What Karva Chauth bashing says about our feminists

A few weeks ago, during the Karva Chauth week, my Facebook wall was a confused space. While half the women on my friends' list were posting elaborate pictures of themselves, decked as brides adorning mehndi, and peeping through sieves at their husbands, the other half was full of scathing acerbic comments about how regressive and demeaning to women a festival like Karva Chauth is.

For those not in the know, Karva Chauth is a widely practised festivity in northern India. Karwa means pot and Chauth means fourth. On the fourth day of the dark-fortnight, of the month of Kartik. The etymology and history behind the origins of this festival is vast and varied, ranging from women praying for men who went off to war, to celebrating the ending of the harvest season, to attempt to forge bonds with the women folk in their in-laws' homes. It's, of course, a pre-dominantly Punjabi thing, Rajasthani too I assume, going by Sooraj Barjatya's obsession with it. Growing up in a very South Indian home, I had no idea about the festival - until I watched Hum Aapke Hai Kaun and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge.

Sooraj Barjatya and Aditya Chopra did for Karva Chauth what Hallmark and Archies cards did to Valentines' Day - took it from obscurity to mandatory. Business increased hundred-fold for all, not just for the filmmakers. Everybody was laughing all the way to the bank. The henna artists, the Indian saree designer, the mithai wala, the sherwani tailor, the chalni or sieve maker, the bangle seller and a host of other folk. Everybody was having so much fun - as was I.

Yes, it is fun. I have done the mehndi ritual a few times myself - the fast too severe for me. I know a sweet woman who would take a sleeping pill early in the morning of the Karva Chauth day, and wake up in time for the moon to emerge. When I asked her why she kept Karva Chauth in the case that she had to drug herself to go through the day, she smiled kindly. It's fun - is all she said. I know many husbands who fast alongside their wives.

Down south, we have something called the Var Laxmi Puja ,which my mother performs, piously, every year. Unlike Karva Chauth, which falls nine days before Diwali, Var Laxmi Puja falls on the Friday before the full moon Poornima in the month of Sravana or Saawan, in the months of July to August. No fanfare or dancing to film songs during a Var Laxmi puja - it's a quiet affair. A coconut is placed on a traditional tamboolam or Kalash and a Rangoli decorates the door step; the woman performs the Vibhuti or holy ash on the neck, kunkumam or sindoor on the forehead and a quiet recital of prayers for the well being of the husband and the entire family.

Other married women are invited home and offered tamboolam of betel leaves, betel nut, lime and coconut and partake the arati. Sometimes, they are given a blouse piece. The water from the kalash is sprinkled over the house. No extravagance, no fuss, no running out to buy "didi tera dewar deewana" purple sarees and no shimmying of hour-glass hips and shiny low-cut cholis.

Women sing "Laxmi raa ve maa intiki" inviting Goddess Laxmi home and everybody goes home quietly. I have never overheard discussions or arguments on this being a regressive affair, even the most progressive and successful career-oriented women perform it.

So this year too on Karva Chauth while some fasting and hungry women asked when the moon will be spotted so they could break their fast, others tried to remind them that it is 2015 and such slavery to tradition and their men folk was an insult to all women. Feminists ranted about how Karva Chauth denoted servitude and full-blown patriarchy and it got me thinking about feminism again.

I have been called a feminist many times in my life. But I have quickly declined the title and refused the demotion. Because, to me, a feminist is one who is fighting for equality. Whereas, for me, equality is a given, and there is nothing to fight about.

So dear feminist, why are you always angry? With all the men in the world, and the women who are happy being women. Why are you always trying to tell women that they need to grow a moustache and be aggressive? How does following tradition make you servile? What is wrong in following a ritual/tradition if it makes you happy?

What is wrong in a woman trying to put a smile on her husband's face, offering prayers for the welfare of her family and taking pride in adornment? Don't men do the same for women, albeit in different ways? Why is this feminist brigade so hell bent on confusing equality with sameness? Why should a woman turn into a man to prove that she is not servile? Why confuse equal opportunity and equal wage with tradition and sentiment? Why confuse all this with rape, eve-teasing and purdah? Aren't they completely different issues? Why not give the womb the respect it deserves and quit male bashing for a change?

Try and understand that the greatest freedom a woman has is her freedom to choose. Condemning a woman's choice because it differs from yours makes you a bigger bully than the patriarchy you so rabidly oppose. A woman who doesn't support the notion that women should be free to choose is a dangerous foe. A mindset that demands that others blindly obey is malady in itself.

So dear feminist, sit back, take a deep breath and relax. Instead of cursing so hard that it's a man's world and trying to turn it into one yourself, how about you try being a woman in it instead? It's a beautiful thing trust me - learn to enjoy it. Karva Chauth, glass bangles and all.