Challenges for Girls in Brahmbhatt Community

07/08/201609/08/2016 challenges, community, girls

Divya Rai/Delhi – Immense scope and opportunities for young and enthusiastic girls but our community has drawn certain limitations for girls.

Hello everyone, I am a simple girl who has limitless aspirations with strong determination. Belonging to a middle-class Brahmbhatt family, I do understand the limitations and socio-cultural obligations of our community. I feel, there is so much to talk about, to discuss and hence, I am sharing my personal realizations with you all hereby.

My journey started in a small town of Bokaro Steel City, Jharkhand where I was born and brought up to enter into a vast horizon of dreams and aspirations. As I grew up, I understood the society I was living in. The thinking, believes and the mindset of the people was very traditional and obsolete. It did not take long for me to accept the fact that I am unfortunate to get the exposure needed to stand parallel with the modern world.
As they say, God do exist and your confrontation with him is very uncertain and sudden, I thank him to stand beside me in the form of my ‘parents’!
I feel blessed to be born as the daughter of Mr. Mahendra Rai and Mrs. Anita Rai, the two adorable figures who have made me realize that even living in our community, we can achieve what we desire for. I was given the freedom to choose my interests, to shape my career and to define myself the way I wanted. Be it our education or personality, we four siblings enjoyed the liberty to make our own decisions. There were no imposed decisions or defined limits for any of us. This led me to opt for the degrees I wanted to pursue. After completing my graduation in Humanities, I was destined to enter JNU, New Delhi for the Masters degree that was further followed by a post-graduate Diploma in Media Management, a subject that is still seen with doubt and hesitation. Presently, I am happy to have got a decent start into my career joining an MNC that works into Media Research, Analysis and Advertising. I do have further academic plans and I m glad my parents still stand beside me, happily.

The field I have chosen is Media and Mass Communication. I can’t recall how this field attracted me so much, but I know I had decided to be a part of Media long back, during my school days. Now, after knowing my field of interest so closely, I would definitely say that it has immense scope and opportunities for young and enthusiastic girls. It’s a bane for us that our community has drawn certain limitations for girls. There are a few fields into which they are allowed to work. We can often see parents who hesitate while sending their daughters to distant places for higher studies or lettng them work into a desired profile. The worst happens when they are not allowed to study at all after a defined level of graduation or sometimes, just a high school! In my native place in Bihar, I have seen young girls getting married after their family members force them leaving no other option for them. I have seen them studying just for the sake of being accepted by some groom! The fact that inspite of numerous opportunities available to prove their capabilities and talent, they are bound to lead a life of ignorance, hurts me a lot. The most miserable are those parents who are caged inside the social boundaries and who have accepted themselves as the slaves of their society. The talent of young intelligent girls is suppressed because of some social stereotypes and traditional believes like girls are good only when clad in heavy clothes, know how to cook and remain hidden inside four walls of their room.
I feel grieved when I see self-dependent girls of other communities standing successfully on their own feet today, but not the sisters of my own community. There are many young girls who are handling important responsibilities with confidence. In my community, the scenario seems to be painfully different. Although there are proud exceptions too, but the majority lies with the unfortunate girls who are deprived of proper guidance and exposure. In today’s competitive and highly accelerated world, there are many suitable fields for talented girls, but many among us lack encouragement and support. Not only Media, but the fields like Engineering, Medical, Civil Services, Defence, Architecture, Designing, Softwares, ets provide ample possibilities for women. I wish to see a dynamic change in my community wherein our parents open up and let their narrow thinking expand overcoming their weaknesses and baseless hesitations. Call of the time is to understand the needs and scope of the modern era that has to keep its pace with the present standard of living as well as the opportunistic world.
Written By:
Ms. Divya Rai, Media Research & Execution Analyst at New Delhi.