The Social Dilemma K Sudheendra Nayak

K Sudheendra Nayak Mangaluru, Karnataka

It’s a common fact that rich people attracts more followers and friends, whereas the poor people are left to struggle alone. But it’s also a fact that most people who are rich today, come from a poor or middle class background.

Just going through some of the motivational books and from other people’s real life experiences, I realized that it’s not by luck or by coincidence that one becomes rich, but through continuous persistence on your goals, following a strict discipline day in and day out and by doing the right things at the right time.

Most people today are judged by their status, social contacts, profession or by the home or vehicle they own. Today’s generation gets easily influenced by celebrities, social influencers, and religious organizations most of whom either push their agenda or brainwashes the youth in some way or other.

In order to be like them, our youth forget the basic ethics, morality and discipline needed to lead a happy life. People judge you by your status and money and not by the skill sets you have acquired, that’s the harsh reality today. The point that I would like to make is, are we asking the right questions as an individual or as a society? As many might agree with me, it’s easy to do what we like but difficult to do what is right. Instead of developing our skills sets, knowledge, EQ level and personality, we are obsessed with celebrities lifestyle such as how they look, what they wear, what they drive, where they hangout and so on.

It’s necessary for us as a society to understand that most of the rich elite class people are just ordinary people who tries to brainstorm and influence people into following certain hidden agenda sponsored by western interests and more we stay away from them, safer we are in preserving our identity, traditions and culture.

Only by believing in ourselves, and disciplining our lives towards achieving our goals can we be truly happy individually and collectively as a society which will also help in bridging the rich-poor gap in our country. Ultimately it’s the choices each one of us make that will decide the course of our nation.

Karna, The Enigma

Karna was and will remain the greatest enigma in the Mahabharata. There are so many aspects of his character that one cannot understand him completely. Should he be loved or loathed, pitied or should one be proud of him. Born as the son of the great Sun God Surya and Kunti, the mother of Pandeva’s. It was that Karna was born when Kunti was still a maiden.

Born with the armour and kundalas of Surya, Karna could not be harmed with any weapon. The world knows him as a warrior, who fought for his friend Duryodhana. His fight with Arjuna, and his eventual death is well known and has been chronicled in several movies and TV serials. The best analysis of his life has been done by Ramdhar Singh Dinkar in his epic Rashmirathi. In prose, Shivaji Sawant has beautifully analysed but his moral side has not been the subject of much discussion.

Some people consider him a villain, who used abusive language for Draupadi at the time of the game of dice in Kuru Rajyasabha. He is regarded as a villain by many intellectuals for being one of the seven maharathis who participated in the murder of young unarmed Abhimanyu in the Chakravyuha. Some call him a hero, who stood by his friend Duryodhana to prove his loyalty till his last breath. Yet others pity him for the curses he earned during his lifetime, or rather soon after his birth, when he was abandoned by his mother Kunti.

Having been ignored throughout the ages, has been his role as a husband to his wives Vrushali and Supriya; a father to his nine sons , an elder brother to Shatruntapa ,also called Shona; and the turmoil in his inner self he faced throughout his life.

He married Vrushali, his childhood love only after his adoptive parents asked him to do so. His marriage to his second wife Supriya was

a result of his dedication to his friend Duryodhana. Duryodhana had gone to Kalinga for the swayamvara of Bhanumati, the princess of Kalinga, daughter of King Chitrangada. Duryodhana abducted her from the swayamvara hall, and while escaping challenged all the assembled kings to fight and defeat Karna. Karna easily defeated all of the suitor kings. But Bhanumati put a condition before Duryodhana to fulfil before she would consent to marry him. Her best friend Supriya would have to get married to Karna. Karna loved Vrushali, but in order to let his friend Duryodhana get married to Bhanumati, the princess of Kalinga, he consented to marry Supriya.

In the swayamvar of Draupadi, Karna was capable of lifting the Shiva dhanusha and piercing the eye of the revolving wooden fish by looking at its reflection in the underlying pool. He had lifted the Shiva dhanusha which no one else could lift and strung it with ultimate ease.

But when he was about to hit the target, he was stopped by Draupadi (on a sign from Krishna). Draupadi said that she would not marry in a lower caste, the son of a charioteer. Karna could have abducted her then and there, as was the prevalent custom in those days. He bowed his head and returned to his asana and kept the honour of Draupadi at that moment.

