- Sep 22, 2013
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The widely-practiced Indian custom of burning brides for poor-quality 'dowries' (or bridal money gifts) is linked to the stigmatic Hindu 'caste system' of patriarchal inequalities and has given the culture a bad name.
This short-story is meant to draw attention to the socio-cultural trauma created by the stagnant dowry-system in India.
Please let me know (with comments) what you think!
Perhaps we can reach the masses better with storytelling than with rhetorics/politics, since this is the age of communication.
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Manisha was a hard-working and pensive 12 year-old girl growing up in Calcutta, India during a time of great economic hardship and political upheaval. Her mother had passed away, leaving her to be raised by her alcoholic rickshaw-driving father who abused her and forced her to run away and try to survive living on the streets. Manisha became a prostitute until one day, a wealthy prince who was a client at the brothel she worked in walked in just as a joke but was moved to pity when he looked at Manisha's beautiful but demoralized eyes.
The prince, Raj, took Manisha into his palace and made her his chief kitchen coordinator. Manisha was responsible for ordering/stocking the food-ingredient inventory and ensuring that all the chefs kept a clean kitchen for the royal court. Manisha became so fond of this job that she started to cook herself and became extraordinarily skilled at it. Soon, Raj promoted her and she was now the royal court head chef and menu manager. Raj had Manisha married to a royal court in Bombay and agreed to pay the handsome dowry for the marriage.
When Manisha moved into her new palace, she discovered that her princely husband (Alok) and the royal members of his family were very cruel and mistrusting of Manisha. Alok's father (the king) kept remarking about how mediocre Manisha's dowry was even though it was paid by the prince Raj from Calcutta. Manisha married Alok but remained depressed. They had two handsome sons, and the elder son Manoj was being groomed to become the princely heir to Alok's throne. The younger son Prakash was very fond of cooking (like Manisha) and always requested cooking with his mother and assisting the chefs in Alok's royal kitchen.
One day, some food-poisoning was found in one of the dishes Alok's chefs prepared. Apparently, an assassin had attempted to kill the king. Unfortunately, Manisha's younger son Prakash ingested some of this food and died. Manisha was heartbroken and further devastated when Alok was cruel towards her, making unreasonably bitter remarks such as, "Your dowry was mediocre, which is why we experience the curse of losing a son!" Manisha ran away from Alok's palace and left a letter for her elder son Manoj, advising him to study and be dutiful to his father so he could take up the reins of the throne someday.
Manisha ended up dying in the streets of India, alone and penniless. She was very sad towards the end of her life, realizing that her fairy-tale meeting with Prince Raj and her love affair with the culinary arts ended in disaster and tragedy (with her mismatched marriage to Prince Alok and then the tragic food-poisoning death of her beloved younger son Prakash). Manisha wrote in her diary, "Of all the troubles I've witnessed growing up in India and struggling to survive and learning to embrace fortune as well as trauma, one thing stands out in my mind --- the Indian man's obsession with the 'quality of the bride-dowry' continues to haunt any aspiration of a high expression of Indian love (or romance) and gender-greatness!"
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Dowry Deaths
This short-story is meant to draw attention to the socio-cultural trauma created by the stagnant dowry-system in India.
Please let me know (with comments) what you think!
Perhaps we can reach the masses better with storytelling than with rhetorics/politics, since this is the age of communication.
====
Manisha was a hard-working and pensive 12 year-old girl growing up in Calcutta, India during a time of great economic hardship and political upheaval. Her mother had passed away, leaving her to be raised by her alcoholic rickshaw-driving father who abused her and forced her to run away and try to survive living on the streets. Manisha became a prostitute until one day, a wealthy prince who was a client at the brothel she worked in walked in just as a joke but was moved to pity when he looked at Manisha's beautiful but demoralized eyes.
The prince, Raj, took Manisha into his palace and made her his chief kitchen coordinator. Manisha was responsible for ordering/stocking the food-ingredient inventory and ensuring that all the chefs kept a clean kitchen for the royal court. Manisha became so fond of this job that she started to cook herself and became extraordinarily skilled at it. Soon, Raj promoted her and she was now the royal court head chef and menu manager. Raj had Manisha married to a royal court in Bombay and agreed to pay the handsome dowry for the marriage.
When Manisha moved into her new palace, she discovered that her princely husband (Alok) and the royal members of his family were very cruel and mistrusting of Manisha. Alok's father (the king) kept remarking about how mediocre Manisha's dowry was even though it was paid by the prince Raj from Calcutta. Manisha married Alok but remained depressed. They had two handsome sons, and the elder son Manoj was being groomed to become the princely heir to Alok's throne. The younger son Prakash was very fond of cooking (like Manisha) and always requested cooking with his mother and assisting the chefs in Alok's royal kitchen.
One day, some food-poisoning was found in one of the dishes Alok's chefs prepared. Apparently, an assassin had attempted to kill the king. Unfortunately, Manisha's younger son Prakash ingested some of this food and died. Manisha was heartbroken and further devastated when Alok was cruel towards her, making unreasonably bitter remarks such as, "Your dowry was mediocre, which is why we experience the curse of losing a son!" Manisha ran away from Alok's palace and left a letter for her elder son Manoj, advising him to study and be dutiful to his father so he could take up the reins of the throne someday.
Manisha ended up dying in the streets of India, alone and penniless. She was very sad towards the end of her life, realizing that her fairy-tale meeting with Prince Raj and her love affair with the culinary arts ended in disaster and tragedy (with her mismatched marriage to Prince Alok and then the tragic food-poisoning death of her beloved younger son Prakash). Manisha wrote in her diary, "Of all the troubles I've witnessed growing up in India and struggling to survive and learning to embrace fortune as well as trauma, one thing stands out in my mind --- the Indian man's obsession with the 'quality of the bride-dowry' continues to haunt any aspiration of a high expression of Indian love (or romance) and gender-greatness!"
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Dowry Deaths
