Friday, December 9, 2011

Being Independent

Nirmala, an Indian woman, came from a family of many brothers and sisters. She resented the gender discrimination, common to the social orthodoxy of the time, which gave considerable freedom to the boys to move about as they pleased,whereas the girls had to stay at home except when they went out with parents. Nirmala wished she had been born a boy.

At some point in her youth, she learned about an Indian woman artist who, by virtue of her profession, lived an independent life, and she fantasized that she would become an artist and be independent. To this end she learned to paint, but she could not stop her father from marrying her off in the conventional fashion. However, her husband's circumstances permitted her the leisure to continue painting, and she achieved a certain competence.

                                            Did she become independent?
                                                   She doesn't think so!!!

2 comments:

  1. she is right. she is not independent.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The concept of independence can be loosely subcatogorised. One can go about achieving both physical independence and independent thinking, while still being part of a family and social unit. Though she seems to have achieved survival based independence (space, finance, safety,self care etc.) she still remains behoviouraly (to make own choices) and metally (think for yourself) dependent.

    ReplyDelete