Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper condemning the social evil of the dowry system.


1/2/RT, Swadeshi Nagar, 

Vadodra, 

Gujarat. 

22nd, October 2017


To


The Editor, 

The Chronicle,

Ahmadabad 


Dear Sir,

Through the esteemed pages of your newspaper, I would like to draw the attention of all the concerned citizens towards the increasing menace of Dowry and its related deaths.

Like the majority of people I too have been a silent witness of the spread of this evil. I have had the misfortune to attend many weddings where the status of the alliance is measured by the decoration of the wedding venue and the articles presented in the form of the dowry. I have often heard the criticism that is meted out to the father of the bride and later on to the bride for objects as small as a betel-nut and napkin. Like everyone else I also took the attitude that such offensive behavior was not possible in our family.

Unknown to me, destiny was weaving its web. It was on the 17th of October, that the wedding of my elder brother was fixed. At the appointed time we reached the venue. We were received by the bride's father and brother. My father, who till that day was considered to be the pillar of the society, suddenly started making comments on the number of people who had come to receive us. It appeared that he wanted all the male relatives of the bride to come at the reception of the Barat. This was the first of all the things gone wrong after that.

I feel ashamed to acknowledge that my father and his peers left no stone unturned to embarrass the bride’s father. Slowly the situation reached a flashpoint. I could see that the bride’s relatives could take no more. Before long the worst scenario was being enacted in front of my eyes. My father started making needless demands. The bride’s father tried to placate him. My father was however in a different mood, He would not even listen to my pleading mother. Suddenly the bride came out of her room and said in a loud and clear voice that she was not willing to marry the groom and that her father should call off the marriage.

There was a pin drop silence. My father turned absolutely white. My brother, the groom was unable to hide his face. To cut the long story short we had to return back, humiliated beyond our imagination, without the bride. Since that day we have suffered social ostracism.

We have come to know that the girl was married the same day to a young engineer belonging to a different community without a coin of dowry being exchanged.

Sir, I hope that lowering of our prestige in society will be a lesson to all those who wish to take dowry in lieu of getting their sons married.

Yours sincerely, 

ABC.