Sunder Susheel and Sanskaari and then the Starks

She was given a lecture by all the ladies in the house, the nearest and the extended, she was way past the marriage date, even her expiry date had come and gone. So Fatima, Fatso to the world was told to be sunder, susheel and sanskaari and bend herself backwards to finally snare her mian ji and get herself nikhaoed as soon as possible. The list of recommendations and advice that had been given to her made her head go round .Her phuphijaan told her, if she just grew her hair and did a bun and used a bit of mehendi to color the stubborn grey, it would look like a streak, and the other one, told her if she wore a nose –pin her funny weird nose would get disguised.

The list enumerated from top to bottom, but she wondered who was going to explain gravity had happened, some things were sagging and some were just growing in relation to them. Hair grew in all sorts of places where it wasn’t supposed to be, and where it was meant to it was thinning! In fact, all she knew was age was happening to her, she was comfortable in her skin but this whole clan of her bibiyan had nothing better to do than dissect her as she was the last unmarried Dodo in the Niazi Khandaan.

People only settled down in graveyards, otherwise they kept on floating around as ghostly apparitions living a life pleasing others. Right now, she had been tweezed, plucked, waxed, and buffed more than she had been in her entire life and she swore she fell lighter, and all the hair had disappeared leaving her so shiny and soft she swore Alam would slide off her like a heated butter knife on the butter cake.
Oh My God, she and her horrible pj’s! She sat giggling what did they all want? Did they suddenly want her to be the susheel, sundar, and sanskaari, shy bharatiya naari so that the guy would look at her and swoon and start singing a song? And, suppose they were not compatible?  If he didn’t know how to kiss and that handle bar moustache got into the way? What was she to do? Twirl it ? and say aao ji …

Why did the autocratic Niazi khandaan not move with the times? Why were girls allowed to study and have the requisite degree and not allowed to practice and actually have a life?

Uff, this new bra strap was also digging in, Fatso knew nothing would change; she would have to give in and meet Alam. She had no excuse now; Abbaji had let her work for two years as she had asked for thinking that two years was a long time. She had finished her masters; she had worked for two years and evaded marriage for the last decade it seems.

But, now they wanted her to revert to being a sunder susheel, nirma ad wali ladki.

Sitting in the room, waiting for to be called to bring in the chai and samosas and serve it to the Sultan family was just a formality. She was nervous, tensed and angry that just because society dictated she had to marry! Why couldn’t she live like Peter Pan  in Never Never land?

In the end it all boiled down to books coffee , chocolate and the occasional kebab !

Aaiji , she said .

Now , she knew what it meant to be a sacrificial lamb, in her case it was the slightly over weight strap biting gravity affected Dodo !She walked in  balancing the tray with samosas and the plates as if she was a contestant in the Ms Fine Poise ! The guy who was in front of her looked normal , just like she was , he looked bored , had grey specks in his hair and he also looked as if he wished he was anywhere but here . She said hello , and he replied as if in a trance , winter is here .

That settled it . Someone who knew the Starks and the show wouldn’t be half bad and that moustache well it could always have an accident .

Fatima , gave her best smile and said yes, sixteen more days to go .

The Change ..

The last week has been as been one of the most satisfying in my career as a stop gap teacher, mentor to a motley crew of children who come every day to teach me about life, how to live with nothing and to not have any expectation from anyone or anything. It seems like an exaggeration but it’s not. I am most passionate about giving these young girls a voice, so they can be heard and can stand up for themselves with logic and reasoning, of course. So, I had given them a topic where the boys had to prove why they were superior to girls and girls had to tell why girls were better than boys and could match them in every area.

Two children surprised me, made me happier and contented that what I am doing is right. A young girl, Anjali daughter of a single mother who is working as a maid said that” girls were not made to study as they were just going to become a house wife but now the world is changing. A girl is a mother, a wife, a housewife and she plays an important role in our life. She also says we saw the film Dangal and it is all about the determination of two girls. Her last line is change your thinking to develop the country.

Then another boy Anmol says girls and boys are the same, no body is better or less than the other it is only our thinking that is old that girls can’t do any thing. They can do and they are doing. He also further says that girls do a lot of things and they do for all but boys only do for their own purpose.

