As I woke up in the morning mustering the courage to answer all “Why are we not celebrating the men’s day with all this grandeur” messages, to my surprise there was none instead I was welcomed with “You are doing great, keep going” messages. Wow! that’s different.
Well, people have finally understood the need and significance of the day. No more debating and spending energy on people who are determined not to agree with any of the feminist thought anyway.
The day had more surprises for me. And Amazon decided to add colour to my women’s day plans by the early delivery of the Poco m2 mobile phone I had ordered. That delivery guy rang me up to confirm the route and that dude seemed to be equally confused as me, having no geographical knowledge of the area. As I was new to the area, I tried enlightening him with few routes I had by hearted to deliver to every delivery boy. Finally admitting my failure I handed over the phone to my dad who spent his good 15 minutes explaining the route, and at the point when he lost his temper he shouted at the guy and asked him to stop his vehicle there so that he will go and collect it. Sensing my father’s bad temperament somehow he found the route and by the time my father was out with his vehicle, the delivery guy reached in front of our house.
I opened the case and jumped with joy, seeing that bright yellow coloured mobile phone that was out of stock for a month. I ran around with it, showing it to my parents, “Pappa! Look, a yellow phone”.
“Typical girls choice”, replied my father. Taken aback but strongly believing he meant it satirically, I continued my unboxing antics replying it with “Even colors have gender these days, I believe.”
And that was the beginning of the unravelling of the misogynist in him which was hidden for long 23 years. All my friends always envy me for having such progressive parents who let me do whatever I feel right, then and there the idols got shattered, and it was the end of my father fixation( which I was trying to fix for years). His male ego being hurt, he went on to a long monologue, “No sensible man will ever choose the yellow colour, not me or any real men. Pink and yellow are girls colours and it is not even professional to use such bright colours. You live in your own bubble made up of friends who are effeminate boys who agree to you and are like you. The so-called progressive people in the IT field may choose such weird things. Actually, you girls are not good for anything, it is men who run this world, they thus have superiority over everything. Don't come up with a list of successful women. Women like P T Usha has succeeded just because they have excess male hormones in them. Do you even know to drive? See you got this phone just because a sensible person like me was here at home to give directions to the delivery guy. If women hadn’t achieved anything in this world it is just because they are lazy and not because anybody stopped them from doing so. Here, in this house there was no gender discrimination, yet can you do everything that your brother does…” And he went on, I felt numb and was flabbergasted to which I replied with a cracked voice, “Had he (my brother) ever clean the toilet he uses, but I do or you guys forcefully make me do it”.
This day, I questioned everything I did and believed. I believed in making a change and whereas now I know I was a total failure as now my father has become the personification of misogyny and my mom supporting everything he said from the kitchen with her usual, “See, this is what will happen if you give freedom to girls, voicing against her own father”. I feel ashamed to correct another person again when he makes a patriarchal statement because I couldn’t even change people in my own house where change should have happened first.
Now the word “gender” and “gender discrimination” has become a joke in our house which they use to prick me as everyone has unanimously agreed my father has won the argument and I had nothing to do, but cry, feeling pity for myself.
PS: no pictures, no poetic embellishment because this write up was to vent my emotions.
