What a CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Television seems to be an idiot box to me though I had to change my mind. A daily soap forced me to do that. It gets me hooked. The name of the serial is "Subarnalata", is written by Ashapurna devi. The story was written in the back drop of 1920's  Calcutta. It shows a perfect picture of the society of that period. The orthodox narrowminded society. The writer portraits a real image of the minds of the people of the era, which was engulfed by the darkness of illiteracy and superstition and social evils.
The story is the perfect description of the life-style of women of that period. In that period in an orthodox middle class society,  the biggest crime and the unluckiest incidence was the birth of a girl child . A woman had to confine themselves in the kitchen, no right to education or in short no right to think or live.
I like one of the dialogues of the serial, the most in which Subarnalata said"girls shouldn't breadth, girls shouldn't think, girls shouldn't feel hungry or thirsty, girls shouldn't laugh loudly; girls shouldn't even live because this is the crime to be a girl." . She said the lines when her mother in law was teaching her the rules and regulations of the society. Ironically a woman was snatching the rights of another woman. The society is known to be a "male dominating" society but in most of the cases women are the main culprit to make another woman's distress. It doesn't matter in which period we are living in, either its 1920 or 2011 but the situation is almost the same.
In the previous episode of the serial, the family members especially Subarna's mother in law overwhelmed with joy when her elder daughter in law, gave birth to a boy child. The mother in law wasn't happy for the girl children which her elder daughter in law gave birth before. Those children are unloved and ignored of the family.
This is the picture of 1920's orthodox middle class society.
Now we are living in the 21st century. Wonderful! Now woman has to right to education, right to live. There so many articles in our constitution which empowers woman like reservation in the Lok Sabha, Bidhan sabha, Panchayats etc or articles which promises "Equal pay for equal work"or "no gender discrimination" etc etc...Yes woman has the right to live.

But isn't it strange that despite of having "the right to live",whenever we open the news paper, every single day there are stories about dowry victims, sexual exploitations in work places, eve teasing and many more..How can we forget female infanticide cases????....Yeah the time has been changed. Can't find out the change yet.

Few days ago one of our neighbors came to invite us for a house party. The lady was so delighted. You know why?Her daughter gave birth to a boy child. She said that she prayed a lot for a "boy".

I laughed in my mind. This is 21st century not 1920s...

And what a change!