How absolutely amazing was Dangal! I took my parents for this movie and it took an Aamir Khan movie to convince my father to come watch the movie(the last movie he watched on the big screen was Lagaan). All three of us loved it and my mother and me only understood too well the glimpse of having a Haanikarak Bapu as my dad was a very strict disciplinarian while I was growing up. But my father was also excellent in doing his job of being a father and though we disagreed about most things, we may have made peace over the years. It wasn't an intervention because, despite other frictions, he was quite ahead of his times in the way he treated me and other girl cousins. He was all for making sure there was no nonsense about not giving the girls enough opportunities to pursue whatever they wanted.And most importantly, he didn't think that by being more fair, by demanding equal rights, he was doing the womenfolk a favor. He did it because it's the natural way to deal with rights, and that's my beef with a lot of crap that we accept and glorify these days.
A friend, a Ms.Decentgoodgirl recently got married and me and a few other friends who haven't met up in a long time decided to get lunch together and went to this nice restaurant that serves great pan-asian food and unlimited cocktails(even these fictional characters need alcohol to survive what's coming next). So there were 6 of us, a Ms.Decentgoodgirl, Ms.Badassthroughoutcollege, Ms.Asfeministasyoucanget, Ms.Tellsmommyeverything, Ms.almostagreeswithme and unmarried myself. 4 of them were married within the space of a few months and Ms.almostagreeswithme was still single. After photos and jewelry and rings were examined thoroughly, we got talking about life on the other side, and after a few drinks, everyone was talking about how great their husbands were. It was really sweet until one of them said how lucky she was that her husband helped with "some" of the cleaning and making the bed etc. Ms.Decentgoodgirl also chimed in, exclaiming how lucky she was that her better half cooked breakfast sometimes on Sundays. We also heard how lucky Ms.Tellsmummyeverything was because she was still allowed to work, just making sure she got back home one hour earlier than her husband. Luckiest was Ms.Badassthroughtcollege whose husband had decided that she will be allowed to have two kids and also, gasp, she will be allowed to work if she wants to once the kids grow up. The singles needed a lot of LIIT's to process these beautiful journeys at the end of this story.
Now this hypothetical scene seems fairly normal and you must be wondering what a horrible, petty and jealous person I am to find faults with these great guys who are supporting their wives do chores which ideally should be divided between the two. Yes? I honestly want to tell everyone who's reading that in reality, I have friends who have been married recently and have such wonderful spouses and it's really endearing and happy to see them work like a perfect team and have such great husbands and wives who understand what it takes to start a good marriage and work towards it. But I have also heard the above mentioned situations and references and it sickens me. I simply don't understand how something so obvious and foundation worthy becomes a 'favor'. Stumbling upon a lottery ticket which is used as a paper cone for your behl puri makes you lucky. Having a partner who treats chores and responsibilities as something he/she can occasionally dip their hands in is not lucky by any definition.And what's worse, we, the presumed logical batch, are totally okay with it, glorify it and let it sneak it's way into how we live. Is being married/a mother a necessary qualification to understand and talk about how wrong this is? I hope not, because we are still living in times where arranged marriages happen, where in some parts of the society, being a good housewife is the only necessary attribute for a marriage and now , in times where it's becoming quite confusing to state basic rights for the fear of the F word.
It's very easy to sneak in patriarchy disguised as concern. And why did I reference Dangal? Because I was so attracted to that fierceness of those girls on screen and it's absolutely not a good space to be in if we still think we are lucky if we have partners who are lauded for only doing their job and sharing responsibility that was supposed to be equally divided for starters. I think I often keep repeating this phrase in my posts, but we cannot be carriers of these social evils. Equal parts tiring and terrifying, it's high time this stops.
