Rashmi's Space

“Don’t run on the lawn!” Meera looked up from her laptop. It was Sunday morning and while Meera caught up on her mails and other news, Pari, her niece, and Ayah, Pari’s caretaker-cum-nanny-cum-companion-cum-governess were in the garden. Ayah was pruning the roses, while Pari was jumping around the garden and playing in the shade of the orange trees lining the compound wall. All the time, trampling over the lawn that Ayah had freshly watered – hence, the reprimand. Meera smiled. Ayah was good for Pari. She ensured that the girl kept her head on her shoulders despite being a ‘gifted’ child of above average intelligence, who was ‘pampered’ and ‘spoilt silly’ (according to Ayah) by Meera. It felt just like yesterday – although it was almost close to nine years now – that Pari and Ayah had walked into Meera’s home, and her life. Meera’s sister had died giving birth to Pari. Pari’s father had never been around. And thus, Meera had become the sole legal guardian to her...

“Dear girls, get a degree, start earning, buy a house and a car, give back to your parents and then get married. Don’t put your 100% on a man.” Saw this on social media today. It had more than a few thousand likes and hundreds of comments. Then there was another post doing the rounds on social media – about how and why women are not thrilled about the idea of wearing bindis, sindhoor, bangles, toe-rings and other similar signs proclaiming their marital status to the world. And then there is also this fact that the culture of arranged marriage (with the age of the groom never being much of a concern; but the age of the bride preferred to be in the early twenties); is seeing a significant change. The average marriage age, for the bride and the groom today has gone up considerably; especially that of the bride; which brings me back to the whole Dear girls post mentioned above. These posts stem, no doubt, from the idea of women empowerment; because frankly, in our countr...