A look at women in war and war literatures

Google image Jansi Rani

Time to time, wars occur in this world regardless of penchant of any living being on this earth and at most times wars are forced. In very early days, homo-erectus who were the earliest generation of human-evolution had fights with other animals and the only purpose behind the fights was to get food and it made no harms to the environment. But later on, the evolution itself urged needs for fights and the behind reasons also started growing. When the stage of human evolution turned to be homo-sapiens from the stage of homo-erectus, these small fights also became wars since the reasons had been turned to be ambitions focused. But it is not a thing to be said proudly that it is a sign of evolution as very obviously, each war owes desecrated records of stories and each drop of blood which is spoiled in the roads was used for creation, then this world would have been somewhere else. But here what I want to tell is that the word war itself is seen as a fact that is more supportive to masculine gender. The traditional literatures related to wars criticize feminine as much vulnerable to wars or as reasons for the occurrence of wars. A very popular traditional Tamil literature ‘Ramayana’ illustrates a woman called Seetha as the reason for the war occurred between Rama who was the king of Ayothi in India and Ravana who was the king of Sri Lanka. Though the literature explicitly says ‘Seetha’ as the reason for war, but when going deeply into the literature it can be observed that the prime reason was the ‘haughtiness and dominance of Ravana who was the king of Sri Lanka’. In my view, whenever wars occur, it happens due to two reasons which are the advantages taken by the dominant side and the vulnerable aspects of the other side and it can be simply said due to the ‘cheap mentality of human beings’ and their inexpensive perception which is ‘they can dominate the whole world’ which will never happen. As the best example  ‘Hitler’s German as the heart of the world’ concept can be considered. So when a person or people mislead with some specific advantages that they have got, it is obviously harmful to the people who don’t have it. Thus from this harmful side, always an opposition is influenced with a specific leadership and this is the ultimate point where wars start. But all the war literatures focus much on stimulating ‘heroism’ which is only consecrated to masculine or they criticize women as factors which are so far away from war or much vulnerable or even as reasons for the occurrence of wars. Let’s take the Vietnam War literature; it only focuses creating heroism for the American soldiers who were sent to Vietnam against communists. What literatures try to criticize about women in war is only on how they were harmful to the war, how they were used as motivators of men in war. But the reality says it different. According to Gillian Courtney in the article of Contribution of women in revolution of America, it is mentioned that a lot of women made significant levels of contributions to revolutions especially it rewards women such as Margaret Cochran Corbin and Mary Ludwig Hays who directly contributed to the victory. Even in the eastern world, women such as Jansi Rani can be rewarded in the top position for the revolution against Slavism. But I think the very traditional Tamil literatures talk much about women and wars. Literatures such as ‘purananuru’, and ‘kalithokai’ have given significant importance to women and they say young girls gave high priority to marry the soldiers and a mother’s story was quiet popular in puranauru and the story is short enough as follows. A mother had seven children and she had already lost her husband in war. So she decided to send her children for the warfare and according to her decision, six children were sent and they were killed by enemies. Then also she sent her last child which was an infant and it also was killed and alas, she went and died. So I think very traditional Tamil literatures have given a good space for women which truly lacks in the modern literatures even. Also the other thing that war literatures forget to talk about is the normal people’s lives especially on how they were treated by dominant parties, how painful was their bunger lives and how their blood and energy were spoiled. But Golden Age a novel by Thamima Anam gives an excellent output outlined on normal people’s lives and their circumstances occurred during Afhan war. Though war is a perfect desecration, by all the means, war literatures must arise and they will help others who were not affected by war for an understanding on how painful it is and of course it will be a good realization on truths. The only fact that can be said proudly about anyone who fails in the war is that at least they were not cowardice and did something ambitiously and yes in reality, women do a lot.

