If I were a seed

Everything in this universe has a beginning and humans usually keep looking for answers to solve the mystery of how it all began. Well I don’t know much but I do know how a plant nurtures. I start it all. Seeds develop from the ovules in the female plant, so in order to develop into seeds, the ovules must first be fertilised by the pollen from the male plant. Once fertilized I am formed, a seed.

Have you ever seen a seed in your favourite fruit or vegetable? Like humans, I come in all shapes and sizes. I take different forms I am very small but I grow into huge trees, shrubs and vines. Some of the humans think it’s amazing that all the different plants come from this small seed. Everything has components they are made of I am a tiny seed with an embryo that will develop into roots, trunk, branches, leaves and fruits. After maturing, seeds go into a state called dormancy. While they are dormant the seeds are scattered and dispersed. Development of the seeds, from fertilisation to shedding of the ripe seeds, can take several weeks or even months

Until the seed germinates it is dormant. I am a marvel, all I need to develop into a plant is soil, water and sunlight. The largest seed in the world is the double coconut. It can measure up to 50cm (1.6ft) around the middle.

If you eat a fruit or vegetable that has me in it, don’t throw me away, dig a small pit, put me in it and pour some water, after weeks I’ll be smiling at you with my little branches and leaves. Seeds provide the world's daily food. Your breakfast cereal and toast, your pasta or pizza lunch and your rice dish, the tea that you take, your round chappati, all started life as seeds from different grasses.

Seeds are used by humans for a number of purposes. The most important of those uses are as foods. Some seeds are eaten directly, while other are used to manufacture flour, starch, oil, or some other edible products. From the moment I am formed to the very moment I become a plant I serve humans. I make forests which is the habitat of many animals that children go to zoo to see like lions, deers, zebras etc.

You know in a way I am life itself, because no living being can survive without oxygen and without me life would be in danger. So if I could ask the children to do one thing, it would be to plant more trees and take care of them.

What hurts me is the fact that people don’t value plants much, it takes ages for me to develop into a big strong tree, shrub or a herb of medical benefit, they cut the plants down in a jiffy, without ever thinking that how strenuous was the process. I hope that children will start to understand the value of seed and a full grown up plant.

It's a man's world - and his mother is to be blamed for it

So the cliché goes. For, a woman is feeble, sensitive, cries easily, and is physically weak. Also, she absolutely has to be a good cook and, hey, she isn’t a certified woman unless she is a home maker. Nobody ever questions that. I never did, because that is how we are brought up. We are the pride of our fathers only when we successfully marry into a family and die serving our in-laws. We are bred to make our husbands astronauts and pilots and to help them achieve their dreams. But never those that are our own.

How can we dare to talk about equality, this is a man’s world… equality is not even an option; not something we, the women, teach our children.

So, let’s save our time and breath and not talk about dreams, at all – they are only for men. So is respect and freedom. Women, on the other hand, can’t even walk down the street without being stared at, commented on and harassed. According to one report of Human Rights watchdog in Pakistan, as many as 68% women are sexually harassed when they step out of their homes. Mothers of Pakistan, you are not doing a good job, you are raising harassers and frustrated chaps who can’t imagine their own sisters being subjected to such acts, but can’t stop themselves from “complementing” someone else’s sister.

I won’t blame the men themselves for that, I would put the blame on their mothers. How can a daughter be trained to be so sacrificing, programmed so skilfully to “obey” her husband and pack her dreams, comfort and aims in a suitcase and throw it away into the ocean of indifference? Because nobody cares about what she wants to be, all that she needs to be is a wife and then a mother. This is what she was told, by her own mother. But that same mother is not able to tame her boys and programme them to respect the woman walking down the street. She couldn’t teach him not to whistle at every woman he sees on the road, to pass a comment, to not try to touch her, harass her, look at her or make sexual gestures to her.

When I discussed this issue with some educated women, I was appalled to hear their absurd argument that men do these acts out of frustration, and that harassing a woman lets out their steam. If a man is not getting what he wants out of his life, would he be justified for redeeming himself by harassing women?

Absurdly unacceptable.

In the end, it’s all about power. In our society, power has always been the mistress of the man. And we, the women, make sure it stays that way by raising our boys to be power-drunk and ill-mannered. The women who raise these boys into men are failing. Failing badly. I am not going to raise my daughter to be a shadow of her real existence, she will have dreams, hopes and vision. My son will know that respecting women who are related to him is necessary, but respecting women who aren’t is obligatory. So that somewhere out there a frustrated woman like me – who chose to write to let out her angst – would not blame the generation before her for not raising their children right. And I thank my father for giving me a voice. Let’s put a stop to harassment and ill-treatment by nurturing strong daughters and caring boys. Because yes, this may be a man’s world, but it would be nothing, nothing without the women.

Published in: 

http://nation.com.pk/blogs/12-Feb-2015/it-s-a-man-s-world-and-his-mother-is-to-be-blamed-for-it