately.
We as a society feel ashamed of our menstruating daughters. There are societies where people send their menstruating daughters to a remote place for that period leaving them to live in an unhygienic place but its us the same people who celebrate their daughters on attaining puberty.
Someone said, if you educate a man, you educate an individual. But if you educate a woman, you educate a nation. A survey reveals a different story on 2020, India’s male literacy rate is 84.7% whereas female rate is 70.3%. Do you know what is filled in the gap between the literacy rates of two genders? the mind set of our society.
There are mothers who being a daughter herself discriminates her own girl from her son. Its the women who tend to call their unmarried (at marriageable age) daughters as a bad Omen orca burden. Its the same gender that keeps their unmarried daughters away from any auspicious occasions. The funny part is that the same daughter gets back her dignity with the chanting of a few mantras and a couple of rituals involved in marriage ceremonies.
We pray, keep fasts for attaining a life partner like goddess Durga but at the same time we are comfortable taking money and other amenities from her family for our living on marrying one.
The daughter who is taking care of us, the wife who has made a home out of a house becomes inauspicious with the last breath of her husband or with the strike of a pen on the divorce papers. The greed for respect of the men made this gender worse than a villain.
We all came from a woman and will continue to do so until the Artificial Intelligence takes over the process but that woman who is also a daughter was not celebrated on her birth. There are societies where people address their newly born girl child as goddess Laxmi or Saraswati but on the other hand we kill those little Laxmis or Saraswatis even before they arrive on mother Earth.
I have seen daughters who are more caring towards their aged parents than any son.
I have seen my mother who took care of her parents whereas her brothers only did the funeral.
I can’t match my sister, the way she took care of our parents as a daughter.
I may sound sexist but I would love to call her my brother.
In a bit educated society they don’t kill their Laxmis or Sarawatis, they just ignore them.
In an even more educated society if the first child is a girl they just try again. There are instances they are blessed with a son only after a bunch of girls and that son happens to be the worst of the lot. I feel so exhausted by thinking of it, imagine that woman who gave birth.
On a lighter note sometimes I think the men want the daughters too so that they can continue with the exercise with a valid excuse.
I am no one to a give lecture on this topic but I want to give it because there are people who don’t take anything unless given.
If you have a daughter, your last days are secured.
If you have a daughter your home will be blessed in many ways.
If you have a daughter, not only yours but her in-law’s house will be blessed too.
If you have a daughter you are blessed doesn’t matter if she is dark complexioned or menstruating or unmarried or a widow for that matter.
Prenatal sex determination is a crime in India please don’t do that. Take it as a lottery where you are not going to lose any thing. If its a boy you are a winner anyways but if its a girl you have bagged the Jackpot.
Please protect our daughters.
Oh, I just wanted to write Happy Daughter’s Day but ended up with this, sorry.
Text & Photos : ARIJIT SEN
Edited by : RAJASHREE SEN
Photo and Words 