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The kanyadaan was purposely excluded from my wedding rituals. Because even back then, my parents didn’t believe that their daughter was parayi. Not did they consider me dhan.
It was a beautiful winter evening in New Delhi. Dressed in the best wedding finery, my heart thumping with the excitement and anticipation of starting a new journey with the love of my life, I entered that ornately decorated mandap as a young bride of 25.
Admittedly, the rituals that followed were a blur to me; I was too busy chattering away to my soon-to-be husband about a multitude of unrelated things.
I suppose I must have seemed a little unconventional to most onlookers, since brides are supposed to be shy and reticent. I, on the other hand, smiled, laughed, and even made eye contact with everyone who came to bless us. Definitely not usual behaviour for a bride.
If my lack of timidness raised many an eyebrow that night, then you can imagine what happened when the wedding rituals were finally declared concluded by the priest.
‘What about the kanyadaan? They didn’t do the kanyadaan!’ one well-heeled aunt furtively whispered to another.
‘Did the pandit forget? How could he miss the kanyadaan?’ This was from a gentleman in a suit who had until then, been too busy dancing on the makeshift dance floor with a plastic glass filled to the brim, to notice anything else.
Well, my parents didn’t feel the need to answer any of those questions that night. The wedding was concluded and frankly once dinner was served, most people were too busy congregating around the chaat counter to take any further interest in whether the kanyadaan was carelessly forgotten or purposely excluded.
The kanyadaan was purposely excluded from my wedding rituals. Because even back then, my parents didn’t believe that their daughter was parayi. Not did they consider me dhan. I was, am and always will be, simply, their daughter.
I saw the Manyavar advertisement the other day and I have to say that it made me smile. Even as I said to myself that the advertisement indeed conveys a powerful message in a refreshingly simple manner, I couldn’t help thinking that it was the same message that my parents had conveyed to me all those years back. The advertisement makes us think, allows us to question, and urges us to change. We need more advertisements like this one because to put it candidly, a society that doesn’t think, doesn’t question, doesn’t change will ultimately be a regressive one.
And so, let’s say it one more time. “Na main parayi hoon, na dhan! Kanyamaan!”
Image source: rajeshkoiri007 on pixabay
Rrashima is a senior corporate analyst with over 20 years of experience in the corporate sector. She is also a prolific writer, novelist and poet and her articles, stories and poems are regularly published in read more...
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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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