THE EYESORE...BUT WHY??
At the very beginning, I want to state that this piece is not directed to any particular community or group, nor it is meant to offend anyone. It is just an amalgamation of different experiences and observations that I had made over the years. The legal age of marriage in India was 18 years, which has been recently raised to 21 years. But in India, we had a heinous practice of “Child Marriage” in the past – something which is still practiced in many remote areas of the country. If we ask our grandmothers to recount their tales of marriage, a lot of them would say that they had got married at the age of 6 or 7 years – even before attaining puberty! And after that, they had raised 8-10 children while living in giant families. But has it ever crossed our minds why were girls married so early to men thrice their age? The answer is simple – girls are always considered a “burden” or if put in hindi, they are considered “ bhojh ”. It is not the concept of raising girls which was diffi...