Karna had a younger brother. Shatruntapa, also called Shona, was the son of his adoptive parents Radha and Adhiratha, the royal charioteer of Hastinapur. Throughout his life Shona was devoted to Karna. Karna also loved him more than anyone else... Shona was killed by Arjuna in the great war of Mahabharata. Karna wept bitterly and swore to take revenge.

Karna had nine sons. The eldest one was Sudamana, his first born from his first wife Vrushali. His other sons were Vrishasena, Shatrunjaya, Dvipita, Susehena, Satyasena, Chitrasena, Susharma and Vrishketu. Sudamana was killed by Arjuna at the time of Draupadi’s swayamvara, when a fight broke between the assembled kings and Arjuna. Sudamana had accompanied Karna and he fell prey to stray arrows shot by Arjuna. His other sons were killed in the great war of Mahabharata. Nakula killed Satyasena, Chitrasena and Susharma; Bhima killed Sushena; and the rest except Vrishaketu were killed by Arjuna. Despite this Karna did not kill any of the four Pandavas, Yudhishthira, Bhīma, Nakula and Sehdeva. He spared their lives multiple times in order to honour his promise to Kunti that he will kill only Arjuna and spare the lives of other Pandava brothers.

Throughout his life Karna sought his true parents, but he came to know about the truth of his birth only at the time of war when he had already sworn to fight against the Pandavas. He fought the war knowing that he was fighting his own brothers. He accepted death at the hands of Arjuna, both his sworn enemy as well as his own younger brother.

But can we simply classify him as a tragic hero or a villain. He remains one of the least understood characters of the Mahabharata. He is the one who leaves an indelible impression on the hearts and souls of the ones who read about him in novels or plays; who watch him in serials and movies and the rather few people who have read the Mahabharata as an epic.

Dr Lokesh Gupta Gurugram, Haryana

Feminism or Womanism

Jyotirmaya Thakur, Sevenoaks, Kent, England

Gone are the days when women were relegated to the background in most societies. These evils were much more pronounced in developing countries, and more so in India. Virginia Woolf’s renowned assertion: “Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman” — frequently misquoted as “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.”

The unfortunate reality is that nearly a century after Woolf penned her infamous words, women worldwide continue to be prevented from realizing their full potential due to society’s formal and unspoken barriers. In many nations, the status of women as second-class citizens has been codified into law. In other countries, discrimination takes a more insidious form, manifesting in stereotypical assumptions that women are less biologically qualified in certain fields.

I found the study of cross-cultural relations, social structures, ethical issues, interaction, and consequences of human behavior truly fascinating — specifically, exploring the landscape of how action and consciousness both shape and are shaped by cultural and social structures. My studies in this field combined with the breadth of inspiration that comes from being in an environment committed to building a more equitable path whereby women are encouraged to take risks, to not follow but to lead, and to have the strength of conviction enabled me to forge my own path both as a writer and as a women’s rights activist.

What really stood about the women writers of past was their courage and determination to overcome gender-based obstacles were matched only by their spirit, resilience, and the innovative ways in which they were able to push beyond the boundaries, especially given that they were all born prior to 1900, when opportunities were not readily available to women, when females were often barred from educational institutions and from holding certain positions in society, or when their achievements were undervalued.

The world at large was patriarchal and considered women to be a shade inferior to their male counterparts in almost all walks of life. Despite various social reforms and movements for the emancipation of women, this evil still continued to exist even in the western societies, till very recently.

The conditions for the emancipation of women, however, have shaken the certainties of men: men have felt victims above all because the possibility of divorce or abortion has made women more free. Men are unprepared to see their patriarchal authority fail and this often leads them to acts of violence, sometimes unheard of. The problem of domestic violence is not only a physical problem but also a verbal one. We often focus on physical violence, the most blatant and aggressive, but verbal violence is often underestimated.

It would be interesting to understand that there is a whole organized system to keep women in traditional roles, certainly more suited to men’s interests. It would be necessary for mothers to teach their children, without distinction of sex, to take care of housework, to play similar games for both, without imposing a strong differentiation of roles for the two genders from the beginning.

The gap between men and women is rooted in childhood, in the different educational programs that are offered to girls and boys. So it is often mothers who transmit these behavioral prototypes, forgetting that they are women and privileging male children because they are favored and considered successful in society. It is known that in the Indian countryside, and beyond, many girls were killed as soon as they were born. I would also like to condemn the kidnapping and abuse of girls.

