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It’s disquieting to know that India is a home to more than 40 million widows who are condemned to live a dead life. What’s that living when your body is alive but your soul is dead? That’s the kind of life widows are living in the country. If you look above at the clear blue sky you’ll see life of ashes, storm of destruction, and wind of death prevailing all around. Sadly, the beauty of a woman and the innocence is all crushed with these disasters and calamities.
India has a rich and glorious history with the imprints of woman admiration, woman worship, and woman bravery. There are many incidents that narrate the significance of woman in the country. There are many like Rani Lakshmi Bai, Sarojini Naidu, Indira Gandhi who served the country selflessly and unconditionally. Even today we worship many Goddesses like Goddess Saraswati, Goddess Parvati, and Goddess Durga. When we have so many live examples and incidents of worshiping and admiring women in our country then why are widows eschewed from the society? Why are they forced to live a lifeless life?
There are widows who are simply described as ‘Living Sati’. This is so because the practice of burning widows is now outlawed and if that hadn’t taken place widows would have definitely been burnt into ashes. Living a life on the mercy of her in-laws, giving up all adornments, renouncing the earthly pleasures, and wrapping themselves with a white sari are all they are left with. People giving such lives to them are involved in an act that is a bigger crime than doing a murder.
Isn’t it shameless for our country that widows here have to cast themselves out of the society following the nuptial traditions? The trend of ill-treating widows is an age old-tradition which has been harsher in Bengal as compared to the other states. In the earlier days girls were forced to get married at a very early age and later on, in due course of their teen or adulthood if their man dies she is forced to follow the ill-rituals of widowhood. This way the society is snatching the childhood of girls and crushing their innocence with false values and meaningless rituals.
As widows they are forced to live pitiful lives in dingy guest houses, ashrams, or a servant quarter of the house. And over that it’s a shame that younger widows are sexually exploited, stating that life is just burdening them with the cruelties of the society. Her status, her significance in the world gets over with the death of his husband and then she becomes a perfect material for sexual abuse. There are families who simply throw such women into different hands to be used as a prostitute.
Just think wisely…is this why this gender was sent to earth?...To face so many cruelties, to bear the intolerable tortures of the society, to live as if everything is dead within her. No one to hear her cries, all she can do is to dig herself deep on the carpet and wet that with her silent tears. Do they really cry when they are tortured or they crush their soul and shed out blood from their eyes?
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