When I was in class 8th or 9th, our Hindi grammar book used to carry few essays so that students can learn art of essay writing. Well, one such essay I remember reading was on 'Dowry System', and the way it started was something like this...

"All the socials ills rooted in traditions have their beginning in traditions which were noble and good, but as time changed those traditions remain rooted in past and therefore they turned into social ills"

I liked something about this reasoning and so usually whenever I come across some illogical social evil I try to map it to what could have started it.

But there is one tradition that escapes any sense how much ever I travel back in time - and that is the way women are treated after widowhood.

I guess few thousand years back, few wise men would have gathered and sat together to decide on customs to follow, but what and i seriously wonder, what on earth could have made them come up with such cruel customs for widowed women. I actually saw this movie - Dor today, a nice movie - actually a very nice movie. And one of the central character is a widow. And that somehow get me thinking on this whole concept of widowhood again today. But there is just no logic how hard one may think. Why women just need to do away with all color, all joy, all happiness of their lives because their man dies. Come to think of it Sati system prevalent earlier was plain inhumane but is life a widow expected to live any less inhumane. In sati, a widow was burnt to death on the pyre of her husband but the current traditions are just no better, we burn everything that represents life - laughter, colours, freedom, friendship, desires. ambitions - burn everything that's life and just leave the body - Can we call a person living such life - ALIVE?

Cruelty of these traditions is just too much to bear. And bigger problem is that they don't bother us. Are there more AIDS victims in India or wretched widows ? Which is the bigger problem? Will a generational shift make their lot better ? Can we as a society grant our fellow people their right to live life on equal terms. Can we grant our fellow beings status of an adult and therefore right to make decisions. Can society stop being judge ?

There is a dialogue in Dor somewhere in the middle, " Why men in our society is expected to get remarried if their wife die and why women are expected to mourn death of their husband all their life ? ".

I don't think anyone can answer this question, what we can do is to work towards making this question a thing of past and I hope that happens sooner than later.

-sid