How privileged I feel today to have dreams, and big dreams! They probably don’t know what dreams are or what it is to dream. And how will they know, nobody showed them one in the first place, nobody told them to have one. All that did was that they lived their life and spent years only to ‘change families, and make families’.
I was coming back home one afternoon, and I see a girl (known to me). She must be two to three years younger (I am 20; just to explain the depth of the matter), and she cycled past me wearing a saree. It was less than a minute when I realise she was married. However, this wasn’t something new I saw. I have known girls for a long time who are mothers to 2-3-year-olds. I was just saddened realising the rate at which such young girls are getting married. More saddened by the fact that they are not forced into it (as we generally might assume); they are quite happy with it and relaxed about the fact that they are finally ‘settled’; unaware of the depth of such decisions by them.
Such incidents let me question all the empowerment and equality that we are fighting for day and night. These girls have never thought of going and thinking beyond four walls. Rather than getting higher education, opting for some job and being independent, they are more satisfied with being under someone and being looked after by someone else (because apparently the latter seems an easy option). That is what their definition of comfort and living has come to being. Being born and brought up in an environment that has seen no or very little education and development, they are however not to be blamed. But this can be a matter of grave concern in the long run. When women community around the world is battling patriarchy, shouting for equal rights and striving for recognition, this unconsciously built attitude and approach towards life by those girls and women could result in the whole purpose of this movement being defeated. Thus, it is of utmost need ( as we talk of empowerment and equality ) to parallelly address this issue too, where girls and women have lost their ability to think and look beyond the prevailing conditions, where they have imbibed their fate and lives so much that they cannot recognise anything else (than getting married and having a family as the ultimate goal of life).
Pondering over this matter, connectivity stands as a factor too. These small and remote areas remain aloof from the urban (developed) areas. All the empowerment and equality is growing and flourishing in the urban and developed regions (more), and it is not equally seeping into the former. Developed centres are hub of opportunities (and no doubt, more liberal) ,thus, keeping women more aware and giving them a platform to explore and most importantly ‘learning by seeing‘. For women here, there are numerous examples infront of them who serve as a motivation for the others to dream, set goals, think big and achieve. But back in those areas, very rarely do these kind of incidents occur that those girls would get an encouragement from. We need to connect and spread. Connectivity with the backward regions is so much important today. What is the use of education and knowledge if it cannot reach all and make lives better. It shouldn’t be only restricted to ‘ the good getting better, and the better getting best‘ rather bringing the ‘worse to the better‘.
We need to tell and show these young girls that there is a world better on the other side, make them aware of the importance of higher education and what it is to be independent, and let them know that it is so much better sometimes to “break barriers“.