A letter to all

The current activist program undertaken by HT is to be lauded but as always there are buts in every sentence in English. I am a resident of rural Punjab, and I run an evening school for the underprivileged children without any bias. You have to understand here that Punjab has an underlying current of racism, a bomb waiting to explode. Apart from that, we as Punjabis are guilty of bias towards the female child. It runs so deep; it is just in our genes. I see it every day. Boys are preferred because they will till the 2.2-acre that they are going to inherit. They carry on the family name. Who in the world is going to remember your family name after you’re dead, burnt and scattered in the holy river?

Well. It does matter and then we complain of the assault, rape, acid attacks by scorned lovers or boyfriends who wont learn the meaning of No. It’s not going to end by awareness, campaigns, write-ups, or protests. Trust me, every day a mother comes to me, saying please tell my son to go to school, without taking bribe money. In a ratio for 60 to 40, every boy child takes money from his mother to go to school. Boys are given preferential treatment, they are fed milk, bananas, given money, and menus are planned according to him. He gets clothes every year. This is reality.

We need to change this mentality. I have mothers asking me to stop their sons, or not abusing them. And, the abuses are crude, rustic and colorful. They learn this from their fathers; they see their mothers being abused and speak in the same fashion. The social fabric is such, that a woman is expendable, replaceable. A woman who dies, is replaceable a brand new wife, a new mother can be bought, surrogacy, second wives, all are fine. Everywhere, a woman is shown as weak, pliable. The worst is the advertisements, where a woman gets aroused, and is sexually in awe of a man who uses a particular brand of deodorant.

 Sick.

The advert making rounds these days is man marking his territory with a perfume, and warning another man. Is he equating himself to a dog? Are we regressing to thee Stone Age?

Sir, start a campaign to change the woman. She needs empowered, she needs to be instilled with confidence, she needs to know that she has the right to be born, and she needs to be given the boost. Till that doesn’t happen, Sir, we will see more acid burns, critical brides, raped women, burnt, killed for a misguided honor.

If she is born lets save her . I mean , we have the largest numbers of Goddesses we worship , lets atleast pay homage to the living entity . Or , maybe man can wait for a Martian to help him procreate and continue the human race…..

Ravneet Sangha