| Shantanu - The King of oppressed men |
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| Written by Kavi Sammelan |
| Friday, 16 January 2009 10:37 |
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The myth that women have been oppressed for years has been busted. The gruesome fact is that, it is the men who have been oppressed since centuries together which they have silently beared and also tolerated the false allegation that men are violent. Read the following excerpt from the undedited version of the greatest epic ever, the Mahabharatha, which clearly entails the double standards the society has for crimes committed by women and those committed by men. Men are punished for their crimes, Women are worshipped. Kansa was killed, Ganga is worshipped even today.
Today my brain's been on a overdrive. I was reading the Mahabharat, the full unclipped edition printed by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. I’ve read it many times before but today was a very different experience.
My brain's being cooked up with thoughts and I hope to off load some of 'em here to see if it ignites anyone else besides me.
Coming back to Mahabharat! Most novels start with a simple introduction. Mahabharat starts with a bang!!!
It starts with a King Santanu who ruled from Hastinapura. Hastinapura in those days was capital of our beautiful country Bharat or BharatVarsha. King Santanu was childless. There is no mention of King Santanu having other wives. One day out on hunting trip, King Santanu meets a beautiful maiden with whom he falls in love immediately.
HEY.... WAIT A ONE DAMN MINUTE.
He was The King and the nation which was supposed to have character and substance then present generation. So, how could the King fall in love with a woman before he knew her name?
… Anyway, let us continue with the story …
The beautiful maiden as it turns out was River Ganga in her human body. She too liked King Santanu and agreed to marry him but on a condition that he will never question her. He promises to not challenge her and they get married.
Hmmmmm, Interesting Isn't it?
The Bride sets a precondition before her marriage that she will live exactly on her terms and will never ever tolerate any challenge from the groom. Who was calling shots? The Man or The Woman?
And we are told a bunkum fiction that modern day men demand dowry for getting married to women
Get real!!! Men marry women for all reasons other than money.
Coming back to Mahabharata, King Santanu was a brave amongst men. Still he did not hesitate to think that Ganga was perhaps an enemy spy who might just turn and give away his Kingdom to someone else. There is no mention of him consulting with his ministers.
And, the King Santanu get married to Ganga.
And the Mahabharata epic slides into a top gear!!!
As it happens in with every healthy man-woman union, a child was born to them. A Son was born to the King. It was the first child born to King Santanu.
The new mother Ganga takes her first born male child and dumps him into her River form.
HAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT?
She killed a new born male child in broad daylight by throwing him into a river?
She killed the first born son of the King of the Bharatvarsha?
The Mother killed her own infant, her own child?
Why did she kill her own child? What kind of woman would do that?
Well these are kind of the questions that run through mind such as mine and maybe yours too. There is no mention of it crossing through the mind of King Santanu. Even if they did, he does not utter them to his wife Ganga and keeps his mouth shut as per his promise to protect his marriage.
A King of the Land keeps quite and does nothing against the murderer of his first born son. A King has to stay quiet to save his marriage!! A King!!
What a sacrifice the man King Santanu had to go through to keep his marriage?
Just imagine what would a modern husband do for his marriage?
When this thought hit me, it fell like a brick wall on me. Even reading of it for first time 5000 years from its happening made me sit up and bow my head with reverence to King Santanu!!!
King Santanu, please bless me. Please bless all of us. I am in man born 5000 years from you and the country that you once ruled has been ruined by the new ministers who lark that women are opressed and make more and more laws to oppress men. Every men, women and child of your country is in danger. Every marriage in India is on guillotine. My marriage was already butchered.
Domestic Violence. Nah!! By all accounts it is Wild Violence.
Indian Government, Renuka Chowdhury, Good ‘ol Kapil Dev and God only knows who else proclaim loudly on TV and say that killing a female newborn is crime!
Maybe they should also advertise for male infanticide. It is documented as being a phenomenon since the time of Mahabharata.
Indian history says that one such child killer was Ganga who killed her own. Another such child killer was Kamsa who killed children of his sister.
Kamsa was punished to death by fists of his nephew Krishna in about 10 years after his bad deeds.
What happened to Ganga? She was felicitated called mother of the civilisation.
AHEM!! Do you see a double here.
Back to Mahabharata!
If killing one newborn male child is bad, the story of Mahabharata gets worse.
If killing one newborn male child is brilliant, the story of Mahabharata gets dazzling. As dazzling as a Sun.
