Imagine our country’s culture to be a suitcase full of clothes which are assigned to the citizens at some major junctions of their lives. Unfortunately, the system does not provide you good number of chances to change your cloth and hence if you are unlucky to get torn, reeking and splotchy pair of clothes you’ll have to wear it for ever. This system is however different for different people. Lets look at some of those unlucky people.

Young Girl : Alas! if you are born in this category, and if you are still unmarried (by virtue of age), you wear a cloth which signifies a burden. You see a similar aged boy with a collar up t-shirt signifying an asset. You are a loan to be repaid and he is a savings account. And you are bound to wear that cloth, no matter how hard you work at your home, no matter how long you toil on a field, no matter how long have you walked to fetch water. Yet you a disgrace, since you will take away the family wealth in the name of dowry. But this is just the beginning; your clothes are in the best possible condition it can ever be. Even if you have not hit puberty, you might be married to a stranger, when you might not even understand the meaning of marriage (more about a married woman later). You might think of washing your cloth by education but you are not allowed, once again because of the cloth you are wearing. Even if this isn’t too much, your cloth can be torn too, by a person who thinks its within his right as well as might to do so. After all, what can you possibly do? The Married Woman : You might think that marriage is a new beginning, a new junction where you’ll be assigned a better cloth, similar to a bride. But what you get is the same old “burden-tagged” cloth. Now your worth is measured according to the dowry you bring and IF YOU DON’T, god save you! Even if you pass this bridge, you are mocked, ridiculed and forced to work like an animal, forget about the cloth. Next, you are expected to do something which is not in your hands : to bear a son, a prince, a savings account! If you don’t, same story repeats. If you do bear a son, your net worth rounds off to be zero and you are again assigned a cloth according to your worth.

In all the critical junctions, you are usually forced to do something. Even if you belong to a high class family where you do not undergo many of the steps mentioned, you are still subjected to the rules of marriage, in most cases, arranged. Yet if something goes wrong, you are the one who is responsible even if the matter is completely out of your control. If you want to study, its your fault, if you are raped, its your fault. If you bear a girl, ITS YOUR FAULT!

I am sorry for making you read those 500 uncomfortable words, but the suitcase I am concerned about, is not only limited to the cases mentioned above. Historically our society has woven clothes belonging to different classes. The problem with this system is that to be in authority, or to be in a higher class, you need a class beneath you. In case of gender, unfortunately females are the lower class citizens.

Even if we have progressed to make a trip to Mars, we are still wearing that piece of cloth which we are born with. This post was limited to the case of gender but the concept applies to each and every injustice you see today. Its high time for us to understand that each and every human is equal and should be provided with a white piece of cloth, to be filled with colors of one’s own liking.