No Ali Abbas Zafar, getting pregnant is not a woman's highest aspiration

Pregnancy seems to be the latest buzz word.

 

Recently, Actress Jennifer Aniston was in the news for her alleged ‘pregnancy’. She refuted the rumours saying, "I am not pregnant, what I am is fed up."

 

Back home in India, Sultan director Ali Abbas Zafar has made the headlines for an entirely contrary view.

 

He seems to believe that pregnancy is the highest goal for a woman, over and above her career or other needs. His remarks have not gone down too well, with many choosing to get outraged.

 

In the interview with film critique Anupama Chopra, Ali explained his film's plot (in which a character gives up her career to be a mum) as the most natural and human thing to do, since bringing up a child is every relationship's highest goal. 

 

"For every married couple, the biggest dream, and the culmination of the biological transformation of the relationship is the birth of their offspring. It is here that she has to choose between an aspiration and something emotional. She kills her aspiration for an emotional thing, and according to me that is a very human thing."

 

Ali seems far removed from the reality of India's modern woman

 

For example, five-time boxing champion Mary Kom’s life and her many victories completely refute Ali Abbas’s logic. She has conquered boxing titles even after becoming a mother.

 

Sorry Ali, most of us women do not sit at home and sacrifice our aims and goals to have babies to prove to be a good wife or daughter-in-law. 

 

His comment is just another chauvinistic view that the world shares about the ideal woman or mother. The society rarely accepts that married women can find happiness without having children.

 

However, this does not necessarily mean women who have babies are not happy.

 

The keyword here is 'choice'.  Anyone can be happy when their choice is respected.

 

Having a baby is a wonderful experience but it will only be wonderful when the pain endured is by choice and not due to pressure from the in-laws, chahcha and his mama.

 

So, if someone does not want to have a child, leave her alone, trolling her will not implant your seed.

 

Sadly, women are trolled for having any belief ​at all. 

 

Actor Lisa Haydon was trolled for saying, “I want to make dinner for my husband and want to make babies,”

 

Holly Brockwell, a technology journalist from London, who spoke to the BBC about her decision not to have children, was also trolled on Twitter.

 

While having a child is certainly a wonderful experience, it is not always the highest aspiration in a woman's life. Let love, marriage and pregnancy be choices and not compulsions.