Dear Editor, Following old saying ‘woman is enemy of woman’, women keep on pulling each other’s legs. In the race to exalt ourselves and demean others, women are forgetting our wisdom. Women hang around with our neat manners. Whatever the location, offices, neighborhoods, schools and colleges etc. Everywhere this example fits ‘Why is her sari whiter than mine?’ No matter how literate we may be, we have not been able to get rid of the adage that woman is the enemy of woman. Believe me, we are slaves even when we are free because we cannot tolerate the advancement of any other woman in our field. However, no matter how much we try to be good, ‘this thinking is not ours, we are educated and intelligent’ but we cannot digest success of any woman around us. Now talk about family. However, there are very few joint families left now, family relationships like Darani-Jethani, Sas-Nuh, Nanad-Bharjai are still competing with them in such a way that I always look higher than the other in everything. Neither the mother-in-law nor the daughter-in-law is willing to give up. Just like if the bridegroom praises the tasty vegetables made by bride, then mother-in-law gets angry. No matter what, she kept pretending. She thinks that until today it used to taste like my vegetables and now it seems to me to be stupid? The daughter-in-law thinks that now that I have come to this house, let Choudhary go. In the same way, if a boy sits next to his mother and talks for two hours, giving her respect, then the daughter-in-law gets burnt. As a result, gossip and daily quarrels start at home. The boy gets caught in the middle of the discussion. It is often seen that another woman has a hand in ruining a woman. In the same way in the office women keep on reconnoitering each other to see what the other is doing. Instead of trying to recover, she wallows in her sadness and thus, experiences more failure. Which parlour does she go to? What does she wear? Whom does she communicate with? Women caught in the trap of these questions unknowingly become the subject of discussion of others and get into a state of stress. Feeling jealous, they tend to look down on each other. The women of streets are no less. Urbanization and TV serials have spoiled these women. The politics of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law are creating divisions in their families as well as spoiling their relationships. In the race to show off by putting on new suits under the pretext of evening walks, the walk has no effect on the thinkers. It has become a habit of women to pretend to be kitties. Fortunately, if a more beautiful woman than them came and started doing the work honestly, then all together they would start spreading her hair. It’s funny that these ‘giant women’ let that woman stay there longer. Some women do not work for themselves and do not tolerate others doing so. Some, for fear of shaking their throne, keep the poison in the atmosphere by talking back and forth about that diligent working woman. They keep the temple of education as the arena of politics. My sisters! What kind of society are we creating? Who is walking lamely with slutty thinking and lame politics and where neither we nor our future generations are safe. If women are not liberated, they are not liberated from the domination of women alone. My point is not to blame all the women, but class of such women, if they change their minds then we can be truly free. Otherwise, there is no point in holding many conventions on Women’s Day every year, and there is no point in holding lengthy speeches in the name of women’s emancipation. It would be better for women, instead of advising others to improve, to change mindset and wash away the stigma of the so-called ‘woman is enemy of woman’. Vijay Garg.
