A Fair Monologue of the Fairer Sex

A fair monologue of the fairer sex


I have often wondered why women’s day is celebrated internationally. As the much unconventional Indian Urban woman rubs shoulders with her male counterparts in the roller coaster of a lovably busy life, gender (in) equations have ceased to be an issue. I am profoundly grateful to all my male colleagues and friends (& husband) for letting me be the kind of woman (and person) I actually am.



Bright faces, exuberant with the aura of academics and the delicious flavour of youth exhibit a unique kind of ethereal charm in the platonic social tapestry of a college. The Urban Indian Nari (rarely draped in a sari) represents the 21 st century generation – brash to the point of aggression often daring professional boundaries and intellectual valiance. Such visualizations are habitually distant from the realities of the rural and remote corners of our nation as the picture of the typically controlled rural woman emerges from the shadows.


Our nation, with its myriad races and colourful society harbours prehistoric beliefs in its remote ramparts. The archetypal Indian woman is conditioned to be a physical and psychological shadow of the dominating male figure within the household. Kitchen politics play a weighty role as the power equations are dangerously in the favour of the not-so-fair sex. Though intellectually equal to her brother, her education is often sacrificed to generate funds for his incomplete schooling– he has to become a Man after all! The girl child, seldom seen as a bread winner, is regularly denied her daily bread. However, as she grows up, she grows up to bring the dough to feed her sons – and then, her daughters. The vicious cycle continues…


May we, the luckier elements of the unlucky sex, try in some way, to break this cycle? Perhaps then, we would have a reason to celebrate International Women’s Day.




Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
         and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

          Rabindranath Tagore



Swapna Datta Khan
ICFAI National College
08 Mar 07