Ex-q-zit : August 2016

“Ravi, have you finished ironing Sruthi’s shirt and trouser?” Naveen shouted from kitchen.

“Yes, dad” his 15 year old son Ravi replied from the hall. Sruthi was his 18 year old daughter.

It was 2045 and in the past 30 years many things had changed. More and more women had passed out with flying colours and gradually women outnumbered men in the workforce. By 2020 60% of the households had women as the primary bread-winners. Now the stats had increased to 90%. Very few men worked in the upper management with most relegated to menial jobs such as hard labour, receptionists, retail sales assistants, elementary school teachers, nurses etc in which women were generally not interested.

Mothers encouraged their daughters to study well while the housework was left to the fathers and sons. Boys were brought up to be submissive and delicate and less confident while girls were the opposite. Hence Naveen and Ravi did the housework while his wife, Prerna, earned the money and Sruthi spent time studying her medical books as she was a first year medicine student.

It was Monday evening and Naveen was cooking dinner so that it can be consumed freshly by his family. Due to the heat emanating by the stove Naveen was sweating and he wiped his brows and face with the pallu of his saree. Sarees wear the common daily wear for married men and Naveen wasn’t an exception. He was currently wearing a blue saree with orange short-sleeved blouse. The shining gold mangalsutra around his neck and bright sindhoor on his forehead as well as in the partition of his hair were clear indications of his marital status. He wore very minimal jewelry as he liked to be simple unless going out for any events, so he had a couple of bangles in each hand, gold ear-rings and a nose stud. Fresh jasmine flowers were neatly pinned to his long neatly braided hair as he knew his wife liked them very much.

As he was cooking Naveen’s ears was closely following the TV serial running on the TV set. It was a tear jerker of an orphan boy who gets married into a rich family and all the trials and tribulations they faced.

On the other hand Ravi was in his room watching a Jane Bond movie while coating his nails with nail polish. He was wearing a green baby boll nightie and had left his long black hair loose.

When the serial was showing a scene related to school Naveen remembered his days in school when everything was different from now. At that time it was the men who called the shots while the women were mere dolls with every step of their life decided by men.

CHAPTER 1 – A GRADUAL SHIFT

YEAR: 2014

PLACE: Some City in India

“Teacher, Naveen is pulling my hair” 12 year old Prerna complained to her teacher with tears in my eyes.

The teacher had Naveen kneel down for the rest of the period. Naveen who was also 12 years old at that time stared at Prerna angrily who hid her face behind a friend in fright. Naveen was the class rowdy and all the kids feared him.

After the period the teacher warned him and allowed him to go back to his desk. At the end of the day Naveen had his revenge by emptying a whole bottle of black ink on Prerna’s head which made her whole face black as it trickled on to her face from her head. While the boys jeered at her the girls were sympathetic.

Prerna went home crying. She belonged to a poor family whose father, Shiva, was a drunkard and petty thief while mother, Rekha, worked as a maid. She also had a twin brother Prem who was a complete brat. Her mother consoled her saying not to worry and also to not complain against Naveen who came from a well to do family. His father, Ramesh, was a high-ranking executive in a software organization while his too worked her way to become a Team Manager in the same company but quit her job after marriage as Ramesh wanted a housewife.

“They are rich people but we are poor. You need to study well to come up in life. So remember to never cross paths against them as it will eventually be you who will be hurt” advised her mother Rekha.

Hence Prerna decided to endure Naveen’s antics and didn’t ever complain again..

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Prerna on one hand was motivated to study very hard from a young age while on the other hand Naveen had absolutely no motivation to study and spent time playing around with other boys. This trend seemed to be more or less common in most boys and girls of all ages. Boys were doted upon and filled with a sense of pride and superiority about their gender. Girls were on the never treated on par with boys.

This seemed to be more prevalent in the upper middle class where girls irrespective of their qualifications were married off and would spend the rest of their lives in the kitchen and having their brains atrophied due to boredom.

In 2016 things began to improve a bit for women. Priyanka Mehra became the Prime Minister of India and brought about a few reforms in the government administration. She started off with introducing 50% reservations for women in all government and private sector jobs. But the more alarming factor was that due to this additional workforce an equal number of men would be made redundant over the next 2 years once the women had settled in their jobs. Leela subtly hinted at returning to work but Ramesh rejected her request outrightly. He was resolute on having a housewife.

Leela also had to fight a long and hard battle with Ramesh to let Divya join MBBS. Finally she was successful and very happy for her daughter. On the other hand she was worried about Naveen’s below than average marks.

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It had been 2 years since Priyanka Mehra had introduced the Women’s reservation bill in Government jobs. Next she implemented the same in the private sector too. Also funds were increased for girl education, women’s sports as well as women’s safety. More and more girls exceled in sports thereby women’s sports started gaining more sponsors and support.

But the most telling reform was the Child care allowance scheme. According to this any family where the woman is the primary breadwinner and the spouse stays at home for childcare are eligible for a handsome monthly allowance. This made many couples where the woman had received a job via the reservation to opt for the husband to stay at home. As a result by 2018 30% of the populace had house-husbands.

After the 2 year probationary period most of the men who lost their jobs stayed back at home due to laziness to work as they received a good monetary benefit but some were coerced by their wives to stay-at-home.

Ramesh could successfully pass the probation and continue in his role but as fate would have it he was caught in a huge scam and lost his job as well as the eligibility of child care allowance. He was also sentenced to 6 months of jail and 18 months of suspended sentence.

With the main bread-winner gone to jail Leela had no option but to step out of the house to seek a job. At that time she was dealing with an unexpected pregnancy. Fortunately with many offers available for women she did not find it too hard to find a role as a team Manager in a reputed IT firm. She had a flexible work/personal balance opportunity which made it easier for her.

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Silently there was a revolution happening in most households which was going unnoticed. Girls topped in all forms of education year in and year out while the boys fared miserably. Many boys in the poor and lower middle class dropped out to become auto drivers, mechanics, daily labourers etc.

The story was no different in Prerna’s house. While she secured a rank within the top 50 of her state in the 12^th Std on the other hand Prem dropped out of college and followed his father’s footsteps in choosing a path of crime and notoriety.

Six months later Ramesh was released from jail and when he came home he was surprised at the change in scenario. He saw that Leela had given birth to their baby son just a couple of months back and in her maternity leave.

For the next month Ramesh started job hunting but with little success. With each passing day his frustration increased due to his failure to find a job even after working for so many years. Eventually it was time to return to work for Leela which meant someone needed to stay back to nurse the baby. Ramesh initially didn’t agree for Leela to work while he stayed home. But he had no other option but to agree due to the financial implications.

The return to workforce seemed to have made wonders to Leela’s self-confidence as she discarded the saree as a daily wear and adopted salwar kameez at home and functions while wearing women’s suit-skirt for office. Divya too preferred jeans and tops most of the time.

As fate would have it both, Naveen and Prerna joined the same engineering college, though Prerna secured a seat by merit while Naveen secured it by influence and money.

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