Ganga kills 6 more newborn children of hers and King Santanu.
And King Santanu has nowhere to go. There is no mention of the King talking to
his ministers about actions of his wife. Maybe those poor ministers were married to and no one liked fouling up mood of one other. King Santanu had no one to whom he could talk to. No one to counsel him and his wife Ganga.
There was not even SIF in those days. I was not there. Jinesh was not there to demand Welfare ministry for men. So the poor King of the land, being a man had no option to stay quiet. All for the sake of preserving the marriage.
Some of you might even wonder what is with the King Santanu? After all He was a King.
He is described as Handsome and of course he was Rich. he is not the shy kind of fellow. He expressed "I love you and I'd like to marry you" within a flash of him seeing Ganga. And he stayed quiet.
To be perfectly honest, silence of the king at the unceremonious murder of his seven newborn male children is not the most horrendous part. It is not even close to being horrendous even if you consider that each of the child was the natural heir who could grow into the King someday.
IMHO, The most horrendous part is that the King Santanu lived with Ganga and made her pregnant again and again. He made Ganga pregnant eight times.
Assuming that pregnancies were concluded as optimally and efficiently as humanely possible and were consecutive, this cycle of pregnancy, birth and infanticide continued for six long years.
The King Santanu with all his raging male hormones remained with his wife Ganga. He lived with Ganga who at any given point of time in those six years was pregnant for few months or at best cleansing herself for getting pregnant again.
I lived with my wife through most of her one pregnancy. My experience of living with a pregnant woman was that it was like walking in forest whose floor is fully hidden by dry leaves but one knows that a poisonous rattlesnake was hiding beneath these leaves.
King Santanu lived with a pregnant woman for at least six years but did not get to name his child or play with him!!
And no, luxury that most of us enjoy was not available for King Santanu. Sending Ganga back to her parent’s home for pregnancy was not an option. Her former home
is claimed to be Swarga.
I bet after imagining the plight of King Santanu, you will never be able to poke honest funny jab at the Indian Government employee who has gargantuan beer belly.
You will never be able to say APND “Always Pregnant Never Delivering” and not remember King Santanu.
(Well, at least I tried to convince you to let poor Govt employee relax at work.
He drinks beer cause he is married)
The significance of the silence of King Santanu gets even more profound. He never once uttered the word "WHY?" to Gnaga in those 6-7 years. Not for murder of the child. Not for anything else that might have happened.
Do you see, Ms. Renuka Chowdhury? Do you see the extent to which a men can handle
opression from women for sake of marriage, for sake of love?
Modren Men also do not oppress their women as often as Women do. Men not even ask "Why" many times although they are not bound by a promise as King Santanu was.
Hell, I also have so many Why's that I did not ask to my wife. Many of my Why’s also got buried somewhere way down deep. Maybe I’ll vent ‘em out and someone will answer on behalf of my wife.
Why did you cook Dal with Shrikhand? Why did you not use the new tea leaves that I get for you? Why did you colour your hair blue?
Do my SIF friends see what I am getting at? Maybe, just maybe there is a light at the end of tunnel. Maybe this is what Ms. Renuka wants from all us husbands. Never ever utter the word “Why” or she'll go after your chromosome Y. Ouch!! It hurts.
Glad I'm Batchelor. Ok, Ok all Right I am Divorced. I declare myself to be single unless I mingle. The point is that my Why's are safe. And so are my Y chromosomes.
I can splurge 'em wherever I want with reckless abandon. Gratefully only true boys will understand the true meaning of reckless abandon!
Ok, back to Mahabharata!
Was the King Santanu stone-hearted? Or stoned? I know people did not use such things in those days. So what is it?
Why OH Why then did he never ask Why!? to his wife.
King Santanu did not utter why because he was a man who was married and had made a promise in order to save his marriage. He faced oppression from his wife so that
she may remain married to him. So that he can have a family. So that he can have
a heir and continue his royal lineage.
Feminism must have been a raging fire 5000 years ago. Isn't it? It must be so scalding hot that even the King of entire land could not dare to lift a voice
to his wife or risk demise of his marriage.
King Santanu was not a weakling. I imagine he would slice neck of men who'd dare
to look at him or his subjects with malice but was as silent as a stone in front
of Ganga.
I assume that King Santanu would have spoken to his beloved wife Ganga and would have always spoken kind words.