Many will argue that most modern women get to enjoy enough liberty in this modern age. But there are a few things that need to be considered carefully. ‘Enough’ liberty is not ‘complete’ liberty. Why so? Simply because it is not earned by the women themselves. Rather, this freedom is what, how, when and where it is sanctioned by patriarchal rules. Nothing more than that. And the notion that they ‘get to enjoy’ their freedom again, implies that it did not flow naturally, rather, the society ‘allows’ them to enjoy it. It is only a privilege, sanctioned by society. This is what patriarchy would like to believe and endorse. And this is where hiccups occur in the exercise of women’s liberty.

The periphery of domesticity is very much the background on which the question of women’s liberation is established. From its very infancy, a child becomes aware of the disparity in the freedom enjoyed by its father and its mother. And this conditioning takes deeper roots in the child’s psyche as it grows in that environment. This set up becomes so entrenched in the child’s mind that it becomes enormously difficult to break out of it. Therefore, irrespective of man or woman, this framework guides people in the society, at home, in relationships, marriages and all other spheres of life.

The main agenda of patriarchy that is hidden in all societies is the claim and control of man over a woman’s womb. It wouldn’t be an overstatement if this is considered to be the most important aspect of modern human civilization. Every boy and girl become aware of this as soon as they attain puberty. And it becomes so entrenched in their minds that it gets firmly rooted in their beliefs and culture. Thus, it is rare for anyone to question this in the first place.

Womanism, on the other hand, questions this very premise. Especially in the third world, these familial cultures and social dictates bear so hard upon the youth that their freedom of thought and experience is severely constrained and barred. This is the mechanism employed to prohibit such questions and strengthens the roots of patriarchy ever so firmly. And this is why women remain restrained from asking such questions and prompts them to remain muted, to refrain from thinking and thinking differently. Rather, they are discouraged from being differ-

ent.

This silent surrender to the dictates of patriarchy is the history of women in the third world. And their present too, in the 21st century! This very prohibition on being different is enough to silence women. If that doesn’t work, it is easy enough to mark that woman as corrupted like ‘Taslima Nasreen’. This is the political scheme of the patriarchal system. How many women can afford to be so strong of character and bold of thought that they would be able to counter this structure emphatically?

In most literary works, even by eminent women authors, women have always been portrayed in a poor light. Many books of fiction, even in the twentieth century, have projected women as doormats. It was only in the latter half of the twentieth century that women got a platform to voice out their grievances. Women’s liberation movement started garnering strength in some western nations, slowly spreading to the Orient. Though many nations are yet to come to terms with granting equality to women, there seems to be a positive trend towards accepting them as equals, in a world hitherto dominated by men. Part of it was primarily due to awareness created by education, and a generally broad-minded approach.

The world thus witnessed women gradually making their presence felt in almost all fields of life. Today we see them competing in almost every discipline, be it sports, academy, armed forces, space technology, politics, and whatnot. Today we see them boldly venture into all fields of life, fighting for equal status with that of men.

A shining example would be Malala Yousefzai, a Pakistani, who braved all odds in a staunch Muslim country, fought tooth and nail for the upliftment of women’s rights, and went on to become a Nobel laureate. There are umpteen examples to show that women have shaken off the yolk that had suppressed them for centuries. Time and again, poets and authors have been depicting the various problems faced by women in a mostly male dominated world, and some of them have been made into movies. We read about the constant struggles they have to endure, both at the domestic front as well as in their careers.

Sexual harassment continues unabated even to this very day. Despite stringent laws against such practices, we find stray incidents of women turning victims to such rampant evils. Human rights activists have been fighting hard to put an end to such evils. Rape and molestations are still rampant in societies all over the world.

We come to know of the role played by women in their mundane lives. They don the role of a mother and spouse, by multitasking. I doubt that a man can do this as efficiently as a woman. The effort is more so, when it comes to working women. They are so flexible, and make sure they perform the tasks they are entrusted to, with great patience and understanding. This is one adorable trait which is worthy of praise. Right from performing the various household tasks like grooming the children, helping them with their studies and caring for their spouses, they even don the role of a man.

Among the many problems that women face in life, sexual exploitation can be the worst kind. It affects the marginal class more because of their vulnerability. Being economically backward, they fall an easy prey to sex hungry scoundrels.

Another major issue that the average woman faces in everyday life is domestic violence. We read about it not only in news journals, but it is a great theme for both poetry and prose. We also see it in films. It is a common occurrence and exists even amongst the affluent classes.

I promote the concept of Womanism rather than just Feminism. The term “Womanism” was first coined by Alice Walker, an American poet and the author of the most critically