As India celebrates "Independence day" with jubilant exuberence, we forget that 60 years is just a "twinkle in the eye of history". We forget that when we made a society as rigid as ours, we were never free, we weren't enslaved by The British, but by ourselves. To put it on Arundhati Roy, it began three thousand years ago, when laws were laid down, as to who should be loved. And how much.
I put this post here because I was alone in my room this independence day, because my 24 year old, "independent", working, MBA grad friend was dragged out of our New Delhi Municipal Corporation's Working women's hostel room, By her four brothers. By violence and sheer force (I was in my office, i hear it was a huge scene), her mobile is switched off, she probably locked in her room some where, her boyfriend tells me she is fine, I know he is worried too. No prizes for guessing that even today, this "educated, modern, girl" has no right to marry the guy of her choice. BUT no one stopped them... Her parents don't see what I see, how much they love each other, how happy they are and when I am with them, I see hope and fun and happiness in this world.. I feel guilty because I was the one who advised my friend to give her parents some time, to accept, they were ready to get married, they listened to me. I was Wrong.
Anu, my friend is not the only tragedy of Independent India. We are not free as long as we keep giving in to other people's wishes.. think about what would any one say, what would people think. Social norms have overcome common sense, hypocrisy over sensibility. Modern India is not free, as long as there are flyovers without any foot path for pedestrians (near my office), As long as there is development without equity.
We think we are moving ahead, too fast and too soon. But we are wrong. We need to improve a lot. There is too much that needs be done and too little that's actually be done. And to the above issue there is no solution. No laws that say that its wrong to force and subjugate just because "what would people say?" No! Independence day was not happy for me. And I mourn a dying and decaying society, and a corrupt political system. We are greater slaves than we ever were, of a system that refuses to change or accept...