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Have Indian Women Entered The 21st Century?
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'Come on, fast forward, fast forward,' he muttered through clenched teeth, at the patch of earth below swinging on its imponderable way carrying a billion people. 'Just a little faster, you're almost there!' But the clocks down there were all haywire. They certainly didn't know the time. Some ran ahead, while others were woefully laggard. It caused a crazy situation, with no one knowing for sure when or indeed if the miraculous minute would strike at all in their part of the world. 'Don't be too hopeful, it's likely to miss them altogether,' warned some of the other spirits. 'It can't,' said the 'fast forward' ghost. 'Now they'll have to hit it, any minute. Nothing in the universe can stop them.' 'Never can tell with India,' gloomed the others. 
Peering down in astonishment, the spirits saw a beautiful woman holding tight a tiara to her head, fending off a vast bunch of dim and dejected women to lunge desperately past the big minute. 'Let me through, let me through,' wailed a cow-dung spattered woman beating at the inflexibly locked hands of the clock. 'Just sign here and get through,' came a voice. 'No, thumb impressions will not do,' it said firmly, and the woman sank away. Most astonishing of all were the women who stuck like flies to the clock, pulled by its one hand forward and pushed back by the other. There they hung outstretched, stuck completely between the old century and the new. Dressed still in work clothes, they were pleading their case, 'Let go, give us a chance! We could change things.' They were persuasive. It seemed, almost, that time would release them from its grip. But the loud ticking of the other hand of the clock was inexorably reversing them. It measured their quotient of private freedoms, their 'caste-iron bound' marriages, and it got them stuck with a foot in at the door of the time crack. A group of persons led by a lady in high-heels was watched with particular interest, and then growing embarrassment, by the ghost who wanted the country to fast-forward into the twenty first century. Though staggering about in the old century, she had persuaded them - and herself, that she had got them through to the next millenium, and now they were busy thanking and congratulating her for the non-existent feat. On the other side, just as the men were hailing each other for progressing into the new century, a change was coming over the minutes. 'Look out!' warned the spirits from above, but the men were oblivious to the danger. They thought they'd kept those backward women behind where they belonged, but something was happening now which they didn't know. Faster and faster the women, who had learnt to beat the clock, were reinventing themselves right out of the old century into the new. There was nothing the men could do about it, it was way beyond their comprehension. The women laughed and laughed. They said, 'O.K! It's our secret.' Gosh, said the ghost. Thank God my time had come! For, like the emperors' new clothes, it was only the men who did not know - they were the ones still living in the old time!
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Where's the anachronism? The revelation is plain and simple - the 21st century in real terms has not yet begun, it will do so only on January 1, 2001. The farce of second millennium has already taken place - the world celebrating the advent of the third millennium on December 31, 1999-January 1, 2000. So in literal terms, the question of women entering the 21st century does not arise. Men have not entered the third millennium either. Neither have dogs, cats and gods, and what have you. Why argue? If anything, the statement at hand can be a proleptical proposition. Let us, for the sake of argument and for the sake of the convenience of the omnipresent ignoramus, accept that we are indeed in the 21st century. After all, where ignorance is bliss, it sure is a folly to be wise. Yes, the argument will lack conviction, but then don't all hypothetical assertions most often do precisely that? Not matter how fashionable it might be to sound politically correct, these are indeed days of nihilist upstarts. So, sooner or later, all the non-sexist, gender-equality pretensions fall apart and they all come up with such sordid statements that reek of quasi-paranoic, patrairchal delusions. Why else should they doubt whether Indian women have entered the 21st century? Of course, on the face of it, they have. So have Indian men. And so have all others on this planet. Nobody, nothing, stays stuck in the time-space continuum. Why squabble about a foregone conclusion? 
Ooops… one forgot! These are days of tyros and charlatans. Why else? |
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