By Diganta Halder
When God conceived women, He conjured up the rarest of His creations. He tailored, calibrated, planned and architected a human kind with multi-tasking and multi-emotional attributes. It’s unfeasible for a man, to take the perpetual pangs of gestation and then bear the excruciating pain of labour to bring into this world another life. It’s generally incomprehensible for a man to securely keep pinned the four corners of a family with the equilibrium of happiness. It’s almost always unworkable for a man to perform in office and come back home contentedly to set the kitchen flames burning and put the dinner plates ready for the family to cuddle together and enjoy the lavishness of a sumptuous supper. It’s beyond a man to be so full of lovely emotions, looks and beauty that a woman is bejeweled with. While a man is but just a human with restrained attributes, a woman, for that matter is more extraordinary in soul and substance. For every reason and in every season a man should remember that he once lived in the tenable comfort of a woman’s womb for nine long months, slept in reasonable peace and shared his provisions with his mother, a woman ! It is the woman who brought him into this world… he didn’t arrive at the station on his own ! Salute to all the wonderful women in this world whom I know and don’t.
And yet when flashes of women being barbarically persecuted by men come across my mind, my head stoops low with steep disgrace and I loathe the fact that I was ever born in the community of men ! Year wise statistics of cognizable crimes reported by various agencies brings out the fact that in the recent years there has been an intense rise in rape and attempts to commit rape, household violence against women, and assault on women with the intent to outrage their modesty. Few days back I was truly disconcerted to read a heartrending article in a local newspaper that flashed the upward trend of crimes against women in the state of Meghalaya. More than 1,100 cases of various crimes have been committed against women in which rape cases had hit the top. The issue needs prioritized attention by the stakeholders of protection of women and their rights. Meghalaya has always been a haven for women and it must remain so. The perpetrators of crime against women should not be spared under any circumstance. May the sickening doers of such odious evil travel to the dungeons of death and perish.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride and if turnips were bayonets, I’d wear one by my side. One can but never disagree with this adage especially at such a perilous social stage when our beautiful state is faced with the rising malevolence against women, most regrettably following the trails of states that lead the crime chart. But my wish and I am sure of yours that the nauseating doers of evil should face bayonets and truncheons and perish with curses can only be turned into a reality if we once again rehearse our old habits of holding the highest opinion about women and bringing to an end any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women.
It will need more than mere wishing each other Happy Women’s Day in the social media to celebrate International Women’s Day on 8th March with truly good soul and spirit towards women.
With a food for thought I shall close my words as I present before you Christian Dior, the French fashion designer who was best known as the founder of one of the world’s top fashion houses which is now owned by Groupe Arnault. He had remarked, “After women, flowers are the most lovely thing God has given the world.”
Wishes for a Happy Women’s Day for today and forever and ever !
(The author is Principal Assam Rifles Public School, Laitkor, Shillong)