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I learnt that being a girl, or in this case, having a girl doll was a drawback in the long run, as a 'wedding' meant I lost the doll to the boy doll's owner.
I learnt that being a girl, or in this case, having a girl doll was a drawback in the long run, as a ‘wedding’ meant I lost the doll to the boy doll’s owner.
One day a girl I vaguely knew came to me with a proposal for my doll. She wanted to get my cherished girl doll to marry her boy doll. I was pretty excited about planning a doll wedding, till I heard the actual terms of the wedding.
I grew up in various parts of India, a fact that I am very proud of because it made me realize how diverse this country is while most of the issues and problems remain the same. My early childhood was spent in Gujarat and we lived in a neighbourhood that was largely middle-class. In the evening all the children would come out and play the regular games of hide and seek, seven stones and chor police.
Most of the girls had dolls but I was encouraged from home to play with all sorts of toys and not fixate on dolls. When I was around 6 years old I got my first doll for my birthday. The doll almost came up to half my height and wore a dress, shoes and everything else that dolls wear. I was pretty excited to have this new playmate and would regularly show her off to my other friends.
One of the favorite games the girls in the neighbourhood played in those days was getting dolls married. Girl dolls would get married to boy dolls like they do in the ‘proper’ society.
The weddings themselves would be fun for the participating friends as some girls served real snacks at the weddings and got the dolls dressed up for the wedding in bridal clothes. There would be a gudda and a guddi and a make shift mandap and everything. The weddings would be officiated by whatever the 6-7 year olds considered appropriate.
One day a girl I vaguely knew came to me with a proposal for my doll. She wanted to get my cherished girl doll to marry her boy doll. I was pretty excited about having a doll wedding and planning a doll wedding till I heard the actual terms of the wedding.
According to norm after the wedding my doll would go to this friend’s house and be with her dolls, and would only occasionally visit me!
So in short this friend of mine would gain two dolls while I lost the only one I had. As you can imagine the wedding got called off quickly. My doll has lived a great life being a spinster with some occasional setbacks in her life like being drawn on her forehead with a marker or losing her ribbons, but overall I am sure she doesn’t complain. The doll still resides in my mothers cupboard like most cherished toys do.
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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