Imagine the pain that King Santanu went through. His 7 newborn male children and heir to his throne were murdered by their mother and he had to continue to live
with her. Not only live but talk to her about other things. Talk to her and make
her pregnant. King Santanu did all of his duties but never asked why.
Do not forget that he was a King after all. If Ganga was playing a hard-ball, He could also have muttered "Darling, Humne bhi koi Kachi Goli Nahi Kheli". He could have found himself another woman, got married to her and made her pregnant instead and let Ganga eat Khatti Imli.
But the great and faithful husband that he was, he did not do that. He stayed with his otherwise beloved wife Ganga.
As the story continues, he finally asked the Why to Ganga as she was about to stop the eighth child.
Ganga looked at the King Santanu and told him “now that you asked me a "Why", I will not live with you anymore. I will not be your wife from now. I will not dump this child into the river but make him into a man.
And the King of Land had to accept that. He had to console himself that he finally had a hope of heir.
He did not go marry another woman as soon as Ganga left him. He longed to see his son for another 16 years. He met his son when he was a prince and a warrior. Ganga
had done a great job at raising their only son Devavrata.
Elsewhere the epic explains that 7 infants killed by Ganga were some cursed souls who had no genuine interest of living a human life even as a King. So their kind mother Ganga performed a cruel job of killing them.
Today, we Hindus Celebrate Ganga as a mother of our Vedic Civilisation.
Isn't it too ironic that Kamsa used the exact same logic for killing his 7 nephews but he was punished to death. Some might say that Punishment of Kamsa for killing 7 children still continues.
We call India the male-dominated society from time immemorial where women play second fiddle to her man.
We felicitate the woman who killed 7 of her own children as the mother of the nation. We say that if one take a full dip into river form of Ganga, all his accumulated bad karma of past 7 lives will be washed away.
I say, India is indeed a male dominated society. In India male are dominated by female every step of the way .
Hats off to King Santanu. Hats off to his fortitude amidst such an opression.
Hats off to his love to beget the child. Hats off to his faithfulness to his
Hats off to the one who wrote Mahabharata. Hats of to the River Ganga.
Dear Ms. Renuka Chowdhury. Are you listening? Do I now have your attention.
King Santanu tried to live his life again and again fell for fisherman's
daughter Satyavati. Even in his second marriage, father of the bride called
the shots. The poor fisherman extracted the unchallenged right to throne of
the King Santanu just cause he was the father of the bride. His son Devavrata
gave up the price for little bit of joy for his father and in doing so, Bheesma
bonded himself into the service to throne.
Even after living through 7 murders of his own son by his wife, direct lineage of the King Santanu eventually perished.
His only surviving son Bheesma died on 16th January 3122BC.
(Hey, Today is the death anniversary of Bheeshma, WOW!!) The woman who did this
to him is still roaming free and worshipped.
The dynasty of King Santanu was carried forward by Sages like Parashar, Vedvyas
and eventually with divine intervention from Dharmaraj, Indra, Vayu and Ashwini Kumar.
This much amount of punch of Mahabharata is in first 9 pages.
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Before the imported western feminist ideologies were even born, men in India respected the woman. A respect so deep that even 5000 year dust and countless foreign regimes have not managed to cause the dent.
Using 5000 year old history of our nation, I emphatically state that Men are not violent to women inside the house. Men are not violent even when women committed the most dastardly act when viewed from our mundane material senses.
Men were so gentle. Men like King Santanu were epitomes of word gentlemen. He did not misuse his power unlike modern day female ministers. Men did not opress their women.
So whatever imported ideologies you are using to justify liberation of Women is a big farce. Be Indian. Use Swadeshi. Use Mahabharata as an example.
Even 5000 years ago, King of the land, the most powerful men was helpless against his wife. You do not need to protect the women at all. Women do not need protection.
Government just needs to protect the men. They will do their duty willingly and protect their women far better than all of the laws put together.
There are thousands of men who think and behave to various shades of King Santanu.
Dear Government of India, you need to change gears and dismantle WCD and all
its evil cousins pronto. India will fare better without WCD or 498A or DV ...
King Santanu Amar Raha
Jab Tak Suraj Chand Rahega, Santanu tera naam rahega.
We WANT Welfare Ministry for Men.
We WANT to make male infanticide illegal too.
Ahem! There I said my bit, guys.
Chant after me ....
We WANT Welfare Ministry for Men.
We WANT to make male infanticide illegal too.
Dhun Macha De
Once more, come on you people !!
Chant after me ...
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