Skip to main content

Elephants In Chains

Once upon a time, a tourist was wandering around a temple and came across an elephant. It was a huge beast, munching on his food, flapping his ears and generally being an elephant. Then the tourist noticed that he was tied to a post with a rather flimsy metal chain. He was aghast and asked the mahout if it was safe. The mahout said it was perfectly safe & that he would not try to break free. The tourist was surprised & asked why not. This is the reply he got: “When this elephant was a baby, this chain was strong enough to stop him. However hard he tried, he couldn’t break free. So after some time he stopped trying. With time, he grew stronger than the chain but he will never try to break free cuz he’s used to it!”elephants
Thousands of years ago, while men hunted & gathered, women protected & raised the young. Naturally the former was far more exciting than the latter. In order to give their women something to do (& probably to transfer their fears/headaches to someone else), they invented the Holy Trinity – Religion, Tradition & Custom. Granted, they might have even served some sort of purpose when they were established (hey, it’s just a theory), but as the centuries passed, it became apparent that they were nothing more than chains. But like the elephants, women have become used to it!

Why do I say this? Quite simply its what I observed in the women around me. Granted it is not a scientific study nevertheless, bear with me. Whenever I ask someone why a certain thing is done, especially why there are so many things for women to do but never anything for the men, stock reply is that we have to (as if that’s any reason). Of course this whole charade is enforced by means of the so called elders of the family. So far so good. But how can I explain why these women continue to do the same things even when their men are not around? Its not because they sincerely believe in them as they don’t even know what the customs mean or accomplish anymore, if ever they did. Then why?

Because they are used to it! To borrow a phrase of Rousseau -
Woman was not born free, and she is everywhere in chains. No woman thinks herself the master of others, and so remains more of a slave than ever.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Don’t We Raise Our Sons like We Do Our Daughters?

This post originally appeard in Women's Web: Why Don’t We Raise Our Sons like We Do Our Daughters? One of the hot button topics right now in Indian media is the safety of women – or rather how our country doesn't really care about half its population. From rape, sexual assault, harassment (in streets, public transport, nearly every public place) to violence perpetrated on women, Indians are finally getting around to discussing taboo topics. One refrain that caught my eye throughout these debates – both online and off – is the fact that the reaction of the majority of Indians is the same: girls should stay at home, not go out after dark, dress appropriately and so on if they want to stay safe. No one seems to bat an eyelid when laying down these precautions for women. Except that the reality is women would be far safer if all the men simply DID NOT RAPE or HARASS any person that looks remotely female. No one has to stay at home and become a hermit! That got me th
3 comments
Read more

Education and Learning

Fourteen years of school. Three - four years of undergraduate college. Two years for a graduate degree. Start working or making babies. Sound familiar? It should, it’s what the majority of lives in this country look like. Ten years ago, I was headed down the same street. Engineering, MBA and then on to a fat pay check, like countless other teenagers, products of a system seemingly obsessed with stability and an extreme aversion to risk and failure. While I did end up getting 2 degrees and the pay check (with a stable, GOI company no less!) I also realized I hated it. Going to work from 9 to 7, doing the same endless, mind numbing, repetitive tasks, sitting in the same chair for ten odd years before getting promoted and dodging responsibility in order to retire with a pension suddenly seemed a lot less attractive when I was looking at it from the wrong end of 35 years! And history shall say I quit. But now what? I did what any sane person without a job and all the time in the w
15 comments
Read more

Arranged Versus Love Marriage

This post originally appeared in Women's Web:  Arranged Versus Love Marriage: Here's Why Things Are Changing In 21st-century India, change is so rapid that we barely have time to get used to something before some new trend is on the horizon. And I'm not just talking about technology here. Whether it is human behavior, relationships, societal or cultural norms, Indian society – along with the rest of the world – today is hardly recognizable to my parents or their parents. It's not a surprise that the institution of marriage and the process of finding a life partner is also undergoing a metamorphosis. Perhaps this is one of the areas where the gap between generations is the most obvious. Almost every day, there is a TV show or media report or blog post talking about arranged vs. love marriages. So I figured I would present my take on it as well! Whenever anyone talks about arranged versus love marriages - I don't know why they are always portrayed as opposing
3 comments
Read more