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What Matriarchy taught me: An Indian woman who grew up in a matriarchal family, Paromita shares lessons the strong women in her family taught her.
I am an Indian woman, one of those who had the privilege of being brought up in a matriarchal family. I was single handedly raised by my Maa. Basically my growing up has been around some strong women. When you grow up with a matriarch, you pick up some lessons, some consciously others not. Here are a few lessons it taught me.
1) Do your own things: We were four siblings; three daughters and a son, my brother being the youngest. Whenever I needed something which I could run an errand for, I was trained to ride my bicycle and get it for myself. In gist, I was always trained to get my own things. So, when I grew up, I learnt to build my own paradise. I never waited for someone else to create one for me.
2) Talk it out: I was brought up in a small sleepy town. However, troubles did not keep afar. But whenever there would be one; it was talked out. There would be long talks, sometimes tempers did fly; but under no circumstance was violence used as a resort. Thus I learnt to talk out whenever I confronted any trouble, one of the best lessons, I ever learnt and later in life it paid me huge dividends.
Maa, Naani and Me
3) It is Okay for a man to cry: When men cried, for whatever reason, no hue and cry was raised. I learnt that men can be weak and flawed and it is okay. The softer emotions were taught to be respected. So, over the years, I remained great buddies with guys because they could spill their softer emotions in front of me.
4) Treat men as equals: The best lesson of survival, I learnt was to stand up for myself. No matter what, I learnt is to treat the other person as equal; especially men. And that changed the equations. It has worked wonders in my life. Nothing beats the grace of a woman who talks with her head high with respect and it begets respect.
These are the life nourishing lessons the matriarchs of my life left with me. I am proud that I come from matriarchy!
Proud Indian. Senior Writer at Women's Web. Columnist. Book Reviewer. Street Theatre - Aatish. Dreamer. Workaholic. read more...
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If her MIL had accepted her with some affection, wouldn't they have built a mutually happier relationship by now?
The incident took place ten years ago.
Smita could visit her mother only in summers when her daughter had school holidays. Her daughter also enjoyed meeting her Nani, and both of them had done their reservations for a week. A month before their visit, her husband told her, “My mom is coming for 4-5 months!”
Smita shuddered. She knew the repercussions. She would have to hear sarcastic comments from her mother-in-law for visiting her mother. She may make these comments directly only a bit, but her servants would be flooded with the words, “How horrible she is! She leaves me and goes!”
Maybe Animal is going to make Ranbir the superstar he yearns to be, but is this the kind of legacy his grandfather and granduncles would wish for?
I have no intention of watching Animal. I have heard it’s acting like a small baby screaming and yelling for attention. However, I read some interesting reviews which gave away the original, brilliant and awe-inspiring plot (was that sarcastic enough?), and I don’t really need to go watch it to have an informed opinion.
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I was wondering; if any woman director gets inspired by this movie and replicates this with a female protagonist, what would happen?. Oh wait, that’s the story of so many women in this world. Forget about not giving them love, you have fathers who try to kill their daughters or sell them off or do other equally despicable things.
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