Ignorant

Indian families present an example of war and peace, war is not a war unless it is a world-war and two born rivals are Mother-in-law (MIL) and daughter-in-law (DIL).

This family story begins when mother feels proud to be mother of a son, with son comes dreams of dowry its ingredients are jewellery, cash, car, bungalow and all the valuables which a DIL is going to bring with the growth of son the size of car, bungalow, weight of jewellery increases with each move of the son. Now the son has got a job and the day of his marriage arrives. The bride is welcomed into her new home and all rituals are over, relatives gone and now the rivals are ready to face each other, MIL faces DIL.

The first day DIL gets up early and enters the kitchen to prepare morning tea for the family members but there is an obstacle, MIL comes running asking DIL to rest and then she puts all her effort to prepare morning tea as she is afraid of her territory being invaded and conquered by DIL. Obviously, this is not tolerable. DIL sits in the corner and just observes, the reason for this behavior is because of competition, here the role of male members was not important.

Now comes breakfast time. The MIL is ready with all her efforts to prepare a scrumptious meal for the family, completely oblivious to the DIL’s feelings.

The breakfast was delicious and the male members appreciated the efforts made. Here, the impression on the male members is that the DIL does not take interest in household chores or does not know how to cook. It may be that the DIL is an expert chef but she keeps quiet. If she thinks this through, however, she could turn this to her benefit. Due to the benefits she is getting from the competitive nature of her egoist MIL, she will not have to get up early for the morning tea, neither will she have to worry about preparing breakfast. She can wake up as late as she wants. The best thing for her to do in this situation would be to let things be as they are. However, the fact that she isn’t able to show off her cooking skills is clawing at her insides.

The males do not interfere here as they are afraid of Mahabharat in the house or are not ready to be experimented on by the new cook in their family. They simply appreciate the meal. Point goes to the MIL in this domestic Cold War.

Now that the males of the house are away for work, the two rivals can finally confront each other in their battleground-the kitchen. The battle for the kitchen throne rages on.

The other household chores require division of labour, like washing dirty linen and preparing lunch, obviously the lunch making goes to MIL and washing clothes never gets appreciation.

Lunch time comes and once again, the game is won by MIL while the DIL stands aloof to observe all the praise going to the MIL all praises to her with her collars up.

MIL is the kitchen queen once again and the DIL’s suppressed ego is the volcano which will erupt someday or the other who is the culprit enough fuel for war or not lets move ahead

This routine continues for many days. This non-inclusion in household chores results in the DIL having lots of free time to spend on her gadgets.

A few days later, the DIL finds a job and decides to go for it. However, this decision of hers is met with strong opposition from the elders of the house. This leads to rising tensions within the household, frequent fights and ultimately may result in broken relations.

Now in the same family, all of this could have been avoided had the MIL accepted the DIL as her family member and given her an opportunity to create her place in the family, instead of seeing the DIL as a rival. The MIL should not have been so ignorant about the DIL’s feelings.

The egos are not hurt when you touch someone’s heart with your humbleness. One should give respect to get respect.

So, we can say that the Indian family dramas are scenes of war and peace but it all depends on the mindset.

War and peace are two sides of the same coin. The choice is ours what we decide and what we want?

War and peace are mind games.