Actor Ratna Pathak Shah spoke about growing up in an environment that was both patriarchal and progressive. She said that she had only one male cousin, and that she grew up among women. This shaped her thinking, which, in turn, affected how she viewed certain behaviours. At an event, she said that her grandmother wept when her sister Supriya was born, because she was unhappy about another girl child joining the family. Ratna said that she was outraged at her grandmother’s reaction, but took solace in her father’s response, which was the complete opposite.
At a FICCI Flo event in Hyderabad, Ratna was asked about raising boys in the modern world. She said, “Having two sons of my own was a very entertaining and unusual experience, one that I wasn’t quite prepared for. I remember feeling very resentful about the special privileges that boys were supposed to get. I remember my paternal grandmother crying loudly when my sister was born. ‘Haye haye doosri beti aagayi (Oh no, another girl).’ And I remember feeling terrible about that.”
She said that her father’s reaction gave her hope. “He was extremely proactive about objecting to that. There is Punjabi tradition where they distribute a certain sweet when a boy is born and a different sweet when a girl is born. He distributed the sweets meant to celebrate a boy’s birth even though a girl had been born in the family. It was like an affirmation of acceptance,” she said.
Ratna said that she found her grandmother’s reaction ‘very offensive’. “Why should a girl’s existence be so unwelcome. I realised that it starts in the families. The way that boys are treated in families is significantly different, even in educated, upper-class families,” she said, adding that these patriarchal norms have existed for thousands of years, and won’t be abolished overnight.
In an earlier interview with Hauterrfly, Ratna admitted that she perhaps wasn’t an ideal sister to Supriya. “We are very different from each other and yet there is a sense that there is someone like me. When we were kids, Supriya and I fought… I was not a good sister. I have to accept that I was a very big bully, but I am glad, I got all my bullying done then. I was an emotionally bully, which is even worse,” she said.
