Novel Review Of One Indian Girl- Feminism or 1 Crore Wedding?

          Chetan Bhagat’s new novel One Indian Girl is written from a woman’s point of view for the first time unlike from a man’s point of view in his earlier books. The novel’s protagonist Radhika Mehta is an investment banker working at Goldman Sachs earning a very high salary. Her high salary of 8 figure may be a dream for other women around her but her own mother finds her 8 figure salary as a threat to her chance of getting a good match. According to her mother, a woman earning high salary has a difficulty in getting a good match as no man will accept a woman earning higher than him. Her mother is afraid of revealing her own daughter’s real salary to the people coming to see her instead of being proud of her achievements but if it was a son in place of her daughter then she would have flashed his salary as the first thing to attract good matches for him. Men are mostly blamed for inequality and gender discrimination but its also many women who are responsible for the same. Radhika finally agrees to marry through arrange marriage after two failed relationships. Her first relationship with Debashish ended because he was not happy with his girlfriend earning thrice his salary and he wanted her to quit her job and take care of the house. Her second relationship with her married boss Neel who is 20 years older to her ended because he thought that she could either be a working woman or be a mother but not both at the same time. Radhika talked a lot about feminism but she succumbed to an arranged marriage.

            The following lines are the description of the back page of the novel:

Hi, I'm Radhika Mehta and I'm getting married this week. I work at Goldman Sachs, an investment bank. Thank you for reading my story. However, let me warn you.

You may not like me too much. One, I make a lot of money. Two, I have an opinion on everything. Three, I have had a boyfriend before. OK, maybe two.

Now if all this was the case with a guy, one might be cool with it. But since I am a girl these three things I mentioned don’t really make me too likeable, do they?

The above lines shows Radhika introducing herself to the readers. The tone in which Radhika is introducing herself is not sounding impressive. I don’t see any need for her to say people won’t like her for the above 3 points. She can say the 3 points anyway and let people decide if they like her or not instead of saying them as a warning. Just because she is a woman she don’t need to show off that she make a lot of money. After all, she is not the only woman in the world to make a lot of money.

            Radhika calls herself a feminist but hates the way her elder sister dresses up in a more feminine way and her choosing to be a homemaker instead of a working woman. There is no need for her to put down another woman that also her own sister to show herself as better. Feminism means respecting other women’s choices instead of putting them down. She calls herself a feminist but played a part in her married boss with 2 grown-up children who was 20 years older to her into cheating his wife by having an extra-marital affair with her. Okay, here the another woman can’t be entirely blamed than the man himself when he is the one cheating his wife in his marriage but she can’t call herself a feminist when she has no problem in playing part along with her boyfriend in breaking 3 hearts that is of her boyfriend’s wife and children.  She calls herself a feminist but gets waxing done to please her 1st boyfriend. Not only that but also she has the audacity to say that she will prefer getting lashed like women in Saudi Arabia over waxing. Does even know how much it pains to women getting whipped? She calls herself a feminist but she listens to everything her conservative mother forces her to do like hiding her real salary from the suitors or wearing Indian dress in the hotel area where no one else is dressing like her just because she is getting married in the same hotel after some days. She calls herself a feminist but during bachelorette party she thinks that girls act that they don’t like boy’s attention but in their mind they want their attention. Anyone remember Pink movie’s quote here that ‘NO means NO’?

            The most shocking part of the story is the girl who calls herself a feminist agrees not only to an arranged marriage to a stranger due to her family and relative’s pressure but also spending a huge amount of 1 crore rupees for her wedding with a Brijesh who works in Google. She agreed to marry a man whose name she mocked as she had a problem with it. She agreed to marry to please her family and relatives not being sure whether she wants the marriage or not. After spending 1 crore and almost all the wedding functions being over with a day left for the wedding, she calls off her marriage as she is not sure whether she wants to marry him or not which results in 1 crore rupees going waste. Its okay if she did not wanted to marry him but why she has to waste so much money on a wedding for which she is not sure? Just because she calls herself a feminist she thinks its okay to waste so much money to show off everyone that she earns so much salary that she can waste them without any problem. There are many more things shown in the book which will make us doubt what feminism actually means. The main blunder is that the book is named ‘One Indian Girl’ which means the story of 1 girl but Radhika generalizes every woman with same examples like ‘all women do this’, ‘all women love this’, ‘all women want this’ and so on. Where is the choice in all this?

            My final verdict is that if people are looking for a book on feminism then don’t go for this one and waste you money. This book only lures people with their feminism bait when actually there are hardly any feminism shown in this book. 

Will Marital Rape ever be criminalized in India?

