The invisible price of tradition

 --Ayushi Mal

"If not you, who? If not now, when?"

Lately, I have watched Satyajit Ray’s movies, and I am truly amazed by the storylines and what they have to offer. I discovered that, unlike books, good movies are also a window to one’s soul. They tell us so much about ourselves and how we perceive things differently. Two people watching the same movie can come up with two different dimensions and completely distinct outlooks. They can comprehend the same character in very/completely different ways.

What I like most about these movies is that, instead of telling you what to think, they keep space open for interpretation and analysis. They simply tend to show things as they are and along the process, they reveal so much of us.

One such Bengali movie was ‘Devi’, which I watched recently. It basically showcased how a woman was given the pedestal of a goddess, violating her rights and identity, while throwing light on the evil practices about and superstitions that prevailed in society. It conveys a strong message about how we often normalize taboos under the veil of tradition, religion, and faith.

The irony of the movie was that people were worshipping a living human being, giving her the stature of a goddess, while simultaneously treating her like a lifeless idol. Now, the question arises: does it still prevail? I would say definitely yes—not in the way it was portrayed in the movie, but in a slightly different version, perhaps in each and every household in which you and I live. Only the outlook has changed, but the core belief has remained the same.

Even today, we expect women to be ideal. We fail to embrace their imperfections, forgetting that they are human too. We often talk about women’s rights, women’s protection, and women’s well-being. But nobody talks about the cost at which the whole system runs. Or rather, what cost women have to pay when they are subjugated in the name of customs, something they often do not even realize is taking a life away from them.

They are drowned in a whole set of responsibilities, compromises, and sacrifices that they never signed up for and somehow it became their identity. They simply suppress their own desires and live up to others’ expectations under the veil of tradition, or, I must admit, what they have been taught from the beginning. Sometimes, even setting boundaries makes them feel guilty—not because they do not want peace and sanity, but because they have never learned how to put themselves first. From subduing their desires to sabotaging their dreams, they simply learn to shrink.

The irony is that all the suffering they undergo, all the violations they face, and all the freedom that is snatched away from them become normalized. Eventually her voice became the background noise. Nobody even thinks that this is something that needs to be undone. Society does not even question it. I feel we normalize the hardships, sacrifices, and burdens of women. Maybe because some part of us has become accustomed to it, as we have encountered it in our homes, society, and life in general. And the irony is that it is called tradition.

We have always seen our mothers and grandmothers sacrificing their desires and freedom to build a home of their own, or rather, the home that society asked them to build. They do not even realize that they have a voice of their own, that they have choices of their own. They simply accept everything that comes into their lives, whether willingly or unwillingly, because nobody taught them to question. They simply follow. They never stop to ask whether they signed up for it or not.

And most importantly, while building all of this, they lose a chunk of themselves. And that is how their music dies.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but a large part of us needs to know and acknowledge that, as women, we are capable of anything and everything. We just need to believe in ourselves. And it is equally true that we need to stand up for ourselves.

The tragedy of Devi was that a woman was expected to become a goddess and the tragedy of modern times is that the same women are presumed to be an ideal daughter, daughter in law, wife and mother- all at once. She is valued for the roles she fulfils, not for the person she is.