In my view, inconsistency and the reasons for why it exists

Very recently I met a person saying ‘discrepancies must remain in this world’. I was really shocked and asked why it is so and his reply was “if everyone has money, then there will be no rich or poor people in this world. People who are rich work hard and that’s why they are rich and others are not” this was his opinion. But does it seem to be the only reason as that friend perceived? I do agree that all rich and popular people in this world are hard-workers and because of their hard-work only they could achieve such a position. But does it mean that a poor one not having any dreams to become rich and not working hard? Actually lower class or blue collar people are the ones working much hard and very sadly they get lower income. They work for today, live for today, looking to solve today’s problems and that’s it they are happy on it. But I think this might be the reason for why they remain poor for the whole life and if they also think about tomorrow, they would try to earn more but the certainty is that these people are much happier than those who are rich. Anyway in my view, there are four major facts influencing in the aspect of discrepancy in such a way why this inconsistency exist in this world. First thing is that there are people who always want this discrepancy to remain and they take advantage of vulnerable people or societies, they ensure their domination with some specific advantages they have such as power, money and status or whatever. Second fact itself is the vulnerable societies, they may want to overcome the problems they have but they can’t or they need to work hard to achieve it but most of the times, all their efforts will despoiled by dominators. Third fact is there are people who always take or habitually make benefits by standing between these two parties and they act like helping to those poor ones but actually not, at times they might be the representatives of dominant parties and what becomes their plus point is that they are very good at making people to believe at them in their ‘double-dealing business’. The last and least fact is that some of these vulnerable or poor or despoiled societies not knowing about what they have really loosen or how they have been despoiled or they know it but not trying to do anything as they are tired of working, as their efforts are wasted at each stage where they put their soul to improve them and as alas they have no hopes in that their lives also will be lighted one day. In a same city, some people’s worries may be on how they can make them to shine in a party, some may worry on how to earn more, some may worry on what to do next and some may even doubt on whether they can have their breakfast or not. I see the needs are decided by discrepancy, behaviors, life and life-style are decided by one particular aspect which is ‘inconsistency’ in this world and the way how people are treated get changed according to their classes. Anyway it is not to say only this particular area decides the life; there are things that may change the life and why not the whole world so will believe everything will change considering change is the only thing that has no end forever. But it is not logical to expect dominators to change their views, mentality and to have good hearts understanding the feelings of people who owe less or no power, resources and status or whatever the factors making influences in a fact call lobbying with other parties. So I think a change must be initiated from the side that has a need of improvement or development and then only existing inconsistencies might at least have a move towards equality.

Only to have good memories

I am on my blog after a very long time seeing it is nothing specifically on my mind to write on. But obviously I didn’t write for more than one month and was really rushing with my studies. This seems to be the important stage of my life. Every day new faces, different experiences, dreams and learning from it. Each and every second of this life is precious as they are not going to return anymore whether they make me happy or not. It was once upon a time when people’s life was only limited to some close friends and only within some places such as their work-place and home. But now companies’ even seeking for personnel who are multi-talented and concept of being an ‘all-rounder’ has become crucial. So this pushes you doing a lot. When you are to do a lot, you need a lot of people who will be helping on it. But obviously people helping and at the same time they make considerable level of inconveniences. It becomes really hard to find what they actually thinking but their mouths say different words with a smile. Psychology only can be used to discover whether a person lying or not. But nowadays people are smarter than they were some years back and they know how to be steady even when they are lying. I would like if someone can invent a machine that actually tells what the other person thinks in the mind. I am writing it because I have had some experiences during last month with someone whose behaviors are hard to predict. Anyway each person has a good side as well another that seems so hard to predict. Only thing that can be a solution for everything is to understand and accept both the good and bad sides since it becomes not so logical to expect a person to be perfect at all. As I mentioned earlier, time will never be returned so it is better only having good memories. Even this minute in which am writing, also cannot be got again. I had almost nothing in my mind when started writing and in the middle I remembered something that happened few days back and it has automatically dragged my fingers in the keyboard to write on.