Men’s Day Went By Quietly in India. Where Was All The Love For Sons?

A cousin shared two videos with me last week as food for thought for my next post. Both the videos had been released around the occasion of Men’s Day, 2019. I did not know that since 2007, India has been celebrating 19th November as International Men’s Day. This year was the first that I heard of it, and that too on 20th November when my cousin sent me the videos. 

Not surprisingly, one of the videos was a lament about men’s day being ignored. It went on to list in a fun song sequence how men contribute by handling the menial things in everyday life. Lizards, toilet repairs, midnight diaper changes, et al.

The other video was a recitation by the famous stand-up comedian Zakir Khan. It dealt with how men handle big responsibilities, but ignore their own feelings in a bid to appear all strong and macho. 

Watching these videos, it struck me again that patriarchy has not done men any more good than it has to women. Women may have been fit into suffocating stereotypes of the homemaker or caretaker. But men too have found themselves straitjacketed as breadwinners or fighters. Society certainly has favoured men by assigning more value to the roles they have played. But many men now are tired of performing these roles. Especially when it entails compromising with their original individualities.

Men’s Responsibility To Maintain Family And Parents

Watching the videos, as usual, I was also reminded of an incident from my own life. Once while idly chatting, a colleague told me that the money I was earning as a girl was a bonus for my family. Whereas he earned to fulfill duties as a son. Though I didn’t like the comparison, I had heard some anguish in his voice too. And I could not dispute his statement. In fact, I haven’t been able to dispute it over all these years even in my head. 

The truth is that my parents never asked or even expected me to contribute to the family expenses. They did not expect me to return to them the investment they had made for my upbringing or education. Now, this could be a function of the economy of the household. But even generally, Indian women do not make financial contributions to their parents’ families. Whereas sons- married or unmarried- usually do. This is how the custom of not dividing ancestral property among daughters came about, didn’t it? Or was it the other way round? I don’t know.

Anyway, the law now allows daughters to claim a share in ancestral property. It also obligates them to maintain parents who can’t maintain themselves. But the law does not still seem to have translated into practice. Largely, men still carry and feel the entire financial burden of their families. Our society seems to have taken the legendary Shravan Kumar’s gender very seriously.

The Shravan Kumar Ideal

Society has distorted this ideal in other ways as well.

Men must display an undying, even blind loyalty to their parents and blood relatives. In fact, they should also ensure that their wives have the same loyalty towards her husband’s parents, much more than towards her own. The wife must leave her parents’ home to join her husband or his family, but the husband so much as staying a night over at his in-laws’ can be a betrayal for the man’s family.

And the vilification of sons who fall short of this ideal is an everyday reality.

My heart goes out to men who pretty much scale Mount Everest to earn that badge of honour from their parents. Only to hear their parents say something like ‘it is only a daughter that really cares’. Many parents forget an essential link here. As they do not expect their daughter to maintain or even look after them, they enjoy whatever little she does for them. But all their expectations being directed towards their son, it is anything but easy to meet them.

Celebrating Men’s Day

There are counter-arguments about celebrating days like Men’s Day and Women’s Day. Some find it empty symbolism, while some think it important for raising awareness about gender issues in society.

I say it is a good day for women to start sharing with men the responsibilities towards their parents. And not only in the role of a wife but also as a sister. Men could ensure equality by extending similar courtesies as husbands.

And I say it is a good day for men to recognise that the love society shows them over women is not selfless. That the pedestal society makes them sit on is just another throne of thorns. And it is a good day for them to renounce this throne. A life of equality is a simpler life, with rights as well as responsibilities divided equally.

It is a good day for men to say- It’s Not Fair!