Is That FAIR?

We live in a bizarre world. We claim equality of rights; we discourage (theoretically) gender bias. But behold, the scenario is quite astonishing- females get a lot of ‘advantage’. Seats are reserved for them in busses, trains, schools, colleges and even in some fields of work; a working woman gets a longer period of paid leaves after child-birth than her husband… and the list goes on.

These, no doubt are biasing, but are they completely unfair? I do not think so. Women here are expected to supporting the family by sharing the household chores. The men of the house are too busy with their job at their workplace, and most of them avoid accompanying the women in their everyday work indoors. So women who work outside have to put up with double burden. This can be treated as a justification why seats are reserved for them in transport vehicles.

A baby, during his/her first few months, needs the mother constantly. The father also has major roles to play for the proper growth and development of the baby; but he can play his role even after attending his job outside. But a mother cannot leave the baby to someone else for hours to go out for her job. Even if she manages to attend her job, it is highly probable that she would be mentally detached from her work.

Next let us consider education of girls. We have primary education compulsory and free for girls at some places, whereas cheaper in some other places, but still many families in rural areas and even some of urban areas are reluctant towards educating their girl child properly. Even though child marriage is banned legally, still such cases are not uncommon. It seems as if girls are born just to be married off to someone as soon as possible.

Female feticide is one of the cruelest crimes. There are still cases where a girl is killed before being born. In other cases, the mother of a girl child is ill treated by her husband and/or her in-laws. But does a man have the right to blame a woman for giving birth to a girl child (though it is nothing to be blamed)? Well the biology goes like this: we human beings have 23 pair of chromosomes in our cells, out of which, 22 pairs are alike for both males and females, but the sex chromosomes are different. The female sex chromosomes are designated XX, and those of male XY. The gender of the foetus is decided by the sex chromosomes of the mating gametes. So for a male fetus, the male gamete must carry the Y chromosome. Clearly, the answer to the question posed earlier in this paragraph is NO.

Step out of these cramped practice,

Gift the girl her life.

Let her laugh, make her smile,

Let her have her Right.

DECICATED TO ALL THE SUFFERING MOTHERS, THE SUFFERING SISTERS, AND MY SUFFERRING FRIENDS.

"CHALO PALTAI"

Yes that’s the name of a Bengali film I recently saw. I missed the first few minutes, but what I saw was enough to make me speechless and bring tears to my eyes. Here a frank confession, though I am a Bengali, given a choice, I would like to see an English movie than a Bengali one; but I am glad that I saw it. It had a beautiful story, a nice lesson and great acting. The plot was very close to us, nothing very far off. We can see around us a lot of people like Subhomoy (Prosenjit), a petty government employee who cannot earn enough to have big dreams, and needs to borrow money to meet his basic needs. Even then he had the bad habit of playing cards and drinking.

The major message that the film conveyed was the fallacy in the present education system. According to our present definition of good students, i.e. one who scores very good marks, there are many such “good students”. But mostly today’s education has come down to just cramming book after books. Seek for knowledge has almost come to a stop. And since many of these “good students” grow up to be teachers, no wonder the count of good teachers is very low (leave alone the present Bengali idea, ”Cheletar ja qualification tate kono chakri pacche na, bhabchi teachery line pathie debo.”). To this add the pressure of parents (generally belonging to lower middle class group) and teachers, ”Lekha pora na krle,schoole prothomkoekjoner modhe na thakle manush hobe ki kore?”. People can think no more than formal school education. No wonder, in India lots of talented brains and skilled youths get ruined unable to bear the pressure. No one is worthless. Everyone has some dreams, some inborn talents. Schools should help them realize their dreams. If he/she cannot score good marks, that does not mean he is dumb and stupid. Moreover, in schools, we are given unnecessary pressure of cramming things that are not of any practical use (for example, the year in which Akbar was born!). There is no doubt that primary education is required, but teachers should be able to teach the subject so that we can take it from our heart, not just by heart a few pages to score marks. This will help the students who want to study further by helping them form a strong base, and also make it easy for them to have preliminary education who want to pursue something else, like sports, music etc.

It also showed that there are people who seem to be very cruel and heartless, but inside there is a soft heart, respecting and fearing the Almighty. Imran (Rajatava Dutta) whose main source of income was to lend money, and when the borrowers were unable to pay back, he confiscated their property, and thrashed them. But he too helped Subhomoy in his bad days. Not only did he helped him with money, but also prayed from his heart that his son got well soon. His neighbours too helped a lot. But lo behold, on the news that he was selling off his flat, his brother kept running to him to ask for his share. It’s a very painful thing that when the people with whom he had no relation of blood helped him, his own brother offered just a packet of biscuit, that too for showing formality.

The movie also threw some light on how quickly and without knowing we call ourselves “bhodro lok”, and point fingers towards others. Malini (Mouli Ganguli) who had to indulge in the flesh business out of shear need of money to sustain her family was first looked down upon by her neighbours. Yet she gave her golden chain to Munni (Tathoi), bought the costly medicines that Gaurav (Debdan Bhowmik) needed, but Subhomoy didn’t have enough money. It showed the human tendency to find faults and blame others at the earliest opportunity, without anticipating that they might be of great help in the future.

Then comes the plight of the “common man”. His importance is ignored. Here, without the support of money, or influential political people, speaking publicly about the fallacies of the government is a punishable offence! To some, the actions of Subhomoy might seem insane, but when one steps into his shoes, those begin to seem logical at once. His every action is justified. But I personally feel that the way he dodged into the CM’s building seemed a bit impractical and impossible!

Coming to the songs, Anupam Roy is as good as ever, great music and heart touching lyrics. Haranath Chakraborty, the director has done a great job. I would like to thank all the actors, actresses and the crew members for their great effort to present before us a great movie with some greater lessons to learn. I would like that the viewers of this post see the movie themselves, and give their valuable feedbacks.