Raani hooN Ghar ki.....

I am a diehard Hindi Cinema fan. All the melody in my life comes from Hindi film songs. I think these songs take a lot of  stress off my heart and mind, and help me unwind
Grinding, cleaning and cooking become so much more refreshing as I "sing them away" .....
It is therefore no wonder that humming comes to me naturally when I am in the kitchen.

This morning it was a 1972 song that gave me Kitchen-company .
This simple and sweet song , has been very popular in its time. It is now apparently lost , but I am sure still it puts into words the dreams of every girl.
"Mere piya ka ghar hai ye , Raani hoon main, Raani hoon ghar ki...."
How comforting. And so ultimately romantic.

The house where I am no less than an Empress and where I rule, is my Paradise on this Planet.
And so it should be
Every woman's home to her should be no less than a Paradise on this Planet.

Then why do so many women and girls have to go out of their Kingdoms to slave and slog  ?

This was not a lonely thought though.
It came with a stream of mind-boggling  memories ... some recent, some old, but all entwined into one another.

Silently and slowly Times change, circumstances and lifestyles also change as people transcend from one decade to another, from one Century to another .......

My mother used to teach in the school where my siblings and I studied. But after my sister's illness, which lasted some months, Mummy left the job. Though my sister got well eventually and went back to school, Mummy never went back to that or any other job. 

Waise bhi she was teaching because she loved children and books 

Fortunately she was not working for a living.
My father earned enough to look after our needs and also often helped other needy people, of which I got to know only after I had grown up.

In college I heard friends talking about their future in the banking sector or some good corporate office while I seemed to have had no fears about what future had in store for me 

I had never planned to work in an office or anywhere else 

After all what are husbands for ? 

Shouldn't they be working to provide a decent life to their families ?

Fast forward to the present.
Everyone ... girl , boy , man , woman ... seeks job-oriented education.

"What do you do?" , the silliest ever question asked of a housewife / home maker , is ironically the first question one expects to face on meeting someone for the first time.

And so I found myself wondering if it is really so important for women to go out of the comfort and safety of a decent house and through all the grind of a ride in tiresome crowded public transport, most often under the prying male eyes that measure you from head to toe ?

Yeah ... The answer comes when I sit by myself at home or in public places , I see women , some who I can even hear because I have met more like them 

They tell me of the daily ordeal they put up with ...

A voice I had heard some weeks ago of the woman narrating her endless suffering tackling a drunk husband who has no fixed job.

And how she endures his physical and verbal assaults 

And then another one comes across, saddened by circumstances , yet brave , also due to circumstances 
"My mother-in-law says I've not brought enough dowry. She does not even let me stay in the house with my husband. And my husband is helpless ... he cannot defend me in front of his mother ... "

She said she stays with her mother at the mercy of her brothers, and although the mother also works, these women have no power to spend the money they earn or to live a life of their choice

Then there were those two large eyes staring at me ... 
They were indifferent to the world , but not to the pain in life ...
This brave woman was fighting it out with her own brother who had disowned their mother and slapped a legal case on her.
Middle class family.
Graduate ... or may be less ... I am not sure. 

After crying her heart out , she has now wiped out every trace of tears from her attractive face and went out of the house for the first time to seek a job.
She now works in a hospital .

And before I could do something about those eyes, there arose another face ... innocent, tormented and yet masking a lot of what the heart had gone through. This charming , young , well educated  woman , has a good job , a good house , fashionable branded clothes and accessories ... and her own car too.
She is modern. 
She had married the man of her choice. Very well-placed family.
Very socially and religiously aware

She is going through her divorce proceedings as I write all this 
I was on phone with her the other day when she blurted out with much anguish :
"Nothing changes with women and girls. We all have the same life. Can you believe I'm not much different from our maids ... or that girl fighting a court case ... the only difference perhaps is that I can speak good English , I wear expensive clothes , I can afford a good lawyer , and a lot of other things that money can buy ...."

These are just four instances from among countless such unjust happenings around us.

I feel so distraught.
Women are being judged.
They are being told how to dress up in public
They are being given a list of "Do-s and Don't-s" ...

It is being implied that they stay at home.  At the slightest pretext their characters come under the scanner.

And yet they have to go out and slave and slog

They are now convinced that this is their only way out of all the misery that is inflicted upon them in the name of family tradition , values and honour

So who has pushed them to the wall so much that that instead of getting suffocated and squeezed they have chosen to push back , turn around , and run out ...

Who took away their right to live a decent life of peace and love inside the four walls of their own home ? 

Who is making it difficult for them outside?

Who is making their Paradise a Hell for them ?