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Open Letter - 11

Dear Society,

How are you? I am fine and I hope this letter finds you in peace and harmony. It might sound exaggerating to you, but trust me, every morning I begin my day with a prayer to the Goddess to keep you away from tensions and disturbances. Because only when you are safe can I feel relieved that my child shall be safe.

I sometimes wonder how mankind is so dependent on your views and perceptions. If a potter is hailed by you as the most important man in your cult, then pottery would in a blink of an eye become the most prominent occupation of the world. Bravery is hailed only when you find it worthy of an applause. Wealth is most desired because you treat a man of wealth better than a man of no wealth.

If you say engineering and medicine are better than music and fine arts, so be it. All your loyal subjects would rush to reserve their places in either courses. If you say cricket is a better sport than hockey, then so be it. We shall all play cricket more than any other sport just to appease you. If you say one community is better than the rest, so be it. We shall all accept their authority without a word of disapproval.

Pride and honour are of no value to an individual unless they confirm to your standards. Why, if you say honour in the name of religion, community, caste, creed and regional identity is more valuable than love, affection and compassion, so be it. We shall not oppose your dictum. Our desire to attain your acceptance is more pressing than the need to have common-sense and self-respect.

You must be wondering where I am driving this conversation to. If you have not yet guessed it, then I suggest you to make it a habit to follow some trustworthy newspapers. I quite agree to the fact that reading a newspaper early in the morning disturbs one’s entire day, but, only when your day gets disturbed will you start thinking about your state of affairs. Ignoring the presence of a problem and pretending that all is well cannot be a solution to any problem. Only when we acknowledge a problem can we find a solution to it.

Statements aside, if you start reading a newspaper, (not during these testing times but during normal times) I am sure you will be astonished to see the number of deaths that make news every day. Deaths due to tragic road accidents, rail accidents, cold blooded murders, helpless suicides and honour killings.

Death approaches an individual in different paths, but the most horrific route it takes is murder in the name of honour. One thing that makes honour killing most horrific of all is the relationship that exists between the perpetrator of crime and the victim. ‘Honour’ in your words, is carried through blood. Honour hence is being protected and honoured in blood.

Dear society, you created hierarchy in order to ease chaos among your subjects. But with this hierarchy, did you ever realise that you brought boundaries and fences between communities? You brought along hate and despise. You will realise your mistake when you read about fathers killing their daughters, brothers ripping open the wombs of their sisters and cousins hunting down their bloodline. Honour killing is a consequence of relentless desire to gain your approval. The day you stop giving your approval to such blood thirsty murders, that day shall be the end of honour killing in our country.

Dear society, it scares me to hell to give birth to a baby into a world that worships hierarchy more than love. Please consider my request as one in need of immediate attention and take necessary steps to disown such crimes in the name of honour.

Thanking in advance for accepting my request,

Yours humbly,

An Expecting Mother.


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