A promise to my daughter

The rain has stopped drumming the roof. The cacophony is back in the street. The day was just regular, boring and hot. I mother of two watches the street with indifference. The street has been same except there are new shops, new buildings and new structures on its side. The sun is same, it still rises in the east completes a semi-circle every day and vanishes to the west. The sky has been same, the drops of rain are same in all these years but still they appear so different. I have come to terms with a life of a housewife now. When I see my daughter cackle and recite her little innocent dreams I feel pity, my childhood has passed to my daughter. I see her living my childhood, the experience of living a life and being a mere spectator to it is a different experience altogether. I have long forgotten the excitement, the curiosity, the dreams of a girl in her early teens but I know they exist. I cannot feel them but I can identify them. My ambition was never expensive in the shallow life of my village. I just wanted to be a teacher, a school teacher because when I was growing up that was the only thing an educated human could do. They said there are doctors and engineers but by the time I saw one the dream of becoming a teacher had grown its root deep and wide. Every day when Sabitri miss came to our class I would place myself in her position, scribbling words in the blackboard, walking across the classroom holding books in hand, telling stories and explaining poems. I felt excited when I would see myself checking the home-works of the students and threatening them with sticks. In home we played school-school and I either had to be teacher otherwise I wouldn’t play. My friends used to get agitated by my stubbornness, so did my brother who also wanted to be a teacher in those games but I would never let anyone steal my role. Finally I started depicting the character and body language of the teacher so well that I never required to quarrel anymore to get my beloved role. Whenever the children played school-school, they would look for me. Knowing I was irreplaceable I would throw tantrums, tell them I have no mood or I have some other works to do and they would frown at me, call me arrogant but still did everything to persuade me. In those games I was living my dreams. I believed a day will come when I will be inside a real class, among my real students giving the real lessons. In those games I was actually practicing for that day. When I played the role of a teacher I forgot I was in a game and assumed it was all real, my friends used to get surprised. They said I might be taken by the rebelling groups for staging the programs they called ‘awareness campaign’ but that would not hold me back. Back then Sabitri miss had started using glasses which meant I had to have one as well. My Grandfather found me one from his old wooden box, it was only frame but I was fine with it.
To be a teacher one had to study get to bigger classes so I labored hard and I was a bright student. Those were similar days except I lived in village and I didn’t know one can choose from so many career options. When I passed the SLC(tenth standard) I was seventeen and I had topped my school. When the results were announced I was very happy, though the school-school game had stopped lot earlier, I still cherished the dream of becoming a teacher. I came home soaked in excitement after hearing the results. Everyone who met me on my way home was surprised and wanted to know what made me so happy but I wanted to tell my parents first. I thought my parents will be delighted with the news. At home I found my parents already in a happy mood I thought somebody else had already told them and cursed that person. Even then I told my father in no lesser excitement but it had little effect on him. He told me he had one another good news. I was married to the son of a local landlord, two months later. They never let me work, they said women from good background didn’t work. I knew it was not a matter of honor, it was the matter of doubt over women. Generations after generations after serving the family, after raising the children, after devoting herself to the dominant husband, after abiding by his unjust regulations women are still under strict scrutiny of the society. Its not the matter of honor, they fear their wives, their daughter-in-law might run away with somebody else or sleep with a stranger. They said people will have a subject for gossip, I knew they felt insecure themselves.
I remember my own growing up, the day when I had come home running to tell about my results. I can see an innocent, delighted girl in sky colored shirt and navy blue skirts with red ribbons tying her hair, hopping through the mustard fields to reach home as fast as she could. I can see the pieces of shattered dreams when her father told her about the marriage. When I was running home, I didn’t have the picture of my mother in my head. She never existed for us, we (me and my brother) were never given to her, she was never a family member of our huge joint family of uncles, cousins, and grandparents her position was no better than servants. I grew up without knowing what the dreams of my mother were when she was a child herself, I grew up without bothering if she had had the meal, if her health was fine. I never felt it was necessary to tell my mother about my success and failure but that day I had cried on her lap. She had said generation after generation women lived the same life and faced similar hardships.
Life is not fair always but for women like us its always unfair. I hope my daughter need not share my fate but I still worry. The children who had hidden inside the small shops, under the verandah and roofs of the houses to protect themselves from rain are back to street. Among those kids I see my Shraddha holding the hand of her brother; I can see her waving the other hand to me. I wave back to her. I used to play teacher in my childhood games, she plays nurse and I hope unlike mine she becomes a real nurse one day and for that I will fight the family, the society if necessary. Though my father crushed my dreams he did one good thing, he didn’t stop me from going to school due to which I could complete the ten class. The education has given me courage to raise my voice for my daughter. One day my Shraddha will be a nurse, I am sure because I her mother promise that.