CHENNAI: A little angel had just begun taking a few steps. Her confidence was amazing when she wobbled across to reach out for that delightful tray of white sugar crystals topped with a design of colourful button candies. The sight of the little angel (not the sugar tray) was to be savoured and captured by the eyes, rather than on a video. She almost tripped over her mustard and maroon pattu pavadai a multiple times as she went about negotiating the space to take her clumsy strides. She let out a brief shriek of discomfort as her mother scooped her off the ground.
With her pavadai colour a bright mustard, this did look like a large dollop of butterscotch being spooned off! Her scream got louder as her mother deposited her on her father’s lap. Soon, relatives and friends who had gathered for the little angel’s first birthday ritual gathered around, offering varying degrees of comforting words that sounded more like unwanted cheerleaders. Her father was now facing the man of the moment, the goldsmith, who has been called to get the infant’s ear pierced, a ritual that is followed by all Indian communities for the girl child.
Only, the age of the child to undergo this ritual varies between 10 days and a year. The crowd that gathered around the child revelled and cheered as the goldsmith marked the spot and clinically pierced the yellow metal into the tender earlobe, even as the little girl’s scream reached a crescendo. A senior citizen, who was part of the cheering crowd, quickly pinched out a few crystals of sugar (from that tray) and brushed them onto the little angel’s lips, probably to ensure her cries got sweeter! This logic of smearing sugar on the lips that was meant to distract the toddler from the pain failed me.
My thoughts went back in time, 26 years to be precise, towards a friend, whose exemplary gesture flashed like a lightening amid the cries of the little girl. And perhaps, this anecdotal tribute seemed relevant to me as we heard the Women’s Day clangour loud and clear, with media and social media pouring in tributes to the tribe, in what is by now an annual convention.
This friend became a father to a little angel. But he refused to abide by the ritualistic demand of having to get his girl child’s ears pierced during the run up to her first birthday. He did not want this painful and torturous routine for his girl child, saying, “I want Her to choose whether she wants it done, and when she wants it done.” The piercing of the ears may sound a simple ritual and many see it as “getting done with” early. But are we allowing the little girl to exercise her freedom of choice? Moreover, the stereotyping of a “bejewelled beauty” begins then. It starts with the ear, and never really ends. Look at all those jewellery ads.Take a bow, my dear friend!
Subhashini Dinesh