Check out the ultimate guide to 16 return-to-work programs in India for women
The trigger for this piece is not just Dil Dhadakne Do, a recently released Bollywood movie, but parallel fragments of conversations around me on women.
The author reflects on the lives of mothers, aunts and grandmothers as seen by girls growing up in middle-class families.
The trigger for this piece is not just Dil Dhadakne Do, a Bollywood movie, but also parallel fragments of conversations around me about the lives of women, as seen by a majority of middle-class girls growing up.
In Dil Dhadakne Do, the dialogue of Ranveer Singh to his mom, “kahan jaati aap?” (“where will you go?”) says it all. For your reference, here he yells at his mother accusing her of staying with her husband who apparently has cheated on her several times and does not value her, only because she, his mother, does not have any place else to go.
This is why marriages of our parents and aunties succeeded many times, because women could not see a place to go to, isn’t it? At least, I felt so. An affair may not be required to set off this feeling of wanting a way out of marriage. It may be just the fact that you cannot make it work any more.
Don’t take me as a proponent of breaking marriages. I am personally someone who would go all the way, do everything to make it work and break up does not come easy to me. But at the same time, I have felt that the courage that women lack to move away from a relationship that is beyond repair is majorly because they do not see themselves as confident enough to be able to lead their own lives.
I have felt that the courage that women lack to move away from a relationship that is beyond repair is majorly because they do not see themselves as confident enough to be able to lead their own lives.
While I grew up to be independent because my father wanted me to be, and I am ever grateful, I also became sensitive to fact that a greater proportion of women that I saw around me compelled in me an urge to empower them mentally in some way or the other. For instance, it would always come to discussions where I would ask them about how they like to spend their leisure times and propagate tuitions, cooking classes, meditations, etc. to such an extent that it would almost feel like I am choking the idea down their throats, whether they want to or not.
This happened because I really wanted them to feel more at peace and confident about themselves, to be able to value their presence in someone’s life rather than being complacent with the least acknowledgement of their irreplaceable existence. It bothered, and still does, that someone stays because she has no place to go.
I am glad to be born in an era when “what I want” is the driving idea of life and in a family that taught me not take this idea “too far” and hence be able to strike a fine balance, and I wish that every lady I meet is able to feel and live out the former, and that when we meet we can talk (and I don’t mind listening to her) about how she finds it satisfying to have her yoga class in the evening, about how she spares herself from cooking on Sundays and lets her husband take charge or about how she is planning to start her own Facebook page.
As a small town girl born in a middle class joint family, all it takes is a little sensitivity to observe that all is not logical around and an urge to change it. What started read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
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.
A little boy craves for his father’s love but doesn’t get it so uses it as an excuse to kill a whole bunch of people when he grows up. Poor paapa (baby) what else could he do?
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.
Please enter your email address