Syed Zeeshan Ghazi – March 9, 2020
^{Edited by Rabhia Shuja}

He was back on the train remembering how his aunt had told him something quite similar to what he had witnessed just recently; a woman whose husband was a drug addict. He would beat her casually for money and people kept asking her, “Why don’t you just leave him?”. To which, she always replied with a sad smile, “Even though he’s a drug addict, the wolves outside are aware that there’s a ‘man’ in the house”.

To me, it’s a tragedy to be living in a society where, as a woman, the norm to be considered strong is to have a man alongside you. And that is how a male-dominated society works.

Most of us have often heard this phrase or have come across this statement at some point in our lives, “Mard doodh ka dhula hi rehta hay”. While I do consider that men have been given superiority over women, under special circumstances, women do carry equal caliber as that of men. But to brag, just because you’re biologically a male, is funny to me. To be a male and to be a man, are two completely different things.

Intermission

He was visiting his aunt back in January. Everyone was cheerful and talkative. During the chit chat, his aunt called her eldest son, hardly 10 years old, to go fetch some snacks for the guests. The child returned with a packet of biscuits in his hand along with a few other things. On seeing the sort of snacks he had brought, his aunt looked at her son and said, “The shopkeeper always hands out the worst quality edibles to children. Go back and ask him to return these and bring better ones.”

The words that came afterwards, made his heart squirm, “Even though your father is a drug addict, he’s still alive and is still our guardian. He’s not dead yet, and it’s too soon for people to be treating us this way”. 

Her husband was sitting just beside her. To what he had just heard from his aunt’s mouth, the words that just came out, seemed like a hopeless plea to her husband.

These words hit me like a rock. And I felt weird just being there. I’m unable to put those feelings in words. It’s impossible for me to imagine living my life with someone I do not love or feel unattached to. Whereas a lot of women in our society are forced into marriages and have kids with men who are their father’s age Where women are treated like livestock in certain parts, forced to have miscarriages or forced to have children. And this is where, I believe, the slogan ‘Mera jism, meri marzi’ should be used. 

Growing up, I did overhear stories, where families sold their daughters for money out of poverty and men who would spoil young girls. Sometimes, I imagine, how difficult it would be to breathe under a man’s shadow who has no emotional attachment to you whatsoever and is in a relationship with you just for the sake of physical intimacy towards you. And they move on, as soon as they find someone better. Jumping from woman to woman.

Also, I do believe that there are better human beings and men out there, but these are just thoughts that occur to me occasionally only when I witness something that isn’t aligned with my line of thoughts. I ponder, considering myself in their shoes. And, isn’t this what empathy is? To embrace someone’s pain as if it’s your own?

I don’t know whether it’s a curse or a blessing, that I was born into an environment, where I’ve seen women living under extreme circumstances. Women who hope to receive love from their children and gain the respect that they deserved to have in the first place, by their husbands.