‘Think before you speak’, my dadi used to tell me in my childhood. She would tell that words can hurt a person more than anything else can in this world. However, it seems pretty easy to use the weapon these days. You are doing the best you can do for your country but one day somebody questions and your entire life seems to be a waste. The same kind of unnecessary controversy has come across an ‘INDIAN’ tennis player, Sania Mirza. It is fact that no one is interested in your life if you are marrying an Italian, a German, or an American but the entire country goes wild on the thought of marrying a Pakistani. I really fail to understand sometimes. What is their point of view? They still consider Sonia Gandhi an Italian after marrying an Indian and the girl who has won tons of medals for India suddenly turns out to be non-Indian because she marries a Pakistani.
Questioning her Indianness, Mr. K. Laxman has again reminded us of the patriarchal society we live in. A girl is born in India,lives in India for 27 years, plays for India all through her life and suddenly a day, she gets married and turns into a Pakistani. I think Mr.Laxman tried to tell the daughters of India that you are an Indian because your father is an indian and you will turn into a Pakistani because your husband might be. Your birth, her nationality, her belonging is none of the business.
Sania Mirza is a ‘daughter-in-law of Pakistan’ but more first of all, she is a daughter of India, an Indian and will always be. In fact, every girl born in this country, no matter whom does she marry, has the complete right of being called an Indian. On same place, it would be a polite request to Mr.K laxman to justify what extra quality does he possess to be called a complete, pure and a true Indian.
We have always trusted our politicians with our country’s governance. We consider them responsible for taking good decisions but the ones with such narrow bent of mind are not even worthy of being called a ‘decision-maker’. Our country gives free chance to everybody to express but that does not justify demeaning someone’s nationality and questioning his or her personal decisions.It would be a request that these politicians should stop dragging national icons into the petty issues of regional divide because doing so they mark a question on their achievements and their hard work and the country’s pride.
The country has stood by his daughter this time but such views makes us believe that we still live in a hypocritical society. We want our daughters to win laurels for us but when it comes to giving her a little respect for her deeds, we, accidentally, create something to spoil the fun.
