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00:00Artificially imposed on the society, it was part of our culture.
00:04That reflects in the different roles women play.
00:16I spoke a bit about art, but that being a part, a very big part of one of our regions
00:24and the stories that the art says.
00:28You don't need to go searching for it.
00:31The entire Madhubani painting, North Bihar, Darbhanga, Madhubani.
00:38You just go see what the story is about.
00:42You just see what the girl is given as a heirloom, which she takes after her marriage.
00:49That Madhubani painting clearly talks about woman, the man being in one part of the picture
00:58for the marriage, stories about fertility, reproduction.
01:06Now the leftists of the world will tell us that you would only look at women as a commodity,
01:13you don't celebrate her.
01:17What was Madhubani doing then?
01:20And it is not yesterday or today, it's not after the influence of the leftists in this country.
01:25That's happened over the centuries.
01:28And there again, there is no caste differentiation.
01:34The Madhubani painting done by the people belonging to the general caste or by the Dalits
01:42have their own stories to say all about man, woman in a family, in the society and so on.
01:48So we've celebrated women, celebrated fertility, celebrated reproduction as much as celebrated
01:56women for their qualities of scholarship, for their qualities of warrior kind of features and so on.
02:06So it is not alien to us.
02:11But this statement which I'm making itself is something which I will never want to make.
02:16And that's what I would probably advocate.
02:21We had our own way of talking about women, giving them a role to do and celebrating them
02:28like the repeated example of Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati.
02:33But there were other celebrations also of women.
02:39But what has happened is, because of the superimposition of the so-called western feminism view, our
02:51terminologies have also become very much influenced by them.
02:57We use their terminology to define ourselves, which is a gross misfit.
03:06It just cannot be.
03:08I can't fit myself into that definition because I don't live that life.
03:14But we are now forced because it's like a global currency, you know, unless you translate
03:19your currency to that currency, people don't understand the worth of your currency.
03:25It cannot happen that way.
03:29It's me, my culture, my people, my way of living, which I'll speak about.
03:35And certainly, tell me if the role of women in that is undermined, the role is less useful
03:43for women, less recognition of women and so on.
03:48So the terminology itself is so now today influenced with a different thought process
03:55that today you're playing their game to prove that you're a very good hockey player but
04:02you have a cricket bat in your hand, you have a pitch to play it in.
04:06It doesn't work that way.
04:08So we should now very consciously avoid using terminologies which are imposed on us.
04:15But yes, use the terminology to talk about theirs, to critique theirs, to evaluate theirs.
04:25But ours will have to be.
04:27And in this, I'd like to tell you two books which very strongly influenced me are one
04:36by Swami Ranganathananda of the Ramakrishna Math, who is no more with us.
04:44But he was a wonderful guru who thought about so many different things and about women,
04:50particularly in modern India, in the context of India, he'd written extensively.
04:57And I, of course, had the fortune of meeting him and taking his advice, and he was a very
05:02good guru.
05:03He was a very good guru.
05:04He was a great guru.
05:05He was a great guru.
05:06He was a great guru.
05:07He was a great guru.
05:08He was a great guru.
05:09He was a great guru.
05:10He was a great guru.
05:11He was a great guru.
05:12He was a great guru.
05:13He was a great guru.
05:14He was a great guru.
05:15He was a great guru.
05:16He was a great guru.
05:17He was a great guru.
05:18He was a great guru.
05:19He was a great guru.
05:20He was a great guru.
05:21He was a great guru.
05:22He was a great guru.
05:23He was a great guru.
05:24He was a great guru.
05:25He was a great guru.