A few days Ago, a boy in Sindh shot a female student in his school during assembly time and then he shot himself with the same gun. Afterwards, two suicidal notes were found on the crime scene written by those children. The suicide notes simultaneously addressed the respective parents of children that both the children are in love but the parents will not allow them to unite in this world; however they both made their last will as to be buried next to each other.
I have some standing points as my opinion on this case:
- Bargain with children:
Most of the times, Asian children have to face a question from their parents while deciding for their own future, career, job or marital step, i.e. “Have we brought you up to face THIS day?” I mean what is the whole meaning of life to our parents? Give us birth, take good care of our health studies food and clothing, raise us to our teenage, show their benevolence as the best parents of the world, and then, impose the condition of a fake bargain that the children have lived their life on the mercy of parents, now it is the time to pay back to parents by following the parents’ consent on the most important decisions the children’s’ lives. Extending my point further, this scenario has hit the psychological dissent of most of the teenagers who are first allowed to dream, and then parents shake the foundation of their children’s dreams by turning down their wishes regarding such sensitive matters. Sometimes, this affection of parents’ look more like a bargain and it stinks badly to be exposed to cruel business intentions hidden behind the love of parents.
- Caste and status stereotypes:
Last year in Shahdra Lahore Pakistan, a girl studying in MBBS medical program was forced to marry her cousin who was a matriculation failed shopkeeper. When asked why was that so? “In our society, we marry children within the family”, said one of the women from that family(name is confidential). Typical families and thought processes has led the families to think of Caste system and behave status conscious while deciding for the marriages of their children because there are some social insecurities, some superiorities, and some serious ego issues. Most of the educated families too in rural areas of Pakistan still think that caste is the most important, no matter their child loves someone outside the caste. Even if any son or daughter thinks of marrying his/her love, who is not a caste fellow, they are subjected to barbarian punishments for “thinking out of caste”. Love has been banished unconditionally because caste is not a condition, status is not a condition; these are compulsions that drive the process of marital life and its philosophies. Coming back to the sensitivity of suicide notes, there is a headline saying “Dad, you would never let me live with my love”. Why the girl and boy did confess this thing? This is because they knew that castes are not same, social insecurities of parents will be acting as constraints, the fathers of both male and female would never let go off their egos for the sake of uniting their children. Rajpoot, Jutt, Arain, Sheikh, all castes restricted to the boundaries of their own egos and the families can’t allow their children to do love marriage.
- Parental guidance(Gender discrimination & orthodox Mindset) :
On one side of the debate, the immature youth finds a senseless temptation that drives them towards this temporary love, but on the other side, some alarming warnings lie on the side of parents too. First of all, the typical stereotype parents and the patriarchal culture families describe female gender as one of the most intriguing and attention driving entity in the world. Here lies the responsibility of the parents to not create such a difference between males and females and highlight feminine gender as an alien type thing. Secondly, parents must guide children when they enter the age of puberty that what is right and what is wrong. At the end, there is no shame in uniting two souls and marrying your sons and daughters to their lovers because you won’t be spending life with them, their spouses would be. And nobody knows how harshly the non-united lovers live rest of their lives releasing their frustrations on their arrange marriage spouse.
