Show and Tell

While browsing the TV channels few hours ago I came across an ad for a new TV show "Baat Humari pakki Hai" 
Here's the promo that intrigued me,
It is hardly a minute long but still there is so much wrong here, or I should say there is hardly anything in it that is right!
Wow! We are telling our girls that

• they should not play in the sun or their complexion will darken and no one would marry them, 
• they need to learn to cook to get married, 
• they need not focus on their academics because once they get married only housework knowledge will come handy and 

after all this when the time comes the ball is still in the guy's court as the woman in the video puts it  "hum ladka dekhney nahi ladki dikhaney jaa rahe hain" (we are not going to see the boy but to show our girl) . So what we are basically saying  is ......If the guy likes you, you should not have the nerve to say no because you cannot and your opinion does not matter, why? because you were raised to get married and not ask questions, not express your likes and dislikes, you need to be thankful that he, who came to see you, has approved you and if he doesn't like you, better go check the mirror, there's got to be something wrong about you and we as a family are doomed. You are an object of this Show and Tell, where we show and they tell and you endure. And if you want any of this to change, hope to be born as a man next time.
                    This is where we have reached after claiming bragging rights for Jhansi ki rani who led a battle, Sarojini Naidu who was the president of Indian National Congress and later on became the first female governor in India, Kamaljit Sandhu who won a Gold in Asian games for India, Kalpana Chawla who went to space, Indira Gandhi, Pratibha Patil and many unknown women who are achieving what they aspire. The list of women who went on to do something with their lives other than just getting married is endless and we all are proud of them. When we present our country anywhere else in the world, we do not shy away and rather flaunt about these facts, we love to tell everyone that ours is a progressive country with equal rights and opportunities for men and women. Is it really the reality? When the time comes for us to participate in that progress, when we get a chance to empower our girls, what do we do in our homes? We give them a rolling pin and a fairness creme.
                                    A friend in college was once told by her boyfriend that when you see my mom I want you to look down and keep your head down. You posture isn't like that of a daughter in law. When she told me this we both knew what her decision should be. But really? This is what we expect? The conclusive and final goal for a girl is getting married and since the time she is born, her upbringing needs to be such that she becomes a "good wife" who tends the house and raise kids. And do we ever think what kind of children she is going to raise if her only mission in life was to get married, if she was never told the importance of learning, never told or was rather discouraged to speak for herself? How can she raise balanced minds when hers was made to tilt in one direction? How can we have a positive society when almost half the population has been robbed of their happiness?  Aren't we setting ourselves up for failure? Should we not be worried about this lop sided society we are trying to create with this imbalance? When will we wake up to this fact that if a girl holds the rolling pin, its not just to please her in laws or her husband, cooking could be her passion, or she may want to become a chef! While grooming herself, she may become interested in being a make up artist or a fashion designer, she might be weaving a dream of being an athlete....or for all its worth, she may want to lead a non professional life of a homemaker but these need to be her aspirations and not imposed on her by anyone, she needs to grow up with a respect for her desires and aspirations and we need to be the instrument for that growth. And for any of these to come true, we need to realize that getting married is a part of her life and not her life. She is not for Show and Tell, she is an entity, a person, a mind and a heart. And the day we all recognize and in fact appreciate this bottom line, then we can end the story with .......and they lived happily ever after.