Today I saw a good example of what love for the mother means in many parts of North India today.. My conclusion – women have no agency in many North Indian men’s eyes, except to serve men in various ways - mothers no exception.
A maid had come to fetch some thick tree branches that had fallen down in our garden in yesterday’s wind gust. Our helpers had spent all morning chopping and laying them together neatly to be taken by anyone they would be useful to.
The maid came with her 6 foot (though thinnish) boy who was driving an auto in which the wood from our garden was to be carried. While I was figuring out with other workmen whether they had satisfactorily completed another delicate job at our place, I could see her staggering out with head-loads of wood of great weight. In-between I called out to her boy who sat twiddling his thumbs in a chair outside, to come and help his mother. He did not. His mother called out to her boy repeatedly to help too, to no effect.
This went for some 30 minutes and the wood had still not all been taken out (the way out of our garden is a bit convoluted anyway). Free of the workmen, I at last asked the boy why he refused to help his mother for a job important for the family (I think the wood would be worth a few hundred rupees). He said yeh aurton ka kaam hai. I told him I did not know why his mother bothered cooking for him and feeding him. He smirked. I also told him I found him stupid. But his mother just laughed and the boy did not seem to mind at all ! So off he went trailing his mother in shiny jeans as she staggered towards the auto with the last head-load of wood.
You see this all the time – women stagger carrying drums of water in North Indian village lanes, while men who say they cant find work, lounge around. In uttarakhand all back breaking farming tasks seem to be done by women only.
Yeh kaun si sanskriti hai jis par paens gaye ja rahe hain by the right wingers ? kya sanskriti sirf hazaron saal purane ideals hote hain aur uske bad jo kuch yatharth main hai, weh sanskriti nahin hai ? mujhe to lagta hai, yahi hamari north indian sanskriti hai – aurton ka istemal, unhein torna marorana, and cheap aspirations of the men - sex, money and power – nothing idealistic there.
Usi power hunger main majoritarianism mix kar deejiye and it satisfies their need for more power over others. At its heart, the hindu right does not seem to be about india at all. It is about a toxic mishmash of ideas that make puny people feel powerful over others.
A maid had come to fetch some thick tree branches that had fallen down in our garden in yesterday’s wind gust. Our helpers had spent all morning chopping and laying them together neatly to be taken by anyone they would be useful to.
The maid came with her 6 foot (though thinnish) boy who was driving an auto in which the wood from our garden was to be carried. While I was figuring out with other workmen whether they had satisfactorily completed another delicate job at our place, I could see her staggering out with head-loads of wood of great weight. In-between I called out to her boy who sat twiddling his thumbs in a chair outside, to come and help his mother. He did not. His mother called out to her boy repeatedly to help too, to no effect.
This went for some 30 minutes and the wood had still not all been taken out (the way out of our garden is a bit convoluted anyway). Free of the workmen, I at last asked the boy why he refused to help his mother for a job important for the family (I think the wood would be worth a few hundred rupees). He said yeh aurton ka kaam hai. I told him I did not know why his mother bothered cooking for him and feeding him. He smirked. I also told him I found him stupid. But his mother just laughed and the boy did not seem to mind at all ! So off he went trailing his mother in shiny jeans as she staggered towards the auto with the last head-load of wood.
You see this all the time – women stagger carrying drums of water in North Indian village lanes, while men who say they cant find work, lounge around. In uttarakhand all back breaking farming tasks seem to be done by women only.
Yeh kaun si sanskriti hai jis par paens gaye ja rahe hain by the right wingers ? kya sanskriti sirf hazaron saal purane ideals hote hain aur uske bad jo kuch yatharth main hai, weh sanskriti nahin hai ? mujhe to lagta hai, yahi hamari north indian sanskriti hai – aurton ka istemal, unhein torna marorana, and cheap aspirations of the men - sex, money and power – nothing idealistic there.
Usi power hunger main majoritarianism mix kar deejiye and it satisfies their need for more power over others. At its heart, the hindu right does not seem to be about india at all. It is about a toxic mishmash of ideas that make puny people feel powerful over others.
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