The dusk of 15th August it was, I sat near my bedroom’s window with my cheek pressed against the chilly glass of the windowpane whilst the Independence Day parade played on the television of the living room.
It seemed like a merry celebration, immediately after which the news anchor came and said a few things about the essentiality of independence and freedom in our lives.
Everyone in my family knew and understood this concept well yet keeping me inside the four walls of the house did not seem like an obstruction to my freedom to them.
How weird it is that even after decades of independence, I was never freed do to as I pleased. My life has always been dictated by the elders in the name of love.
Do not get me wrong, I do have the good life, but even if your cage is made up of gold, it is still a cage.
Ever since I was a little girl, what I wear, how I behave and even what I speak has been carefully managed by my family. I wanted to pursue Arts but were made to do medical as it is much more respectable. I am made to wear kurtis when I really want to roam around in shorts, I am never allowed to visit my friend’s place as it might influence me negatively, I am made to stay home as much as possible while my brother is out almost every night. And it’s not just my family, I am paid much lesser than my male colleagues for exactly the same amount of work. Despite following all the rules of your so called ‘traditional society’, I still get cheap stares and lewd comments as I walk the streets.
I am made to feel like an outlander in my own land; an alien that needs to be protected at all costs atleast till the time my responsibility falls into the hand of a husband, which my family has vehemently found for me. And no, I don’t get to have a say in any of this yet I am the facing whose life is being ruined as each day passes just because of the way I was born.
I ask you, ‘Isn’t it time where freedom meant the same for all? And shouldn’t I get a chance to live my life as a human and not a property?’
Note: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to a person living or otherwise may be purely coincidental
Almost every woman’s ordeal!