Being in love is said to be one of the most beautiful feelings one can ever experience. It is every girl's dream to have a prince of her dreams and have her rescued from a place where they live happily ever after. From the time we are born, we are surrounded by songs, movies, and stories of meeting our better half and how suddenly our life becomes magical. It is often depicted in movies that winds start to blow slowly or there is music in the background. Even as kids, it is the prince that saves the all trapped princess from misery and takes her to a wonderland. Surprisingly, no stories ever tell what happens after the princess is taken to wonderland. No story ever told what life turns out into. Instead of telling all these tales of false expectations, it would have been nice if reality was ever told.
Everything is fine till you obey the rules. It is indeed surprising that despite belonging to a land where we have had wonderful love stories, being in love is still considered to be taboo. There are restrictions not to look or to talk, but what if it is not to the opposite sex that we are interested in, then that is also another taboo. Another interesting thing to be noted here is that India has always been a land of surprises. Nowhere in our scriptures is it ever mentioned that falling in love with the opposite gender or same sex is a crime. There are however certain things that are mentioned as crimes, that is, forcing physical power on women. Even if it is a man or woman, if it is with consent it isn’t a crime.
Falling in love is said to be free. But, here it comes with a set of terms and conditions. You are free to fall in love, but in the end, you would only marry the one that your family chooses for you. A funny thing here is, that if you are a man, it is allowed to have sex before marriage. But, if you are a woman, you should only have sex with your husband too, the one chosen by your family. Pre-marital sex is again a taboo. Forget having sex, talking about sex is another taboo.
Indian society is filled with taboos. You never really know what freedom here is. Girls when they reach menstruating age are not allowed to talk to or look at the male members of the family. They aren’t allowed to touch plants, for, at that time, they become poisonous. They are asked not to enter the kitchen and to sit and sleep only on the floor. What's more, not to have food on the same plate but to have separate utensils as well. This is the kind of humiliation that women get throughout their lives for menstruating.
If you are to ever fall in love, you should ask about the caste. If caste, religion, and background are the same, the chances of having issues are less. But yet again, sometimes, your own family will kill you and say that you have taken their honor away, all because you fell in love. The feeling that all these movies, stories, and songs tell are nothing but lies. There is no difference between the educated and uneducated here, no matter what, love marriage is a big taboo.
Homosexuality, a term that many people can’t even say properly because of the taboo attached to it, is considered to be a disease in many parts of India. Though there have been laws and much awareness given about it, there are not many changes to it. Everything is fine if no one knows about it. That is the beauty of taboo. We are free to be in love, have sex with multiple partners, and be gay or lesbian as long as no one knows about it. Everything should remain a secret and of course, you should be a man. Because, a woman should only lose her virginity to her husband, otherwise, she would be called a prostitute or slut.
If we are to educate about these the public, we would be, that is, of course, if a woman sets forth to educate about these, she would be called feminist which again is a taboo. The problem here is, that feminism is not about being higher than a man, and it is about being the same or equivalent to men. Sadly, nobody looks into this in this manner.
India, a land where there are so many deities that are women, fails to respect those belonging to that tribe. A land where, Krishna and Radha’s story is told with so much pride, a place where falling in love wasn’t limited to man to woman but to anyone they fell for, a place where falling in love was because of love and not with any conditions has become a place full of these taboos.
There are so many no’s and a very few yes. Love and sex are at least with one another person, but why and how is menstruation a taboo? When it is nothing but a biological process and a process because of which we all are alive today. If you are a woman and you smoke or drink, that again is taboo. But, for how long are we going to be scared like this? There is an ever-increasing case of mental health issues because of imposing such taboos.
People are getting suffocated because they no longer know or understand what is to be felt. There is constant confusion as life changes once the child reaches puberty, there is nothing than confusion and because we aren’t allowed to talk about sex, we end up doing things we aren’t supposed to do. If only, there was proper sex education given, there wouldn’t be a rise in crimes such as rape or any other sexual abuse. We aren’t told or allowed to share or even think of sex because it is taboo. But if it is so, then how are we born? It is a most natural process of our lives that is considered to be taboo. So, does that mean that our very own existence is also taboo? It is hard to find the answers to this, all we can do is, make it at least safe to fall in love. For love, defeats all.