This is the future of India. It is not you and I sitting in air-conditioned rooms discussing the world and the Kardashians and actually following more people on Snap chat than knowing their own family!

Modiji and his acche din will come, they are around the corner it is not based on the hierarchical obsessed Congress wallahs or the Maha gandhbandhan or the BJP. It all depends upon changing the thinking, we all need to get rid of our jaded, old fashioned thought process that belittles girls and is so quick to blame the girl child for all the ill will and evil of the society.

No one is going to come and change the society , we the common folks are going to bring in the change , and it starts from within, and from influencing people around you . None comes from anywhere to corrupt your mind, its what we are fed with the constant virtual social media that we start to show traits of bigotry, close-minded, racism. A great way to begin the change is please by boycotting the matrimonial pages that reminds me of a cattle fair where words like high caste, fair skinned, tall, high east –west values are used to extoll the girls virtues. These are the few adjectives that are used to sell a girl in the marriage mart. A girl might be anything but in the end all that it boils down is getting the right match.

I wonder, if the heavens would part if she didn’t marry and didn’t go down the trodden path. We, all need to change our thinking in reality, practice and stand up for our children to save the next generation to begin the change. The onus lies in us the 40 something brigade .

And, we are old and young at the same time ..

Sarita and hindi medium

Sarita is a young girl of 10 years who studies in a private school that have mushroomed allover Punjab promising better education and the prizes’t of all-English spoken better than the natives! She is a daughter of a so-called Doctor in my village and hence has a better and higher social standing than the rest of the children who attend an evening school that I have been running for a few years. This school apart from trying to teach them their regular subjects also tries to give the girls a voice.

In fact, these girls that come from different communities and from various segregated castes (this division exists) have a whisper of a voice. They are always, anemic, have low self-esteem and no confidence and are always fidgety in their behavior. One of the first things I try to ask them is have they eaten food? So they say, yes and hence I try to give them a voice to speak loudly and to be heard. These male-centric states are trying to change but we fail, and we fail miserably.

So, this chit of a girl, who you would not even glance at, came for class to study with us.

She needs no extra classes, is well read and is one of the sharpest kids that I have come across and just wanted to be with us to imbibe the class that is one step more than rote learning.

And, she became a regular. She surprised me with her attentiveness and her work. Last week, we were talking about Nirbahaya rape case and the consequences and then the conversation went to mother’s day and the importance of being a woman. She kept on listening.

I spoke a favorite quote of mine from Dr Seuss; you have to be odd to be number one. I wanted them to be comfortable in their skin, to be confident about themselves, to be proud and most importantly not to hide themselves just because the system is so screwed up and always is out to lay the blame the girl that she was seeking attention by dressing up or calling upon male admiration.

Sarita studied for one week and I started building a dream of her studying with me, and then college and the civil services and then to become a judge. She wants to be a judge to change the law and make a difference to amend laws to change the society for women. One week hence, she stopped coming to school, as her father didn’t want her fratenisizing with the kids of the other communities and who were studying in government school.

Hindi Medium is a movie that just got released over the weekend and it was a well conceptualized film with a hard hitting message that shows how shallow and driven we have become to school our children so that they are acceptable in this fake society that has become a wrapped up in false values. Today, a measure of one’s success is when we can, talk, walk and even sleep English, a society that places values that are so western and alien to our structure raising confused individuals that are neither here nor there.

This division and drive to educate children in English schools has infiltrated in our villages where they just learn by rote and are left at a juncture caught between the rural and urban divide.

My little Judge girl was snapped away by her father who didn’t want her to study with the Punjabi medium children. She showed grit and character that is so within us and just needs to be kindled by defying her father and coming to school yesterday. I asked her, how did she do this. Her answer was simple and to the point, she said her grandparents brought him up and he has risen to become a compounder and they were illiterate. So, as they are educated, she could become a better person even here amongst her kind.

We, all have wings; it’s a question when we want to fly and how high. Look behind yourself, you all are 99 percent angel and that one percent devil and we all need that right mix to reach for the skies, but never forget we all come to roost at the same place.