Working Class Hero is something to be

"Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and freeBut you're still peasants as far as I can see" 
This is easily my n'th post about women, violence & injustice to women.

Modern day woman is often used as a slang. "Shaadi ke liye hume gharelu ladki chahiye", "We want a smart woman who is capable of carrying out her daily activities". You want the same person to be modern and homely depending on her home/office scenario. I think its high time the term "homely" changes to modern day significance. Homely can no longer mean loves to stay at home, knows how to cook, wash, nurture etc. Homely should start to mean be outgoing, fully able at the work place, have a social circle yet, be able to come home and care about why the gardener's not trimming the bushes. To be a part of today's world and yet pay attention to the small details should be what "homely" means.

Today's middle-class woman on an average has a degree worth having (i.e. not a B.A. in Civics) but a degree that can enable her to stay on her own, manage office work, purchase long-term belongings (e.g. sofa, car, Lazyboy etc.) yet attend parties, go dancing with other men with whom she's not necessarily sexually involved, go on trips with her friends where men might out number women but that is fine - cause modern day woman on a daily basis faces exactly that in any situation she is in. Whether be it in the bus she boards, the office she attends, the gym she goes to, the road she walks on her way home, the supermarket she enters to buy her daily groceries - men always outnumber women. That doesn't freak her out, why should a trip be any different.

Modern day woman has sleep overs at friends places who are of the opposite sex. Doesn't mean there's anything unworthy involved. It just means she can see her friends to be beyond the limitations that we have been brought up with - that he is a MAN. So does the modern day man. He acknowledges it when he notices that they are friends and respects and honours that.

Modern day man has as much role to play as modern day woman in growing out of the box in which we were nurtured. The fixed ideals with which we were brought up has been outdone by both parties equally.

Who needs to acknowledge that is the media. For media would still like to portray as a man and a woman alone, must most surely be overcome by their cannibalistic carnal feelings. Do the mass of India still like to amuse themselves with the idea that a man and woman no matter what their relationship is if closed in a room for hours would most definitely end up in sex? For we are weak people void of any conscience or self-control?

Abroad women feel confident enough to wear revealing clothes for it is acceptable by everybody that she is confident about her sexuality. Here women are told to hide it all away for it reflects poorly not only on our character but also people may think too wrongly of it.

Are we holding ourselves back in a war between what we were taught, what we feel is correct and what the world today deserves? Or is it all going to go down the rat hole either way?

Keeping Score

There was smoke everywhere, one could barely see the others face. Disco lights filled the air while everyone held a glass of "maal" in hand, while other glasses were being refreshed by women that had their ghagras way too low on their hips and their blouses not covering much either, needless to mention were freely being groped at, almost as one does to a tomato to check if it has gone bad. "Fevicol se" and its likes filled the room to which some girls gyrated to; anybody else would easily question their age and check if they have been heavily drugged, but not here.

The meeting had commenced. The person at the farthest end started the meeting. He said "14", the one next to him said, "11". This kept going on for a while, till everybody at the table had done mouthing numbers. After this ritual, the head of the table stood up and said in a far crass tone that is neither legible to normal ears or in a fashion that can be reproduced word to word; the gist of it meant, "Hello fellow brothers. I would like to congratulate each of you for successfully completing yet another year of making our mark in the city. Earlier only the local newspapers would speak of us but now we have shown the entire world who is the new boss around here. We have also set those insignificant mortals to their places. They are nothing but sex objects and every time one of them have forgotten that, we have taken things in our own hand and set the table straight. Just cause you are born doesn't mean you have the right to prove that you are equal to us, MEN. Leave alone dream of leaving your place, your kitchen!" To which the entire club roared to cheer at this "wonderful" statement.

This is what I think is the matter with Delhi NCR. This is what they do with their free time and the money they didn't work hard for but got it the moment all the "Delhi"ness happened. This is the only thing that makes sense to me. They have a club sort-of, where they meet to discuss the number of rapes that they have successfully committed, put women in their place, and fled without so much as any sign of it. 

The only thing that explains how in a city where a lady gets raped and dies, yet seems to fall shy of actually knocking some sense into these monsters that just let your fellow lady live and die a normal dignified death. The statistics doesn't shy for the slightest, the rapists don't shy away either, obviously, and the police maintain its lackadaisical attitude: whether they have been bribed or not seems beside the point, as the Delhi bus rape victim pointed out. She was raped by nobodies like a fruit seller, a bus driver, a gym instructor, bus cleaners and a non-adult. So many rapes have been happening for way too long in Delhi, yet somehow no one shrugged. Now finally when a girl dies such a horrible agonising death, the nation has finally decided to shrug the dust off their shoulders and do something about it. 

What shocks me more is the numerous women criticising as to how and why was she out 'so late'. These questions make my blood curdle. So many people keep saying she deserved to die for her life would have been more painful as people who knew her traumatising past would treat her so harshly, that would make her trauma seem like nothing. When will this judgemental attitude for someone who has already gone through hell stop? When will today's society accept the modern day woman? She no longer just cooks and cleans but also earns just as much as her male contemporary, may be little more, she drives expensive cars, buys obnoxiously expensive shoes, wears perfume, flirts, dances with men, drinks & smokes "like a man". No longer is it necessary that she is sleeping with a guy if she's staying at his place. Yes, the definition of "friends" has actually extended by that much! 

Deal with it!

The real question is no matter how much we are bantering about these rapes now, will it actually make a difference? Will the cops actually bother to protect women better? Will the government work to making better laws? Will they work to try and change the mentality at an extremely young age that men know that so much as touching a girl without her consent is equivalent to having killed everyone you love a million times? Will the girl get justice? Will so many other girls who have been raped and yet their victims roam around freely, be penalised and put behind the bars? Will a girl shudder every time she boards a bus late? Will their own fathers/brothers/uncles stop raping their own mothers/daughters/sisters/nieces/toddlers?

Keep the wound alive, till you have reason to let it heal. 

Don't forgive, don't forget.