Daily Times

I happened to have been watching a serial that lead me to come up with a topic as profound as this to write on. We live in times of ridiculing, in times when everything seems to have lost its worth, from promises to hearts getting broken, when emotions are betrayed…

“You can’t do this to me Abid, you promised me before our marriage that you will let me pursue my dreams and follow my heart”

The protagonist of Baaghi TV serial — dubbed as Qandeel Baloch “biopic” — pleas to her husband to let her do what he signed up for in the first place, to let her follow her dreams.

Her husband, advancing towards her with a threatening look on his face, uses their child as the force, conclusive enough to chain his wife and finally using the last and the only resort a man has in this society; beating her up until she gives up.

Living in such a society where women have been struggling (still are) to make their marks and to depict that they are no less than men is like walking on thorns. Whereas men perceive women as the not-so-productive delicate toy to play around with, women, on the contrary have been in a constant combat against the norms and the nature of men.

No matter how strong and ambitious women are, they fall prey to men and their false promises at one point of their lives or another and it is all a matter of time when the wings they were born with are cut, the dreams their eyes were filled with are interrupted by the sound of the infant’s cries, the hair once perfectly made are now messed up, the hopes fell from the eyes, disguised as tears and the face that once glowed with ambitions, is now drained

No matter how strong and ambitious they are, they fall prey to men and their false promises at one point of their lives or another and it is all a matter of time when the wings they were born with are cut, the dreams their eyes were filled with are interrupted by the sound of the infant’s cries, the hair once perfectly made are now messed up, the hopes fell from the eyes, disguised as tears and the face that once glowed with ambitions, is now drained.

The trap that the men lay in the name of love captures the bird and soon after they cut her wings, leaving her flightless, they murder the ambitions, breaking all the promises.

“You have other responsibilities now, your family, your house, and your kids to look after”

“Why do you want to go to work when you have a husband who supports you financially?”

“How can you be selfish enough to neglect your married life for the sake of some dreams you have?

These are the questions used to silence the girl who wishes to follow her heart, eventually putting her in a guilt trip while her credentials are brushed under the rug. The strong ambitious man who once appealed her, inspired her, turns to the one she despised. The promises of eternal love, support and trust now remain shattered years after the marriage.

Look around. Look closely. Here and there. From women doctors to celebs… why must it always be the women to give up their dreams and become a collateral damage of a broken vow.

The writer is a student of English Literature at Government College University and aspires to be a social and culture commentator

Published in Daily Times, September 27^th 2017.