A cruel joke

Sometimes a satire does evoke a thought and a laugh but some evoke anger and makes you wonder – why?

That’s the thought which came to mind when we read that there was actually a ‘dowry calculator’ website. The website is flourishing for 7 years and it was only now that it came into the eye of Prime Minister’s office and Ministry of Women and Child Development.

The website is owned by Tanul Thakur and when you login, asks for details of the groom – the dowry recipient. Apart from age, it asks details like caste, profession, salary, University of education and even his height and skin colour, which includes options like ‘Pitch Black (Not visible on a Moonless night)’ and ‘Wheatish (Almost white. Would need some fair n Lovely)’. All these details together are needed to arrive at the dowry amount.

The rates? An average height 26-year-old Brahmin Chartered Accountant with salary between Rs.40 to 50,000 will be entitled to a dowry of Rs.50 lakh while a 30-year-old Vaishya IIT-educated IAS officer earning in the range of Rs.50-70,000 is entitled to a dowry of Rs.65 lakh.

The owner says that it is a satire. But why on something as contentious as dowry. India is till fighting its best to stop the practice of dowry and such websites go on to encourage it.  A total of 7,621 dowry death incidence were recorded in 2016.Dowry is illegal so how can this be allowed in the first place?

Please! Being a woman has its own set of problems and we do not want this added ‘satire.’