CELEBRATING WOMEN

Today, the world over, great pens will spew reams of matter on women, each with a different perspective, some flowery, some condescending!! However, I cannot take my attention away from the sins against women that never let humanity experience total equanimity or peace.

A woman carries emotion, love, caring in abundance. A woman's greatest desire is a romantic relationship seeped in trust & fidelity. Imagine how her soul is excoriated by the ugly, lust of strangers ravaging her routinely. A woman's silent torment scorches the souls of the perpetrators.

Can there be peace & harmony in the world where we have men suffering the heat of that inferno? Can these disdained women be any less than the netherworld??

Even though an ordinary woman absorbs so many slights during her lifetime, she is seldom the cause of civil strife or war. She is the Ganga that accepts and cleanses all these sins, only to face another sacrilege against her very being.

The very fact that International Women's Day came to be celebrated as late as 1909, affirms the centuries-old bias, stereotyping & discrimination against women.

This male domination kept society in the "DARK MODE" for aeons. But as soon as this Half of society started participating on an equal footing in progressive nations, they overtook the rest of the world by leaps & bounds.

They are now havens of prosperity, becoming magnets for migrants from all corners of the world. As this movement g a t h e r e d momentum on basic issues like voting rights, working conditions, the right to hold public office, etc., these countries emerged from the "Darkness" of deprivation & illiteracy.

Having said that, it would be germane to quote the famous poet/lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi, whose birthday too falls today. Even as he spoke about the underdogs of society, he reserved his greatest intensity for the plight of women pushed into prostitution. He called it the "greatest iniquity of humanity".

His blistering words will put to shame anyone worth his salt: "These ravaged Caravans of Life; Where are those custodians of the great Egos; those who are so proud of their Culture, where are they."

On this very special day, there must be a pledge by those "Custodians" to eradicate this scourge from the face of the earth. Otherwise, uncalled-for and devastating wars will continue to snuff out many a precious life, as being experienced currently among the Eastern Slavic brothers!!