            Rape is a crime and the person accused can be punished severely by the law if proven guilty. There are laws against the crime of rape which can be used to bring justice to the victims and punish the culprits. But what if this grave sin is committed on a woman with whom she is supposed to spend her entire life that is her husband? Its becomes a marital where the husband rapes his own wife within their marriage. If a rape by unknown person can be so traumatizing for the victim for a long time or even throughout her life then the trauma of rape of woman by her own husband is unimaginable because they have to face that person everyday. Unfortunately, marital rape is not criminalized in India because marriage is seen as sacred institution here. But how can a marriage be sacred when the man who you are bonded with this institution violates your right and consent of physical intimacy? How can a woman who is raped by her own husband can continue to live with him with the possibility of being raped again by him?

            Section 375, the provision of rape in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) considers- “Sexual intercourse by  man with his own wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not rape.” Section 376 of IPC provides punishment for rape. According to the section, the rapist should be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which shall not be less than 7 years but which may extend to life or for a term extending up to 10 years and shall also be liable to fine unless the woman raped is his own wife, and is not under 12 years of age, in which case, he shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 2 years with fine or with both. These laws prove that how Indian government is insensitive towards marital rape and don’t want to criminalize it just because the culprit is the victim’s husband. According to Women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi, the marital rape cannot be criminalized in the Indian context. She says, "It is considered that the concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context due to various factors e.g. level of education/illiteracy, poverty, religious beliefs, mindset of the society to treat the marriage as a sacrament." Her statement angered a lots of women rights group. How can a woman who is supposed to work for women and child development say such a regressive and gender-biased statement when there are more than 60% marital rape victims in India? It is said that women are raped more by people known to them than people unknown to them. What many people are not ready to accept that most of those known people are victim’s husbands themselves who are supposed to respect their dignity instead of violating their dignity?

            With the statistics showing as more than 60% of women as victims of marital rape in India, there is a high possibility that we see some victims as well as culprits of marital rape when we are outside our house and travelling. But we can't figure out who among the people we see everyday are victims and culprits of marital rape. When we see a married couple, we can have thoughts in our mind about the couple that whether they are happily married or unhappily married, whether they had love marriage or they had arranged marriage to the extent of whether the wife is satisfied and loves her sexual relation with her husband or she is raped regularly by her own husband. We are not wicked to have these kinds of thought process as its a normal human nature.

            Its high time there should be strict laws for marital rape. Marital rape needs to be criminalized as many women in India suffer greatly from it. The women who show courage to file complaint against their husbands are turned away by the police. With the lack of support for such a heinous crime will Marital Rape ever be criminalized in India?

Flipkart or Cheatkart?

          Flipkart is one of the leading online stores of India. It’s a trusted online store of millions of Indians. People using Flipkart have good, bad or mixed experiences now and then. I am a satisfied customer of Flipkart from 5 years. But sometimes, many trusted brands or online store takes its customer for granted. This is what happened to many customers. One of them is me who is writing this piece. Being a girl, I love make-ups. I ordered my make-up stuffs from Flipkart several and always got satisfied with the service but this time I am disappointed with the service. Well disappointed is a small word. I am in fact angry with the service. I ordered for a High Fly Gel Eyeliner which has 2 containers of gel eyeliner of black and brown colours. But I got wrong product of some different brand called Miss Rose in which there are 2 boxes of black eye shadows. I only realized of being cheated after opening the covering boxes because on text messages and receipts, the right product names were written but after opening the covers its wrong product I got. I immediately applied for return policy on their web site and I was assured the replacement of the wrong product with the right product. I even talked with customer care of Flipkart who apologized for the mistake and said that its not their fault that I got the wrong product as its not them who do the packaging work. I then told him that make sure that I don’t get the wrong product again which he assured me only to be proved wrong again. After some days, I got my replacement product. I told the shipping guy too to not make the same mistake and he said the same thing as what customer care said that its not their job of arranging the things for delivery. After some time, I opened the box and got relieved to find the write product name on the cardboard box. Then I checked the contents and was shocked to find 2 boxes of black eyeliners which was not at all gel eyeliners. Then I checked the cardboard box again and was shocked to find that this time they went 10 more steps ahead in cheating me. I found that I got the same wrong product like last time with the stickers of right products pasted cleverly on the cardboard box. I got the same Miss Rose product with the stickers of Music Flower pasted on them. I was very angry. My brother told me too call the customer care but I decided against as I will get the same apologies and same replies that its not their fault as they are not the ones doing the packaging. I simply applied for return policy again and this time there was only money back option and not replacement option. I decided to take my money back. They asked for account number as the money will be transferred to my account which I did. I am now just waiting for my money to be transferred in my account which I hope happens the soonest. What happened with me is not expected from a leading online shopping site like Flipkart. The customer care guy and the shipping guy easily said that its not their fault that I got wrong product as its not their job. Then who the hell is at fault? Even if customer care guy is not at fault can’t he just talk with the people responsible for packaging to make sure that they deliver right products without any mistake? I read the reviews of the product that I ordered and was horrified to read 2 person’s comments where they faced the same problem that I did. So its not just me who is being cheated but some others too. The first time they gave wrong product but the second time after replacement they had the audacity to paste stickers of the right product on the wrong product boxes. Isn’t it shameful that instead of realizing and rectifying their mistakes they are behaving worse than earlier? If this goes on then how can we trust to order for something again from Flipkart? Being a leading online shopping site, they have responsibility of satisfying their customers instead of angering them with their repeated blunders. 

