Alfāz

Recently, I met a relative whose blessings I sought. As I bent down to touch his feet, he stopped me. “You’re Lakshmi,” he said, “girls don’t touch feet.” At sixteen, I might have smiled with pride at being called a goddess. But at twenty-four, I felt nothing divine—just weary. I touched his feet anyway, reluctantly.  Conversely, I’m not Lakshmi. I’m a human. Neither Saraswati nor Kāli. I am living in a society that first deifies women and then subjects them to prejudice every single day.Be it domestic violence, verbal violence, clipping her feathers, and such like. It’s strange how easily we have been accepting this contradiction. A girl is raped at midnight, and instead of defending her, an “honourable” leader remarks that girls shouldn’t be roaming at such hours. But isn’t Goddess Kāli worshipped at midnight? Lakshmi—the word itself has become synonymous with dowry. A girl is called Lakshmi because she carries gold and jewellery(and much more) to her in-laws’ house. Yet when ...