A couple of weeks earlier I attended the “Unladylike” show by Radhika Vas, where she explained in her one hour stand up that how she was educated by her mother to preserve her pious virginity for her marriage and the humor that followed. Kind of common story of all girls in India. We have grown seeing movies where the hero approaches the heroine for his first Kiss and girl slides up her dupatta to her nose and says, “shaadi ke baad”.
Virginity of woman is probably the most talked yet least publicized topic of our country. Nobody cares about men’s virginity or chaste. Although both can be defined as utter non-sense, don’t they?
But why I am talking about virginity? Or am I?
Actually, this post is influenced by recent “new revolutionary” laws passed by the Khaps and Haji Ali committee that are anti-gender and oppose sane logic. Don’t worry, I am not going to beat the same old turkey again. Media is full of that shit.
What I would like to discuss here is a country so conservative about sex has an undertone of sex in its spiritual and religious motivations. Whether they are Hindus or Muslims or Christians, they all have concepts of Heaven and Hell. And if you compare them, they are almost similar in their descriptions. When Kasab was motivated to take part in the Mumbai AK-47 Marathon, he was told that Allah will call him to heaven for his bravery where he will have lot of food, luxuries and ofcourse, Women!
“Pandiji” told Abhishek during his Upnayan Sanskar (thread ceremony) that he should follow “brahmacharya” and should not look at girls to preserve his chaste. If he follows the rules, he will go to heaven. The Hindu description of heaven has the luxuries, palaces of gold, rich fruits and ofcourse the Women! The Apsaras…named Urvashi, Rambha etc.
It shows how deeply we are programmed as a male dominating society. The descriptions of our religious pinnacles also use Women as motivation, as if they are some objects of amusement. At the same time, repress conversation on sex.
And what do they mean when they say there will be women in heaven? To have an affair with them, don’t they? So why wait to go to heaven to enjoy basic needs of life?
Don’t they have better things to do in heaven? I mean think about how to better the world, take care of poor and helpless with their “heavenly” powers. By their definition, why do they leave the “impure” things like sex for a “pure” place like heaven. If this Earth is “mrityulok” (world of death) then let us do all the “sins” here! So that we can do better things in heaven or hell, whatever.
Now I understand, since everyone in heaven is busy releasing their held-up frustration, they don’t have time to take care of activities on Earth. And we are left here alone to handle our situation and people of different genders are not even allowed to mingle.
I dig deep in the issue and find out that the Medieval History of the World is the major culprit. When there were fights for power and religion was discovered as a powerful tool to unite people against oppressors. Knowledge and Wisdom from India was spreading across the World and it was used by some powerful people to win over their people and against the oppressors.
Unfortunately, the same wisdom was twisted and used against India for to exploit the natural wealth it had.
This era of wars across the world among nations had created an unsecure environment where the oppressors celebrated their victory by raping the slave woman. They were also let free to exploit people of defeated nation.
Country that we live in today is a country that has undergone thousands of years of slavery. Our religions, scriptures and philosophies have all lost the purity of their virginity in pity battles of power. This has somewhere hurt the Manhood of people across. The same frustration is reflected in the way our men behave in this country. The Pseudo Manhood, once hurt by more mean and wicked – hurt by their treachery and cheat needs to find a shelter. They need someone to showcase their pseudo masculinity. Woman of India unfortunately have always been that strength to the man and hence are also the victims.
The country which lost its purity, chaste and virginity once hundreds of years ago is trying to overcome that shadow of terror by protecting virginity of the woman of its land. How sad!
A body’s virginity may not have any implication in real life however, in this pursuit of showing pseudo-power, the Soul has definitely lost its virginity and THAT is irreparable.