678 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
aghast, half angry and half surprised. “What do you mean ?” he asked. I said, “I mean what I say, she never married you.” “Why ?” “She has married this, electricity, this motor-car that is in this house.” The story is that the girl had said to her father “I don’t care to whom you marry me, provided there is electricity and motor-car in their house.” The poor girl of sixteen or eighteen, how could she judge of things and conditions ? She simply thinks, “I have been brought up in this house by my father, he gets twenty thousand rupees a year and there is electricity here, there is a motor-car, and a palatial house. I should like to have the same conditions there also.” That is all. But the English mother always complains that her daughter does not “make good”, that is the expression,“My daughter does not make good” she says. That is, “My daughter is not able to keep a bevy of young men round about her, dancing attendance on her, standing her bills at the cinemas and restaurants and so on.” That is what the mother wants. Don’t nod our head that way please. What I say is true.
Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : I am supporting you.
Dr. B. Pattabhi Sitaramayya : Not you, but the friend behind you.
Shri R. K. Sidhva : Are you referring to me ?
Dr. B. Pattabhi Sitaramayya : No, to your neighbour.
What happens in England ? The mother is always anxious that her daughter should be able to attract the attention of half-a-dozen suitors, and it is then for the parents to select one out of them to make an eligible choice for a son-in-law. But the mother always feels jealous of the maidservant, because the maid-servant is able to make good, while her daughter is not able to. That is the tragedy. What does the maid-servant do ? At eight o’clock in the evening she changes her apron and gets into her clean smart gown and goes away. “Where are you going ?” “My lover is waiting outside, and I must go” “No, no, my son-in-law is coming now.” “Hang yourself and your son-in-law by the nearest tree. My lover is waiting and I am going.”
Shrimati Renuka Ray : You have, a very poor opinion of women, whether Indian or foreign.
Dr. B. Pattabhi Sitaramayya : But I have a very high opinion of my wife.
Now then, the mother complains that “that woman is able to make good and attract a number of men, but this daughter of mine is not