by- Aarya vyas, Aditi

A fine day in October, Mr. Tripathi, the owner of Radhe-Shyam residential society, hosted a party in the premises to celebrate the completion of a “peaceful” year of the society. The residents of the society barely knew each other as everyone was new to this area of Mumbai and was still adjusting to the life in a metro. People being as punctual as they could be, started gathering around an hour after the party was supposed to begin. As time passed by, clear groups of men and women seemed to form, one near the food-court and the other beside the garden respectively.

While the men started to bond over their food preferences and love for Sachin Tendulkar, women on the other side of the society sat silently on the chairs with cold drinks in their hands and a smile on their face. This is when Shaina, a rebellious and outspoken young lady in her mid-20s dressed up in shorts and an oversized t-shirt, felt the urge to begin a conversation by introducing herself as a free-lancer who worked for various radio stations and news channels as a content writer. Mid-way through her introduction, she looked at one of the woman sitting on the other side of the circle, with most part of her face covered in burkha and continued in a boastful yet sympathetic manner about how she has a Facebook page that empowered women to dress the way they felt like and that proclaimed that religion and society could not oppress a woman by asking her to dress in a particular way.

 Even after being the most introvert person one could ever meet, Asma felt the need to jump in and contradict the underlined message of Shaina. Asma very boldly protected her identity and beliefs and said that it was her own choice to be judged by the society on the basis of her personality and not on her physical attributes. She believed that people, and especially men, have the tendency to form a perspective about a woman on the basis of her looks and clothes. She believed that wearing a burkha and covering her face broke the stereotype of the society which asserted the idea that men are all about their intellectual abilities and women are all about beauty. Choosing to wear a burkha obligated the society to look at what she had to say over how she looked.

Thinking of the heating debate that this Segway could turn into, Madhu, a house-maker and a mother of two beautiful 10 year olds started talking about how amazing it felt after giving birth to her kids and how not being preoccupied with anything else gave her all the time in the world to look after her kids whom she loved so dearly. She could barely stop talking about how fulfilling it was to be the emotional backbone of a whole family and to get all the love and respect from the in-laws and your family itself even after not being able to contribute much financially due to lack of complete education.

Out of the blue, a woman sitting quite at a distance from everyone pulled her chair closer to the circle and introduced herself as Swara. She was a confident working woman in her mid-30s who always took stand against the unjust. She was in a constant turmoil as she agreed strongly to the idea of having financial freedom and loved the job she did, but at the same time she couldn’t bare the differences in the wages of the male and female counter parts working at a same level at her office. Her in-laws acted as a “cherry on the top” by forcing her to leave the job and have babies and take care of the house.

Swara couldn’t stop herself from judging Madhu for being financially dependent on her husband as for her a person’s financial freedom defined them, forgetting how a woman could be the bonding agent of a whole family and yet be empowered and hold a respectful position in the society. Swara also was ready to shoot all the misogynistic statements towards Shaina for what she wore and how she hanged out in the night, forgetting that the definition of being a feminist for Shaina was to do as she pleased. Nevertheless, Swara had her sympathies with Asma as she condemned how the societal and religious norms had gotten into her head and how she forgot her basic human rights, again, forgetting that a woman has all the rights to follow and practice any religion that she felt like.

While the bolts in Swara’s head were moving, there came a huge laugh for the group of men. Curious as they were, the group of woman sitting in sheer awkwardness by now asked the men what the joke was about. A man, in tears by now shouted “Mr. Sharma just shared a meme on how he feels like an insect in Bear Grylls hands when his wife drives a car.” After a moment of silence, all the woman got up from their chairs and went back home with a smirk on their faces. At least that’s what the expressions appeared to be through the veil that I wore while I was cleaning the dishes at a distance from the gathering. I have to work double time to educate and feed my children well since my left my husband who used to snatch my earnings away to keep his belly full of alcohol.