Why chose death when we can fight to live?????

“There is no wealth but life”, said John Ruskin.

“So true”, says I.

A couple of days ago, a woman I knew had killed herself by hanging. Sad-it is. But I could not sympathize with her.

Wondering why? I’ll explain.

She left behind two little children (a boy and a girl) who are not aware that their mother has passed away. Kids of age 7 and 4 are too young to realise the effects of a death on people. The little girl is still looking for her mother’s saree pallu to hold on to while she falls asleep. It was a heart-breaking scene to see the sleepy-baby struggling to get out of her aunt’s hold to reach her dead mother’s side. The older boy doesn’t want to look at his mother’s corpse as it did not look like his mother.

How could a mother not think of the lives of her little ones and take such a cowardly decision?
It has come to the open that her life was not a bed of roses, but whose is??? Problems are a major part of anyone’s life, more so for a married woman. I always thought (with no intension to insult/hurt my male friends) that women have more emotional stamina and than men. Although, such suicides make me think again.

For ages women have undergone and survived serious emotional athyachaar from issues like dowry,
abusive husbands and mother-in-laws, etc. But, black-or-blue, they managed to live through it at least for the sake of their children. Even though this girl did fight through certain similar issues, she managed to pull-it-off for almost a decade.

A single moment’s impulse and the loss of common sense resulted with the end of four people’s lives. She is now is peace, but she did manage to take with her - everyone else’s. Unfortunately, no clear reason for the move has been left behind. This has allowed the society to arrive at conclusions which, I am sure, are far more grotesque than she could have had in mind.

‘Angry husband hits and hangs her’

‘Guilty of her fights and actions towards her missing MIL, she hangs’

‘Decides to escape drunken husband’s athyachaar forever’

...so on and so forth.

It would be highly idiotic of me if I said, ‘as a woman, just go through all your troubles silently’. I know that I cannot and I ever-so-certainly will not. But, it is for sure that there is always a better way than suicide. Had she stopped for one second and thought of the reaction her actions would have on her kids, they would still have a mother. A mother is a very important asset to one’s life and those kids have lost it even before they could have a proper taste of it. :(

Whatever said and done, the ones that are at a greater loss are her kids and I cannot bring myself to forgive her for her actions. She was a very strong person and her end at her own hands is such a blow that would take us quite some time to get over.

Till then, with prayers for the well-being of the kids and hopes that no one else I know takes such a futile decision.

God, you were no better too.

     We sat down and spoke our minds to finally reach the topic, ‘Why dint Ram trust Sita?’ (thanks to the advert. of Ramayan serial). My FIL and I were wondering if the older version of Ramayan featured Lav-Kush or if it was in the new one only. We remembered Sita being asked to walk through fire and also the part where she enters the earth after being tired of the insecurity of Ram and injustice of the world. My FIL started explaining that Ram heard a dobhi (washer-man) tell his wife that he ain’t like Ram who will accept his wife even after she’s been in the presence of a stranger for over a year. That was how the world worked it-seems (rolling eyes, I think it still works that way). Ram had to prove to the world that his wife was as PURE as gold and thus had her walk through fire. It was important that people dint talk rubbish (as I put it) and no one bothered about their own trust on the person being blamed.

     My question is - why would Ram have his wife go through hell instead of standing up against the world to support her (they sure say he believed her fidelity)? Shouldn’t he have been the one to set an example to the world that (he obviously knew) was going to worship him?

     It is said that Sita was born as Vedavanti in her past janma and Raavan tried to molest her. Vedavanthi who was undeterred in her thap (thavam) to attain Vishnu was angered by Raavan’s attitude, cursed him saying she would be born again and be the reason for his downfall and walked through fire to escape the mad-man. Jeez! I pity Raavan for being who he has been in both his janmas. Pretty sad huh? Due to the above incident Sita had had to walk through fire so as to quench the anger of Vedavanthi, who was nonetheless but her own self. Pretty cool an explanation for having her walk through fire. Phew…

     It is unfortunate that this piece of news is not widely known. Whenever I hear the story of Sita, I feel pity for her. Even when the world knew that she was so true that a blade of grass would create a ring of fire around her which Raavan couldn’t cross, no matter how hard he tried, she still had to prove herself. If that was Sita’s condition, I can’t question the conditions of today’s women :(

     I wonder – Why dint Ram get into the fire with Sita? He claimed to believe her but agreed for the agni-pariksha (test of fire) just for the world. P..lea..se..! He was away from his wife too. Shouldn’t he have proved himself? Why dint anyone question if he was a pathni-vratha (one woman man) and so much so as not think of another woman? Why was his fidelity taken for granted and Sita’s wasn’t?

     Ram is known as Ek patni vratha, but why isn’t Sita well-known as Ek pathi vratha? Shouldn’t we give Sita greater importance than Ram?

     The world has been unfair even during the age that we know of only from the epic. We have seen great evolutions in the cultural and social fronts along with major discoveries in science. But, we still look at women with doubt or, as in most cases, with disgust for no fault of theirs. (Thanks to Ram for creating the benchmark – rolling eyes).

    And we women (most of us) pray, ‘God, my husband should be like Ram’ and we never learn… Do we? I am not sure if I can end my unnecessary musings with “God save us”, for he was no better too.

What do i say...?

Women have been fighting for their 'equal rights', but I am wondering what exactly are we looking for in that sector? Just political rights? Or can we say - equality in society? We always thought of the bigger picture, but not the small passport size image that we leave behind at a place called HOME.

Why is that we (women ourselves) think that we can ask for standing up right against any man in the outer world but we still end up being those who listen to them at home?

Looking at my grand-mother, mother, mother-in-law and many other women in my family, I just end up thinking - What the hell are we looking for when we say 'equal rights for women?'
Even as girls who are just 5 yrs old, we are told how to sit, talk, walk, eat, and behave with our own siblings (who are boys of course). At such an early age, when a girl can't think for herself, we have so many people directing the way we spend each and every day of our lives. Although it is funny to think of all the times I personally ended up screaming at my mom for giving me directions for doing things, today I realize she was right. I am expected to do certain things, exactly the way she used to direct me. I said, 'Grow up mom; you are still living in last century. Who's gonna worry if I follow those rules or not?' Oh! by god I was so wrong. Now, I can only smile when I find myself in such situations :)

I always envied my brother because, like with many other men in our country, no one bothered if he walked making noise with his shoe, shouted when angry, slammed the door, laughed-out-loud on a joke, spoke fast and loud due to excitement, sat along with the older men of the house, slept crossed legged, or ate directly from the tawa on the stove. (I do them to, but only when I don't have an audience)

Mostly, we girls are brought up in such an environment that we can't sit or sleep next to our brothers after a certain age and we just end up growing as strangers in the same household. We are always taught to say 'It's fine. I'm ok.' even when we don’t feel so, because - that's the way it is :)

After all this rambling, I am now wondering why I started writing all this? I go to bed after posting this, probably with hopes that things might change at dawn. But who am I kidding? I know the truth and I now say, 'It's fine. I'm ok' and I mean it (most of the time).