Hello everyone!
I don’t know where and what to start with. Because if I try to narrate each and every aspect of this very topic, it will continue indefinitely. Still, I want to highlight some of my experiences as an Indian girl.
As I live in the so-called ‘decent’ Indian society, I must abide by certain ‘rules and regulations’. Till I hit puberty, I used to feel that everything was perfectly fine. But after that, the real ‘problems’ started to appear.
When I had my menarche, I was in school. Like many other girls of my age, I didn’t know what the ‘thing’ was. So, I had a ‘fear’ of what was ‘wrong’ with me. Also, I didn’t tell anyone about it at school as the school hours were about to end. After I came home and told my mother and grandmother about it, they told me that it was ‘a disease which only affects the girls of my age’. I became more afraid. So, they told me that it doesn’t do any ‘harm’, but occurs every month. I therefore became a little bit relaxed. In those days, I used to read the the “Bhagavad Gita” everyday. But, during that time when I went to bring the “Bhagwad Gita”, they told me that I must not touch anything ‘related to god’, as girls are ‘impure’ during ‘that particular time’.
Another incident happened soon after. I had gone to a feast – and quite unintentionally, I sat beside a young man. My grandmother saw that, and once I came home, she and my father scolded me for sitting beside a ‘young man’. At the carnivals, my father wouldn’t allow me to sit in the rides, because, according to him, ‘girls shouldn’t sit in the rides’.
Recently I went to watch a cricket match at the Barabati Stadium with my friend, because I had never been to a stadium to watch cricket in my entire life. My family members however told me that ‘girls from decent families shouldn’t go to a stadium to watch cricket’.
There are unlimited restrictions which our girls are facing like ‘not going outside after five pm’, ‘not going to the festivals alone’, etc.
We also must not tell anything to our elders even when they try to abuse us.
When anything related to ‘victory’ is mentioned, they are mostly relevant to the male gender.
Sometimes I think – “Why do females even exist?“
Here, many people oppose feminism – even the young girls too. It is because they don’t know the ‘importance’ of the term.
We are ‘proudly judging’ each and every girl we see. Only when we all realize the meaning of ‘equality’, then only can it be achieved.