Marriage/ relationship is not just a permission to stay on the same bed together. It’s an union of mental, physical, financial, social and spiritual assets. A man who loves you will want to protect and provide for you and your future, not just in words but also through actions. You won’t have to ask for anything because he’ll offer you everything he has. Don’t fall for social conditioning and shaming that you cannot take mohrana, child support, property rights, household expenses etc. from your husband. It’s not an equal, utopian world yet. Women’s items cost more and their earning and travelling scopes are few. Bearing a child, being with a guy would reduce the chances of her finding someone again but even a divorced man with kids will find a young single girl due to the existing brainwashing and social systems. Whether a man earns 20,000 or 200 crores, if he’s not wholeheartedly supporting you financially, please don’t glorify it as love. There can be attraction, fascination, pleasure, connection between you two but whatever you’re, you’re not a couple.
April 22 marked the International Earth Day. As Ms Earth Bangladesh, the first information about me that I started sharing is that I am the daughter of a farmer, and an international farmer’s rights activist. This fact was highlighted intentionally, not only to emphasise my connection to the Earth but also to use a platform of more than 90 countries to recognise Farming as a respectable, dignified, and socially commendable profession! #missbangladesh2020 #MissBangladesh
I wanted every person following my words to view being a farmer, being a child or relative of a farmer, being from the social circle of farming as something prestigious! But the feedback has not always been as expected.
My father, a former student of Dhaka University also has a family business of export-import, an influential political journey, and comes from a family of Persian roots and Zamindars. In a superficial society, many of these information could be used to get unfair advantage. But never in my life, I used the name or position of my family or a relative or anybody to get any facility. The social identity I was and I am most proud of is how my father changed the trajectory of his life by going after his passion to grow food, used every bit of his possessions to ensure lands and dignity of fellow farmers in the country, devoted his whole life in simple living and contributing for others. While my dreams had wings, he kept me grounded.
It is pretty much visible in my lifestyle or appearance that I’m a high maintenance person which is not possible without a strong back up. Even then, some people started talking to my friends as ‘oh that girl must be from a simple family, she said on interviews that her father is a farmer’ in a derogatory way to look down upon me. My friends started making comments like ‘it’s making you look bad that you keep saying your father is a farmer’. Imagine the kind of humiliation common people in the country have to face who don’t even have the same backing as me.
People ask people, ‘what does your father do?’ to identify how they should treat you. And as Ms Bangladesh, I want the change to begin with treating farmers and their families better, respectfully because farming is not just a profession, it’s a spiritual calling, it’s a way of life.
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