A Disruptive Life Lessons Story Breaking Down Patriarchy
An Insightful Series of Life Lessons That My Life Provided As I Lived Understanding Its Psychology and Philosophy Improving My Mental Health in The Process.
LIFE LESSON STORIES SERIES
Patriarchy Flows in Our Blood, We Need to Change It All by Way of Transfusion
After my marriage in 1981, we had planned a long honeymoon in my hometown in the Himalayas. It was a very pretty and homely hill station where I had spent the initial 16 years of my life. It looked down at a beautiful valley toward its south and up at snow-covered high hills toward its north. I was eager to show all that scenic beauty to my wife. My home was at the most central location with a sprawling view of the valley from its bedroom windows.
We reached there in a few hours. My elder brother’s family lived there along with my mother as my father had passed away two years ago. They were all ready to host a warm welcome to my wife on her first visit over there.
After a long session of introductory chit chat, we went out for a leisurely evening walk on the mall road. A leisurely evening walk was the main characteristic phenomenon of that town’s culture. All inhabitants of the town made it a point to have an evening walk on the mall road every day. It acted like an evening club out in the open on which everyone socialized with everyone else in the evening.
A Disruptive Life Lessons Story Breaking Down Patriarchy: My Brother Throws A Drink Party
I met tens of my old acquaintances spending a few minutes with each one introducing my wife to them. By the time we reached back home, it had already gone dark. My brother had arranged for a drink party before the dinner.
As we sat down for a few sips together, I noticed there were only two glasses served on the table. I asked for a third one for my wife which my brother didn’t accept.
He said, “We don’t have a culture of women drinking in our family. Don’t ask for something that hurts our cultural values.”
I was overwhelmed with a weird feeling, not knowing how to react to it. I also belonged to the same culture, but I had not even an inkling of what he was saying! I had started drinking later in my life after I had left my hometown to a liberal environment. In that environment everyone was welcome to share sips despite their gender.
A Disruptive Life Lessons Story Breaking Down Patriarchy: Patriarchy Raises Its Head
Finally, I said, “Okay, then please remove my glass too. You can enjoy your sips alone.”
“No, how is that possible? It’s a party in your welcome. How can you not be a part of it?” said my brother.
“But you are forcing me to opt out of it by not welcoming my wife equally,” I replied.
“She is more than welcome for everything else here except this,” he tried to justify himself.
“That’s why I have also pulled myself out of it. You please go ahead,” I repeated my stance.
“No, but that’s not okay,” he insisted again.
“Then this is not okay too,” I tried to make him aware of how he was insulting my wife.
“What?” came an ignorant question from his side.
“What you are doing is considered insulting women in the present-day culture. It’s an obsolete patriarchal culture that you are advocating sitting in your posh drawing room in this beautiful town. Mind it you are giving it a bad name,” I said in a very cool voice not matching my words.
A Disruptive Life Lessons Story Breaking Down Patriarchy: Patriarchy Breaks Down
He kept looking at me for a long while. We were all sitting in the midst of an eerie calm. It was like a war of nerves from my side challenging a long-established patriarchy rejecting it on its face.
I broke the silence saying, “Look, you are just 8 years older than I am. And then look again which decadent culture you are siding by. That is a huge gap of an entire century between the two of us today.”
He was still looking at me without blinking his eyes. Finally, he stood up, went to the kitchen and brought the third glass for my wife.
And the next moment, we all shouted, “Cheers!” including his four daughters along.
It wasn’t less than a major surgical operation with blood transfusion replacing every single drop of patriarchy flowing through it.
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