HELLO ALL!!!
Taking a break from THIS DAY THAT YEAR… I just couldn't bring myself to write; the words just wouldn't come. Let's see if it will be here by next week or so…
However that is not why I'm here… today, I am here for Garima…
WOMANHOOD Vs MOTHERHOOD
Yesterday, I watched the episode on TV at 8 unlike what I had been doing for the past few days and gave the girls on REDUX a live update as well. I was present at the post episode discussions as well. I was surprised at some of the reactions. It seemed as if some of us if not all were expecting Garima to come out wholly innocent… pure and blemish free! But why? Is she not a woman? Was she not young once? Sometime in her youth, didn't she dream of her own Prince Charming?
If she did dream, was she not entitled to do so? Why is it that we expect our parents, especially our mothers to be saints and Paragons? If they are wise and right now, isn't it because of experience and because they learnt from their mistakes?
Let us take a look at Garima. A woman who bypassed her own womanhood for borrowed motherhood. A young woman fated to bring up two motherless girls as her own, and did it too; admirably and to the best of her ability. A devoted wife, who really seemed to care for her husband. Conservative, strict and loving she provided her daughters with the best of values and principles. She brought them up to be god-fearing and good.
Today the same woman stands accused of being "The Other Woman." She stands accused of breaking up a family, of causing two tragic deaths. Everyone seems eager to have her absolved of all guilt. She couldn't be "The Other Woman." How could she be? She is not supposed to be "The Other Woman." I am hearing cries from all around me! I ask why not? Yesterday, didn't you hear her beg forgiveness? Didn't you hear her say that she didn't know that the man she fell in love with was already married? Didn't she say that she has been cursing herself for falling in love with him all her life? She had been feeling the guilt of the train of events she unwittingly set in motion? So why do we want it so that she be depicted as chaste and as far removed from Senior Malik's life as possible. We don't blame Khushi for falling in Shyam's trap, do we? Why is it so difficult to believe that Garima was once as young as Khushi?
Garima was a woman once. She was a woman first before she became a mother. She was not a saint or born one. She attained sainthood through her selfless motherhood later.
Garima may have dreamed of her own Rajkumar; why hold it against her? She may have dreamed unwittingly about the wrong man; why hold it against her?
Imagine her heartbreak, when her dreams crumbled all around her… when she came to know that she has been duped…
She was reviled and accused, then, of a crime she did not commit. She lost her dream, her credibility; she lost her good name. She had to run and hide. And at around the same time she became a mother to her orphaned niece. But she fought in the way she knew how… not for herself, but for the little creature who needed her. She accepted Shashi Gupta's hand in marriage; a far cry from any young woman's dreams… a widower with a young daughter of his own. But she did it and she didn't complain… instead she became an exemplary mother to two girls not her own… and made them her very own…
What better tribute to her than when Khushi hugged her and said…
"Humari Amma aap hain… aapko kissi ko jawaab dene ki koi zaroorat nahi hain!"
There is more to this story than meets the eye… let us wait and watch. Let us not be too hard on Garima…
Edited by sonshine - 12 years ago