Alpa Desai's blogs

 She was caroling and shy of turning seventeen in a couple of months. She was not an archetypal nineties teenager, conformative. She was a mutineer, sailing away from the world into hers. She was untamed, arrogant, hot-headed – she was entitled, she was a genius, talented! A long way from humbling experiences yet to come. All her cousins were aiding each other with the henna that night. She was sitting in one corner, on a staircase of 4 stairs, clothed in a black top with white, little flowers and the top tucked into her pink shorts. Drawing some random leaves on her right hand with the henna, she felt a shadow looming towards her. She turns to her right, thinking about this thirty years later and laughing to herself that he did not know how to begin a tête-à-tête. She was swagger enough to disregard his presence without realizing her world was going to turn upside down in less than two days. Come next day, there were various ceremonies for the wedding, but she is there only fo...

Sounds intense! This is, however, a reality for almost 70% if not 80% or 90% of women go through in their lives on an almost daily basis especially if they live in a patriarchal community. For starters, none of men nor women even realize or can comprehend the terms because it is embedded or ingrained as a part of or in the name of “culture”. In this write–up, I do not want to solely victimize women; men too, capitulate to matriarchal power-play however this is about me and my perspective and my experiences due to which I am who I am today. Call it gullibility or teenage naiveté, I could not assimilate male narcissism or chauvinism until my first ex duped me and walked out without a justification. And even after reconnecting after nearly 3 decades, the person does not have the modesty or humility to provide any explanation. It is just the way men in a patriarchal community are ingrained – they are taught to believe they do not owe anything to anybody. Ironically, these people can ne...