about a girl.....

In today’s New York Times “ Doctor In India Jailed for telling Sex of a Fetus”… “In 1991 ,there were about 945 girls born per 1,000 boys ,but this dropped to 927 by 2001, according to a national census”

Anyway the article got me thinking ….In spite of being born in a country where the “cultural preference for sons has distorted the sex ratio“ ..amazingly I haven’t felt much by way of discrimination..

Well , my parents have two kids- my sister and me …. I’ve led a pretty sheltered life as long as I was in school and stayed with my parents .My mom and dad; especially my dad, mom too but if you know my dad you know he pretty much rules the homestead !! made sure that my sister and I weren’t cut any slack especially in the area of education
(thank fully my parents don’t say things like you’re girls; we cant spend on your education lets save for your dowry!!! My relatives might say such things ..but I don’t stay with my relatives. )..And it wasn’t just too keep up with the Joneses that my parents sent us to school or something..(if you know my immediate family , you must already know that we’re a rather hippie type family…)

Well my dad’s older sister is a PhD, arguably the first lady PhD in our community (incidentally my aunt worked in the Indian institute for reproductive sciences , carrying out research in the same field the Indian doctor was sent to jail for ‘mis’ using…. ), my first cousin from dad’s side has graced the cover of national magazines and has appeared in many print and television ad’s,( mind you this was in the late eighties- early nineties, when modeling was cool but not the fad it is now (yes, yes she’s modeled with Milind Soman!! :) ), and for a community that’s got a lot of people in the industry now ,she was one of the first ones . So needless to say my dad’s side of the family consists of progressive ladies ….

Really if my dad wasn’t my dad , my life would have been slightly if not drastically different, so you can imagine that coming from an environment where my immediate family hasn’t made me or my sister feel as if we ought to deserve less from life because we are female.
… I get really ticked of when random people make me aware of the fact.. don’t get me wrong ..I’m not a trailblazing Amazon.. but I don’t take kindly to the comment “You’re like a boy..” or something to that effect (and they don’t mean it as a compliment !!, I’ve only heard that once in New Zealand by a desi guy… in America the desi guys have some brains ..ok ok NZ desi’s, pretty much all of them were amazing ,but there were a couple of keeda’s from the motherland!!!! ) especially when its said by some guy my age. I mean just because at the age of 24 I don’t want to ask my parents for spending money and therefore work part time while going to school ? Because I don’t need a guy to drop me in his car when I need to do shopping?? Because I can cross the road without holding a guys hand??? … THAT makes me less of your concept of what a girl should be like!!!!

News flash buster…. Each and every girl would like to do the above things ..its just because people like you exist that they cant…

Well back to the story so till school and even undergrad in India I don’t think I suffered much!!??!! Apart from weird dress codes and suchlike… but even guys couldn’t come to college in shorts and pajamas so fine!! Well thankfully most guys I’ve met are great , apart from a occasional keedas, who were just acquaintances and not friends anyway.

In the US ,the situation is good, all the girls here have overcome certain obstacles (or not ) ,but are certainly living their dream of coming out here ..my hats off to the sisters, I know gals who’ve worked at mid night as night watchmen, washed dishes in restaurants,worked as parking lot attendants and worked thier way through school, girls who lived in the superdome in New Orleans when Katrina struck(what you thought an Indian girl couldn’t survive that ??) people who marry their soul mate irrespective of creed ,caste or community, people who earn more than their partners , yes all are desi, all are my friends and I’m proud of them and proud of the guys they are with!!

But I’ve had certain sources tell me that certain guys here don’t want to get married to girls who are studying here .. prefer girls in India …hmmm I wonder why????? ( actually not :P)

Well I pity the poor Indian girls who pay bucket loads of dowry to eventually get married to such a person ..poor gals will be dreaming of their cool American prince charming and life in the land of opportunity … Well gals here…. I break the illusion ( or at least part of it ) .. I held on to this idea as well before I came here….. Here it is…. JUST BECAUSE A GUY LIVES ABROAD ,DOESN'T MEAN HE'S COOL!!!

Sure there are great, cool guys out here , and the concept of an American Prince Charming isn’t a fairy tale ….but you have equally cool guys in India …and those psycho types you thought could exist in India only ..yupppp they’re here a s well!!!!!

Well , I’m sure all the gals would have read most of this . Hope it wasn’t too long!! But I just got on a roll with this topic ....

As for the guys ..Well if I’ve scared you off ……Thank goodness !!!!..That was the aim!!!..
For those guys who did read…. Thanks .. I hope it wasn’t too long and I hope it was enlightening to read how some one from the other side views things …

As I was writing this I had the newspaper with the article open next to me.. an American guy sitting next to me saw the bold headline of the article and said CRAZY!!! Well that’s what I said when I first saw it too!!!!