Feminity of Desire

"Man endures pain as an undeserved punishment; woman accepts it as a natural heritage."

I read this line somewhere when I was only 13 years old. The beginning of teen-age, when a child starts thinking and maturing as a grown-up, when a kid is no more a kid and a girl is no more a within-parents' thinking-premises person. She starts developing her own thought process, her own way of observing this world, her own definitions of life, and her own dreams and desires. I developed my own views and outlook then.

I have spent maximum time of initial 13 years of my life with my father and his upbringing influenced me the most and my thinking of course. As a result of frequent transfers in job of my parents, we got to see different places, people and perspectives. My father had different identities at places. The most common was the "father of 3 daughters". I sincerely understand if this doesn't seem understood to most of you, as what's the deal being a father of 3 girls. Even that was my first question to him when he told us about it one day. He had a fellow professor at his college who used to look upon him feeling miserable on his fate of bringing up, taking care and get his 3 daughters married at the end. And that's all a father role has to be for his daughters. When my father refused to agree with him and conferred that his daughters dreams and desires are his sole aim in life...his colleague looked at him as if he was talking something out of this universe. Of course his quick retort can leave anyone shocked and horrified as it is 2008, the 21st century...but then in the 80s it was quite normal. He advised my father not to support and relish his daughters' desires...what if she asks for more?....daughters' desires are a beginning of digging of father's grave...to desire is not what a girl is meant for. My father asked him if he had any daughter and he said he has 3 sons. My father said he would never be able to know what beauty in life is, having a daughter at home...

But papa's colleague's outlook compelled me to mull over my head on it for years. And I am still unanswered. How do we define desire? Isn't it the definition of whatever our heart wishes to do? Is there any line demarcating girl's desire from boy's desire? I wonder sometimes if desire is a feminine term. When heart wishes, it never thinks about whys and hows and whom it belongs to, whether a woman or a man. And today I burn over this concept again. I had visited India this august and was enjoying my stay at home. My younger sister told me about her school friend. I knew her, she was very dear to my sister, and had met her many times during my father's posting at that town. She told me once that she wanted to be a doctor. And I used to tell her that it just needs hard work and determination.

A woman desiring to be something more than a silent order follower is the biggest fear of a father's happy going life...that's what she told me. I asked her about her fear and she said that not all fathers think like mine. I could get her completely and not her father...the man who created her. I asked her to convince her father..and when she said she won't be able to make him understand as he is too adamant to marry her off early and fulfill his responsibility as a father...I said then in that case....be a rebel. And that option was absolutely not on her pages. Where a woman is not allowed to desire for something...will anyone accept her rebellion?

We got transferred from that place but my sister maintained terms with her. I came to know in this visit that she got married at the age of 20 forcefully and this year in August, she had miscarriage.We both were dumbfounded to learn this when my sister called her up. She was just 21 to have her first baby and was suffering from the pain and trauma after her miscarriage. Even my mother had her first child at the age of 25. We learnt from her cousin about this and I was disgusted to know that she was forced to have a baby soon after the marriage. Me and my sister couldn't eat that day after knowing that she is critical after the miscarriage. Doctors saved her of course but not her baby, not her strength, not her desire. A woman who could be a doctor and a life saver ended up being a wife only, being an early mother, being a victim of her family's customs, traditions and wishes. It is not that I am against marriage and children. I want to be a wife and mother someday. But only after I feel when I want to be. I couldn't save her...and I don't know for how many more years I will burn over this issue. We feel so helpless to treat a woman like a person...that's what she is....she is no damn door-mat or wooden chair. She is meant for doing much more than being a man's wife and mother of his children only. Let her desire come out and take a shape...don't kill it ungerminated.

My father says often" If you really want to understand a woman, try standing at her place and think at least once from her outlook, she remains no more complicated and difficult to understand."