Ishani's Pen

A Tapsee Pannu starrer movie “ Thappad ” released few months back, probably just before “International Women’s Day” – the message of the movie was simple – A husband can’t hit his wife ever, not even if he is drunk, tensed, pressurized; there should not be “a first time will be the last time” to this. But there far deeper implications of this simple plot, that goes into the design of our “so-called civilized” Indian society. From time immemorial, women have been fighting to get an equal stature with men, if not higher, in every possible field. Even in Bollywood, this issue has been raised many times – any movie with a female protagonist doesn’t earn as that with a male lead – this simply proves that even in the 21 st century, our Indian society is not ready to accept women as “protagonists” or leads; women portrayed submissive characters or glamorous avtars , behind a man is what is expected from her, even on the silver screen. Now in the Indian legal system, a lot of amendment...

I am a 29-year-old professional who has been staying away from home from the last 11 years. Being very much conscious about academics, studies, grades and future, I had always focused on my education and knowledge gaining. Even now, when we are all in the lockdown phase, I keep myself more engrossed in publication works, blog/article writing, reading books etc. This is something that I had always enjoyed doing since my childhood – I like gaining knowledge, learning new facts, helping people in some way! There may be many girls and women like me out there, whose pleasure lies in the smell of new books, in lying in bed for hours altogether and reading. However, there is one simple thing that I feel our families, relatives and the society, in general, doesn’t understand. I am also a girl like everyone else – and I also know HOW TO COOK and do all household chores! And most importantly, I don’t know cooking just because I am a girl and it is my duty to do it – ni to sasural jaogi ...

Being a 90s kid was way different than being a kid of today; I mean when I see my 4-year old niece, I feel like how the definition of fun and games have evolved and changed over the years for kids – we used to be the ones playing in the mud, climbing trees, fighting for our turns on the swings – but now empty swings are swaying with the wind and desperately seeking the butts of children!! Apart from all this, one thing that I really loved as being a 90s kind was our low dependency on technology, especially when it comes to knowledge and learning. We knew the importance of going to school, college – no! not for attendance alone – but because we knew the value of class lectures and notes. Now being an assistant professor myself, I feel that the value (as well the respect) of teachers have somehow diminished in the eyes of the students. The only thing they care for in their class is the attendance and not the notes/lectures – after all, much more information is available on the interne...

It’s been almost 2 months since I have settled in the beautiful city of Mangalore – the once unfamiliar city feels more like a ‘new home’ now, the people who seemed “foreigners” before are now more welcoming – the language barrier doesn’t seem like a problem anymore and I am also making an effort to learn Kannada for basic communication! However, one thing or rather culture of this place seemed a bit disturbing to me – the look of horror that is reflected in the people’s faces when they come to know that I am a 28 year old unmarried and “working” woman. What I realized here is that unlike North India or maybe unlike Assam, women’s education is not well promoted here. Though Mangalore is very near to Kerela, the state having 100% literacy rate in the country, literacy here is sort of limited only to men probably! Another thing which I had observed is that no sooner girls reach their teens, they are hooked up for marriage. And it is not that they are allowed to complete thei...

Many people might say that at my age, I haven’t seen and experienced life at all. But I would just like to say (and my fellow research scholars would agree) that in 5 years of PhD, we seem to experience almost every facet of life. My journey as a research scholar began with my sister’s wedding and it is sort of ending with my father’s first death anniversary, with the birth of my niece in between. However, something else has shaken me up quite as much and led me to write this piece. I was educated from an all girls’ convent in Guwahati in the late 90s’.   I remember how innocent and naïve we were in those days. In high school, if some boy from Don Bosco (an all boys’ school at that time) just looked at us, it used to be a huge discussion in the class.   The topics that are sort of ‘in vogue’ today like “one night stand, live-in relationship” and most importantly “sex” didn’t really grab our attention; in fact, I don’t think any of us knew the proper meaning and use of ‘...