            On the other side, its also possible that someone working in the company itself is trying to bring bad name to the company by purposely repeated the mistake going one step ahead by sticking brand name sticker on the real name of the wrong product. Who in the right mind will make such a mistake after one complaint from the customer? I got my money transferred back but don't know if I will be ever able to trust Flipkart in the same way like earlier. After what I experienced on reading some comments regarding that product, I can only as a question that whether this online shopping site is Flipkart or Cheatkart?

India-History Repeating With A Dark Future

            Many Indian people proudly say, “Jahaan daal daal par sone ki chidiya karti hai basera, vo Bharat desh hai mera…” but is this phrase or song from 1965 Sikander-e-Azam movie really true? The message in this song was very true in ancient India but what about today? Is this true any more???

            On one side, India praises a lot of brave personalities, leaders and martyrs who played an important role in freedom movement of India but what we have seen on the other side and still seeing is more than shocking and disappointing. If India is still termed as a developing country instead of developed country, it is mostly because of India people. Well, on the other side, what we are seeing from centuries are the evil, treacherous face of our very own people. These people are the reason why India is suffering from centuries and may suffer for centuries to come.

            I don’t know really from when the treacheries really started and who started it but India must have been a better place and would have a very wonderful history. In medieval times, there used to be war among the neighbouring kingdoms. It is said that India never conquered any country but was conquered innumerable times by many countries. The Mughals and British took advantage of the lack of unity in India and showed their true colours ruling India for centuries. Worse, there were many times traitors in India who caused the failure of many plans among the Indians and death of their own various people be it the leader, king, common mans, etc. It was because of these traitors that India continued to remain behind and took late to gain independence. Prithviraj Chauhan’s father-in-law Jaichand refused to help him in war against Muhammad Ghori and instead sided with Ghori causing in the war plan failure, loss of war, capturing and death of Prithviraj; capture, cruel torture and death of Sambhaji Raje by Aurangzeb happened due the betrayal of his own brother-in-law; Mir Jaffar’s great betrayal to Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula in the Battle of Plassey against the British; death of brave Indian revolutionaries like Chandrasekhar Azad, Surya Sen, etc. died due to the treachery and so on. So, it is evident that if no people would have been traitor and true to their motherland then I don’t think that anyone had guts enough to rule over India. When British ruled India, it followed the policy of Divide and Rule which even occurred before the British rule which included taking the advantage of fights within India. They also took advantage of greed in some Indian people. Its very disappointing that our own people caused us such defeats and bad times.

            Can we say that all this changed today? Absolutely no. If it would have then India would not have been termed as developing country. Today, the government is worse. They acted kind and merciful to terrorists like Afzal Guru and Kasab who took many lives in India instead of hanging them to death as early as possible. They took years in hanging them. Corruption is found everywhere whether it is in school, colleges, government offices, etc. The politicians commit a lot of corruptions. India is becoming land of scams such as CWG Scam, Adarsh Scam, 2G Spectrum Scam and so on. India has enormous amount of black money in Swiss mostly by the corrupt politicians. There are still poor people who don’t get food two-three times a day. Corruption is common in schools and colleges in the form of donations. Suspended Indian Diplomat Madhuri Gupta turned out to be a spy working for Pakistan informing them about many secret information about India. Many Indian people were brainwashed into joining ISIS. Out of them, several people went to help ISIS. This led the ATS team to become more alert and they caught several people going to help ISIS. This shows that we have many traitors in India who are working for our enemies even though they are themselves from India. Racism exists at many places in India. In 2008, Maharashtrians started attacking North Indians and people from other states. North-east people living in other states are attacked now and then by the people of their own country who don’t accept them as their own people because of their looks and features. This proves that India still has lack of unity. That is probably one of the reasons why India is getting attacked a lot by the terrorists. There have been even war between religions in modern India. Many suffered in riots due to Babri Masjid demolition, Godhra riots, 11/7 bomb blast, 26/11, German Bakery bomb blast, recent attacks on Indians by Pakistan several times and so on.

            So, the future of India can be in dark which is really sad. Earlier India was the richest country in the world but it lost a large of wealth due to many countries conquering, looting and even ruling India. India would have been surely termed as developed country if the problems like lack of unity, corruption, racism, etc. would not have existed.