Building a family is a beautiful thing and that has its place but this business of societal stability has become an excuse for shrinking women to push them down a thin neck and into a big round bottomed glass jar.

All dolled up and chipped away to be able to drop through that thin bottle neck! And then she sits in that jar and must build a pretty “casseroles and curtains” world in there. The bigger the jar, the greater the illusion of “you made it ‘cos you bagged it’ !

In that jar, you must speak low because the echo might be too much for the jar. If she tries to climb out, the jar is bound to fall and break. Into smithereens. She would have broken a precious jar. She may leave pieces others have to tread carefully around. The noise may have been ear shattering.

Oh she definitely should not try to climb out of that jar. She would never be forgiven. Neither by those in the jar, nor by the other jar-women. Even if she was hardly getting any air in that jar. Even if the mouth of the jar was almost corked tight.

Outside that jar, the Leftover Woman walks free, skipping up and down hills like a child. Sometimes bruising her knees and elbows. That graceless woman. Child. That graceless woman child! She has not been chipped away to fall into a jar. She is so much. So much!

Societal stability?

They lied, didn’t they? They all did. Because this was all about the proverbial crabs in the proverbial bucket.

Patriarchy and the Proverbial crabs.

Dressed up as Culture and Religion.

With painted faces and flashy colours and big heavy books with blessings and brimstone!

The Leftover Woman watches them like she’d watch a circus. Claps and moves on. And she earns her own money, she eats cake and reads Annie Ernaux. She gathers her tribe to make bonfires and tell stories around it. She will leave behind a wake. And show the girls who are right behind her that there don’t need to be jars. There is no need for them to squeeze in. To get … All dolled up and chipped away to be able to drop through that thin bottle neck!

And then sit in that jar and build a pretty “casseroles and curtains” world in there….

(Pic Courtesy : Internet)