Going Rate

"Rs. 80,000, eighty thousand only ladies & gentlemen, rupees 80,000....One lakh? Do I hear a one lakh? Three? Did someone say 3 lakh? Yes you sir, distinguished gentleman at the back in the tweed jacket and shiny leather shoes. Did I hear you say 3 lakh sir? I did? Well thats 3 lakh ladies & gentlemen, 3 lakh. Going once...... going twice......sold!...."

But its not paintings or artwork thats on auction. Nope. Its that other commodity thats in hot demand in the market today. Men.

The going rate, colloquially referred to as "dowry", for a boy of 'marriageable age' is up these days, ranging from the modest Rs. 80,000 for the village idiot, to the exorbitant 1 crore for the city college boy with no job, leaving in its wake a pleased lot of parents, wallowing in the market's affirmation of their tireless effort in raising a male child, having successfully, and discreetly, laid to rest the girl they never had, well before they never had her, or perhaps a little afterward.

This upward trend can be attributed to rising oil prices and its ripple effects, with inflation touching 7.16% this last week, according to a few parents interviewed. "Mehengai ka zamaana hai bhai..." is the word on the street. At this rate, men can expect to own a home or a car at the very least immediately after tying the knot, through the hard earned money of the to-be-bride's parents that they may rightfully expect as a wedding gift.

Take my case for instance, a semi-handsome engineering graduate, as I like to think of myself, with a stable job in a software company, I should fetch anywhere between 25 to 30 lakh by today's standards. Too much? Well thats what you need if you want the mediocre. And unfortunately ladies, there aren't very many Milind Somans' in the software industry, so you'll just have to make do with semi-handsome old me.

Social evil? Who cares, dowry is a thriving business. I hear there are even agents out there that can fetch you the price you want, touts who ask only for a tiny piece of the pie in return. Could there be a better, safer investment today than ensuring you first born is a boy? And maybe even your second born? And if you're really in the mood, even your third? Why, I'd keep mine in a safe, three safes even.

"Social Evil? How dare they! It is our right, merely for having produced a boy and brought him up."
Well sure. And you did a splendid job too, I haven't seen a boy who can pick his nose in public for seven and a half minutes before finding what he was looking for, and smiles in ill-concealed glee.

So how can this social evil be routed from our society? Well, thats if we want to rout it from our society. First we must decide whether we really want to deny Ekta Kapur material to base her latest series on. If we do, then what really can we do?

What can we do now, that hasn't been tried already? We have a whole bunch of laws that don't really mean much due to their non-existent implementation. And our courts keep undertrials in jail for anywhere between 16 to 20 years. We've tried all the nari-morchas and the village outreach programs that we could, but that hasn't worked either. We've even advertised our women astronauts and our policewomen and our successful lady doctors and lawyers on god awful DD and that hasn't stirred a soul.

Is there anything we can do?

Well heres an idea. How about we combat a social evil with another social evil?

Look at it this way, what is dowry?

Dowry is an amount paid, in cash or in kind, by the family of the bride to the family of the groom with the understanding that such a transaction is necessary for the marriage to occur, is it not?

Now, implicit in such an 'arrangement', is the idea that the couple should be united not out of their love for each other, but because it is time they were married, or some such reason. And therefore implicit in this arrangement, is the societal requirement of companionship, after a particular age, regardless of whether or not either of them is ready for it. How many times have we heard, "Beta your're old enough now. Its time you settled down".

Settled down? You mean got married and started a family? You mean got married in order to start a family? Ah! I get it. Now lets put two and two together.

Boy and girl are 'old enough'. Both need to get married to settle down meaning start a family. Now most of us know that it isn't really the birds and the bees that start families. So implicit in this arrangement, indeed, a pre-condition for it, is sex. Moreover, failure to consummate is grounds for annulment under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, god bless our secular country. But for the marriage to occur, the families must agree upon a price.

So heres what happens. Two families meet, money changes hands, marriage, sex. No money? Then no marriage, and therefore quite obviously, no sex. Is it that big a leap of imagination then, to suggest that it is the money that leads to the sex? Hmm, payment for sex? Lets see, where have I heard of that before.......

Now I remember, PITA or the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act, 1956, where precisely such actions are referred to as, you probably guessed it, PROSTITUTION. Except here, the said prostitute is the male, that precious little boy child mummy and daddy so proudly showed off to the neighbours when he first pooped his diapers, that cynosure of all eyes. In fact, under section 2 (f) of the Act:

"Prostitution" means the sexual exploitation or abuse of persons for commercial purposes, and the expression "prostitute" shall be construed accordingly;

That also makes his parents Pimps. So we have the pimp(s) and the prostitute, now how do we dispose of them? The Act provides for that too, when it states that:

Section (1) Any person who-

(a) Procures or attempts to procure a person whether with or without his/her consent, for the purpose of prostitution;


(b) Induces a person to go from any place, with the intent that he/she may for the purpose of prostitution become the inmate (don't know of too many men who will disagree with the use of that word) of, or frequent, a brothel; or

(d) Causes or induces a person to carry on prostitution;

shall be punishable on conviction with rigorous imprisonment for a term of not less than three years and not more than seven years and also with fine which may extend to two thousand rupees, and if any offence under this sub-section is committed against the will of any person, the punishment of imprisonment for a term of seven years shall extend to imprisonment for a term of fourteen years:

Interestingly, if the parents of the groom ask for a house in dowry from the parents of the bride we have helpful clause (c)....

(c) Takes or attempts to take a person or causes a person to be taken, from one place to another with a view to his/her carrying on, or being brought up to carry on prostitution;

So how do we fight this social evil? With another social evil, prostitution. Imagine if every parent(s) that asked for dowry were branded a pimp, and his son a prostitute, my estimate is we'd be completely rid of dahej by 2020. Whats more, we don't even need any laws or amendments or police intervention or judicial proceedings, our "society" will take care of it on its own. Just the mere hint of being branded as a prostitute ought to be enough.....