A room of my own

Sometimes when I chance to hear friends and fellow readers about being initiated into books by their parents, I wonder if they know they were privileged. To have your parents channelize your reading or writing spirit is privilege indeed compared to carving your own self, your own path, wandering in libraries with no idea of which book or author to choose, making your choices based on what you hear from your teachers. But thinking deeper, I had some privilege too, to listen to name of great authors dropped by my teachers during our classes. 

What can a girl who sits right in the front row do, who can’t relate to her privileged friends who possibly came from happier families and probably found the lectures boring and instead had something more interesting to tell the other kids around them, what else can such a girl do, but walk along with Wordsworth as he watched the solitary Lass reaping or ride along with the Highwayman destined to have his head amputated. What else can she do but watch the brook take her course or the tiger whose eyes shone like red hot coal.

The more I think the more I feel privileged, to have listened to an aunt on how Antonio was trapped by the wretched Shylock, all for his friend Bassanio, and was finally saved by the wits of his paramour, Portia. I remember how stunned I was by her logical thinking. Yes, women impressed me more than men with their attitude. Whatever politics went in to this little drama, what appealed to me was Portia's coolness and grace. She warns before things go wrong and she mends things later too. Men were portrayed meek, they walked straight into the traps like a know-it-all, waiting to be saved and labeled it, manliness.

Of course it was not intended but that is what I felt. And how can I forget 'Taming of the shrew'? After laughing at all that the woman is subjected to, only to accept at the end that the men were one-up to women, it did strike me what was wrong with that woman in the first place? Can't women dream, desire, have opinions? Why should Que Sera accept whatever will be will be? Taming of the shrew is always a winner, there are so many desi versions that go block busters be it drama or movie. 

We are not that cruel any more, we are the civilized lot, we don't whiplash our women, we instead laugh and mock at them. How? We forward jokes that depict women as spendthrifts, who never bother about the financial status of the husband or father, jokes that depict women as fools, who know barely anything about their gadgets. We forward advises on how a woman should treat her in-laws with respect, but we make fun of her parents. I say We, because it is also women who do their part well here, and it hurts more when women do this. Why does it hurt me? Because I live a life that always considered the financial capacity of my father and my husband in mind, I earn, I pay my bills and these jokes spit me on my face.

As a woman coming from a family that couldn't guide me in my choice of literature or career, but nevertheless didn't stop my quest either, Virginia Woolf's 'A room of one's own' means more to me than those who come from a better environment. I cannot be snubbed for being a feminist or having an attitude. I worked for this, I was neither offered nor did I grab, I worked to get where I am, I might not have wanted or chosen to be here, but this is my necessity, an absolute one.

... to be continued ...