Im just saying

     I just saw the movie Matrabhoomi.  While the film dragged on at times, it was a pretty stark look at female infanticide in India.  The basic premise is that, at some unknown point in the future, there is an entire vollage area in UP/Bihar that has no females.  Finally one family of 5 brothers and a father finally manage to buy a "wife" to share amongst themselves.  The story that follows is that of the life of the lone female and men of a village, and the the problems that arise.  It's a dark, unrelentingly pessimistic (and seemingly quite probable) look at how a society can unravel when there is a imbalance in the male-female population ratio.

     Interestingly enough, there are a lot of side effects to not having enough women in your population that I didn't realize.  My first assumption was the scarcity of females might drive up their value in societies where females are traditionally not valued.  The first , and most obvious, examples of such societies that come to mind are rural India and China.  (And to all the desis reading this please do not give me the whole line about how Hindu culture reveres women by pointing to historical or religious anecdotes because while our culture might mouth such ideals as respect and reverence for women, [mostly in situations where their roles are regulated to traditional Mother and/or Wife, which in their traditional stereotype are both interestingly enough defined mainly by servile behaviors] we as a society do not FOLLOW this mind set.  If we did, there would not be 50 million girls missing from India's population.)  Due to the government's long-standing one child policy coupled with the pressure to have a son, in China there are starting to be entire villages that are now dealing with a lack of women.  In these areas instead of increasingly the societal value placed on women, females are instead treated as a commodity and increasingly bought, sold, kidnapped, raped, etc.  Violence in general has escalated in these areas, and people have begun to resort to inbreeding (usually with first cousins) and other practices which go against social norms in a twisted effort to establish families and procreate.

     So after watching Matrabhoomi I tried to think about what these "all male" towns would look like lead to in India.  I have a lot of desi friends whose parents have pretty specific criteria for their offsprings' potential spouses.  A suitable match is not limited to the same national background, religion, and family values but instead include detailed criterion such as the same state and sometimes even village background, the same sub-caste, compatible mangliks, etc.  Oh and if that guy/girl could be a doctor too, that would be nice.  I can only imagine the situation in India is worse.  In fact I know for a fact that these criterion are looked at much stronger when assessing marriages in India.  But if there are no women in their village group, people will be forced to look out of their narrow definitions of what is acceptable marriage material.  Maybe you'll see some intervillage marriages.  In time this could lead to inter-state marriages being so commonplace that Daler Mehndi won't even find it interesting enough to sing about!  If there aren't enough women to marry in India, maybe Indians will start to look outside their borders to marry.  I'm guessing due to the large quantity of English speakers, their mates would probably derive from, if not neighboring countries, the West.  This has a lot of interesting implications, especially since I truly believe that culture and its the values that derive from it are usually past down by mothers. 

     This influx of Western brides could have many positive changes for the Indian subcontinent.  I can just see call center managers all over India salivating at the prospect of a whole generation of potentially accent-free offspring from these Western brides.  Since some of the most dire statistics of female infanticide come from Punjab, let's think about what a watered down Punjab could look like.  I see a bhangra and Riverdance fusing into Bhangdancing, a combination of turbans, kilts, pajama kurthas, and those cute little heeled tap shoes.  The Khalistan movement is almost dead anyways, but I can't see it surviving a generation whose mothers feel more strongly about east coast vs west coast rap than they do about anything having to do with Indian politics.  Gujarat is another top contender for high rates of female infanticide.  Maybe Navratri celebrations will start to include the tango and cha-cha alongside the garba/raas celebrations.  Maybe instead of participating in FOGANA (Federation of Gujaratis Assembled in North America), future generations will be a part of FOGANA, Federation of Gujarati Americans, (emphasis on the American) Assembled in North America.  Due to the fact that many South Indian states have fewer female infanticide rates, maybe their population will increase proportionate to North India.  Don't those southern Indian states have much better literacy rates too?  Since they seem to be doing things better down there in general already, this might be a good thing.  Except racist Aussies will have to stop calling desis Curry Munchers and switch to calling them Sambar Slurpers to keep up with the changing demographic trends.  With the increase of international marriages, I think a lot of racist terms will have to change in general.  The English will have to stop using "Paki" as a derogatory term, not only because it loses its effect when one billion people agree with you.  Maybe Brittish teens can instead yell out "Paki-Irish" to insult their Indian-British citizens instead. 

     But what will happen to all these parents who have such specific criteria for their children's spouses?   (And if you think this caste thing is an exclusively Hindu problem, let me share some insight on that- YOU'RE AN IDIOT.  I seriously do not understand how well educated people say this when: I went to college with Muslim Pakistanis who were looking for "Rajput" brides, on our trip to Tamil Nadu we were shown "Brahmin" churches and "untouchable" churches, and my Sikh friends wrap their turbans differently to indicate the sub caste, oh excuse, i meant Jat, they belong to.)  While I've been mostly joking around, here's the basic underbelly of this beastly musing: Women teach their children culture, pass the torch of cultural rituals and beliefs from one generation to the next.  A society that does not value women inherently does not value their own culture.  A society that takes this disrespectful belief a step further and kills off their female children is effectively killing off their ties to their own past and watering down their culturaal future.  I don't know whether the damage done in India and/or China is permanent or whether these trends are reversible.  In the mean time, I'lk kepp my eye out for "bhang-dancing".