Vishii Rita Krocha
It was an ordinary day, a winter afternoon when I was out to do the laundry in a river nearby (barely one, yet a river because we called it so). Even though the pipes and taps were all fixed at home, water supply is always scarce in Kohima and since my high school, the pipes’ been lying there like dead logs without a single drop of water flowing through them. But I could brush that aside for the moment because there are greater things to think about.
I started washing as three girls and a boy came at the same spot for the same purpose. I couldn’t help myself overhearing their conversation as the boy kept on talking. It didn’t matter that he was talkative. What bothered me was what he said to those girls. As he kept on saying things, somewhere he added “You Girls!!!!! You girls are useless, you are supposed to do all the washings,(meaning his clothes). Girls are worthless” (he muttered them in Angami).Then it struck me that in a Society like ours where many of our parents fail to regard the female species, the younger ones have inherited the mentality that the fairer sex is of lesser importance. Not this incident alone, but I have overheard the same statement a lot of times. Talk about India, the dowry systems, female infanticide........We may not have been practicing them (though believe, me it’s still happening), but somewhere at the back of our minds, we have always carried the notion that the female lot are lesser humans.
In my own village somewhere near Pfütsero, in Kohima where I live, people who are my own family, uncles, grandfathers, and other males I might not know, not all of them, but not a few sadly are victims of this opinion. Much education and degrees are merely fruitful if we fail to base our learning’s on the real life that we are living. Even some educated people I have noticed have the thought that females are way down below them. It’s not important that both the sexes have equal muscles, strengths, whatever went into making of the male species. It’s their uniqueness that identify the male and the female and that is what makes life more beautiful. Without the female lot, life for the male lot would be incomplete and vice versa for the females. It is really important that we recognize the female being in the society. I know that there are some decent guys out there who are not deprived of a lesser learning, who know and feel the importance of the presence of the female species, who think that women are beautiful and I think those gentlemen are the most learned because they understand the reason why God created females.
The clock will keep ticking and time will pass, days will end and years will go by, ages will change, new technologies will always be in the making and generations will differ from the older ones, each advancing forward, life will be on a run, and maybe not many would remember to tell the one who doesn’t know the beauty of a woman, but I am sure just a simple thought can change one thing about life and if you haven’t met the beautiful female species, you are way behind the present age.
