hmm.....I'm not sure how many find this topic interesting, but i do. This time I'm after something more objective. Something that happened outside my thought, something that happened long ago.
    The story of an old India, a couple of generations old. An India where discrimination on the baseis of sex was manifest. The land that was introduced to me by my grandmother's childhood. My grandmother is 70 now, but she still carries the air of a girl of my age...no exaggerations. One day, when I visited her house, she started telling me her story:
   Her mother was a highly pampered child, for her father was a tasildar. But for a tasildar's daughter, she turned out to be more of a simpleton. Her husband, my grandmother's father, my great grandfather, was the principal of a local school. Her mother blindly believed her headmaster husband.
  The couple had ten children. Eldest among the lot was a BOY, ignore the name. Myy grandmother was the second child. Those days, the father was of the mind that the sons are the family's pillars; they are the ones that take care of the parents in their oldage. Girls are just a burden. Marriage is a way to get rid of them. Girls weren't allowed to study further than class 5.
   If a girl could sing, write, and read letters, she was an ideal. A perfect coveted bride. So it follows without saying, my great grandfather paid more attention to the boys' education. My grandmother wanted to study, but fetters of her gender held her tight. And because she was the eldest among girls, she had to do all the chores if she had to go to school. My grandmother desperately okayed it. She had to clean the house, wash the clothes of the whole family, clean the utenslis and dress up her siblings, in order to be able to go to school.
   In school, she did precociously well for her expected academic performance. She was constantly lauded for her scholastic record. Also, she was gifted with a sound knowledge of music. So she was invited to all kinds of ceremonies to sing. She was, in all, the perfect daughter any couple could wish for.
   But alas, misfortune was in store for her, for she was a GIRL. She wasn't allowed to continue her education after she had finished schooling. " ' Too much education for girls would make it difficult to find a groom,' my father used to say" my grandma said. That did disappoint her a great lot, but she couldn't argue against it.
  She also played the midwife for the delivery of her siblings. She also became their nanny. Her mother was now suffering from hysteria. She would, for no reason, revile the girl children. For no reason, yell at them.
  Life without school was miserable for my grandmother. She kept loathing these rule put on girls by her elders.
  In contrast to my grandmother's after-school period, her brother got into a college in vizag(vishakhapatnam). My great grandfather earned 300 rupees a month at that time (though it would amount to a better sum in these time). He sent half of his salary to the eldest son, hoping that would satisfy all his needs for his education. And the other half was shared by ten people.
(the next part in the next blog)