Say No to Karwa Chauth?

Devil’s Advocate—Serving you a cocktail of wit, humour and sarcasm

The other day, I bumped into Xena, in the CBD. Xena is a career feminist who makes a living out of being a modern fourth-wave feminist. She is always sniffing around to find instances of gender inequalities and patriarchy. Her current campaign is to remove the “red and green man” in traffic lights at the pedestrian crossings. “How dare a man tell a woman when to stop and when to cross the road?” she growls.

We decided to grab a quick bite in a café and shoot the breeze. During our chitchat I said, “I’ve got to go home early this evening. The missus is doing her Karwa Chauth”

On hearing that, Xena lost her cool and spat the coffee she was drinking all over me. “ How could you let her do it?. I thought you were a SNAG (sensitive new age guy)”

For those of you who do not know what Karwa Chauth is, it is a centuries-old Hindu custom on which day, married Hindu women observe fasting and pray for the prosperity, safety and long life of their husbands. The women break the fast only after sighting the moon in the evening and after receiving water and some food from their husband’s hands.

Xena kept snarling. “Karwa Chauth is symbolic of the atrocities men heap on women. On this day, women are almost starved to death to appease the egos of their husbands and patriarchy”

Such views were also shared recently by Bollywood’s Ratna Pathak Shah, wife of Naseeruddin Shah, who stirred up a controversy by denouncing the age-old tradition. She said, “Nothing has changed for women. Our society is becoming extremely conservative. We’re becoming superstitious, we’re being forced into accepting and making religion a very important part of one’s life. Isn’t it appalling that modern educated women do Karwa Chauth, praying for the lives of husbands so that they can have some validity in life? Really? In the 21st century, we are talking like this? Educated women are doing this. We are moving towards an extremely conservative society. Do we want to become like Saudi Arabia?”

I thought I should stand up for the thousands of women who perform Kawa Chauth in earnest. “Xena. No woman is being forced into Karwa Chauth. They are doing it out of their own free will. These modern women are empowered, just like you are, and they are exercising their choice, which is what you feminists want women to do. So, why are your knickers in a knot?”

“Karwa Chauth should not matter to you, anyway. You are unmarried and you are living with your ten cats. Neither should it matter to Ratna Phatak because her husband is a Muslim. A small bunch of radical feminists like you, from a privileged position, is dictating to the rest of the womanhood and spoiling their fun”

“Patriarchy is long dead in the modern society. You are just tilting at windmills. “Patriarchal” India recently elected a woman President. UK’s new PM is a woman, who is doing such an excellent job. Italy just got its first woman PM. If you are really looking at smashing patriarchy, you must look at taking on the Taliban or Ayatollahs, rather than campaigning against petty issues”

“Women take Karwa Chauth as an opportunity to let their hair down, do girly things for the day like mehndi, henna, jewellery, dresses etc and take a break from wearing their daily manly outfits to offices.”

“To be honest, men do not care about Karwa Chauth. Despite being celebrated for centuries, it has not served its intended purpose because women are outliving men, globally. The average life expectancy is 79 years for women, 72 years for men. There are a number of reasons for the mens’ early deaths. Most of the hard, laborious and risky jobs are done by men which takes a toll on their health. The majority of workplace accidents, homicides, road accidents involve men. Men work in hazardous occupations and end up with diseases leading them to their early graves. Take for example, the Russia-Ukraine war. Women are allowed to flee to safety whereas men are forced to stay back and fight to their deaths”

“It is well proven medically that fasting helps improve health. The fasting which women do for Karwa Chauth enables them to be healthier than men, increasing their own longevity”.

Xena’s feminist role model is Clementine Ford who once tweeted “Honestly, the corona virus isn’t killing men fast enough”

Xena soaked up my diatribe and her eyes gleamed with delight. “So, Karwa Chauth does not benefit men & patriarchy, instead it helps women to live longer than men?.”

“Absolutely”. I assured her. “Karwa Chauth will also help bridge or surpass the alleged gender wage gap, you are vehemently fighting against, since women have more number of years in their lives than men, to earn money”

On hearing this, Xena purred happily, just like one of her cats.

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