Tell your Story #14 (Life of girls in 90s)

Hello to all of you!

Hope all of you are doing well.

"Tell my story", today I am very happy because whatever I have written till now, I have got your love for which I was yearning for the last 40 years.

One of my photo with my younger sister.

Although I have started writing now, but this desire was in my heart for so many years. I used to write something or the other since class 9, but never got appreciation. At that time girls were not given much importance, so this desire of mine remained suppressed in my heart.

Today I have got this platform. I want to thank community from the bottom of my heart. We were four sisters and one brother. In the 60s and 70s, having girls was not considered good. All parents wanted a boy only. But my father was not like that. Even in those times, he loved daughters immensely.

I had seen my father only in the hazy memories of shadows because he died when I was 3 years old. My younger sister was just a month old. Mummy had come to her grandmother's house. In our place, after having a child, the girl goes to her maternal home, it is also called Jaapa.

The girls have come to their maternal home so that they can get some rest after the delivery. My father got promoted after my mother. My father was studying BTC in 1955 and hence was quite intelligent and handsome too.

He did not like my mother after her marriage. In earlier times, the boy and the girl did not see each other. The family members used to decide the marriage. Same thing happened with my parents.

My maternal grandparents were very rich and had a good status in Moradabad city. Therefore, my grandmother finalised the marriage. My mother was short in height, very thin and not very beautiful either. My grandparents simply announced, "Jaggu, your marriage has been finalised. The girl is in the 9th class. It was a big deal for her to pass 9th on time. In cities, girls could study till 5-6 but in villages, it was nearly impossible for them to study.

So yes, grandma told father that she is exactly like Batwa's daughter-in-law, after marriage when papa saw mummy, he said, he did not even talk to mummy, in this way one month passed without talking, nowadays no one can even think of this happening, girls of the new generation cannot stay for even a day, there was no example of the endurance of girls in the old times.

Yes, so one month passed after the marriage, then father got high fever. It kept increasing day by day for 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 days and his fever did not normal.

Poor Mummy would stand near the door and try to see Papa, but Papa would even get the door closed. You must be surprised by all this. I also felt the same when Mummy would not tell me everything. But my mother has really suffered from this. Yes, Papa had got typhoid. The doctor had asked him to drink seasonal juice. There was no facility to extract juice in those days. Earlier, when girls used to go to their in-laws' house, they would take a lot of handmade items to their maternal home.

My Mummy had also taken some handmade cotton handkerchiefs. Juice would be extracted in those handkerchiefs every day and Papa would be fed milk. This continued for 15-20 days. Mummy went out of the room and served Papa for 15-20 days. Slowly, Papa got well. Now Grandma and all the family members told Papa how Mummy served Papa with faith and fulfilled her duty, while Papa had not even seen her properly.

Gradually, Mummy won Papa's heart with her behavior to such an extent that Papa could not even imagine living without her. After some time, when Papa got a job in the Irrigation Department, Papa and Mummy came to a place in Harewali. It was there that both of our daughters were born.

Mummy got upset with the two daughters, but Papa got transferred suddenly and both had to live separately because both used to go to Dedia School. After their separation, Papa's love came to light. He wrote countless love letters to Mummy on dressing paper, which I took from one of Mummy's cupboards and read quietly when I grew up. So much love for each other even after two children in marriage, was a wonder as per today's standards.

A very interesting incident which Mummy told us sisters, you will also laugh after reading it, in olden times women had such thinking, earlier there were more joint families in the villages and if any ancestor in the family died without marriage or at a young age, then he would become a deity i.e. a snake, and those snakes would roam around the houses as if there was no fear and if the daughter-in-law of the house went to Vaidya then she would cover her face; at that time girls were not even educated, my story of today is exposing such a truth in which daughters were considered as ordinary and this feast reached its peak on the day when parathas of desi ghee were made for all the boys of the house and rotis for the girls.

Those parathas of desi ghee were wrapped in a cloth and kept in the dining niche so that when the boys go to school, they can eat the parathas. Then suddenly grandmother saw that gods i.e. snakes have come and sat on those parathas and they kept sitting for a long time.

Then grandmother started shouting, gods have come and sat on every paratha. Oh, gods have come and sat on the parathas. How will it happen now? Grandmother told everyone that now these parathas will not be given to the boys and these parathas will be for the girls.

Then the girls came and sat after finishing their work. Then grandmother saw that the snake had gone from there. Grandmother started telling the girls that girls, today I have made potato parathas of desi ghee for you. Come, everyone eat them.

The girls were very surprised that why are they getting parathas today. You must have understood what this was. None of the daughters-in-law of the house could say anything in front of grandmother and Mani Maa, my mother was also left thinking in her mind that what is this irony in the world, why so much discrimination with girls. But perhaps such was the fate of girls at that time, those poor girls had to bear all this but I am very happy today that we are in today's era and our thinking is not like this. I see that nowadays there is no difference between boys and girls and perhaps girls are given more response than boys.

One more thing that I am very happy about and I often say this Bhaiya, everyone laughs a lot on hearing this from me that the girls, daughters, land, dandiya of the old era, today's girls are taking their revenge from the male society completely and today I have no hesitation in saying that perhaps our society is becoming female dominated instead of male dominated, the only sadness is that the behavior of the old men with our old women, the consequences of that are being borne by the youth of today's men.

Thankyou
@priya2205