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.

Ode to the daily debasing of women and lack of action

Where have all good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where’s the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?

Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and turn and dream of what I need

I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong
And he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the morning light
He’s gotta be sure
And it’s gotta be soon
And he’s gotta be larger than life

Somewhere after midnight
In my wildest fantasy
Somewhere just beyond my reach
There’s someone reaching back for me

Racing on the thunder and rising with the heat
It’s gonna take a superman to sweep me off my feet

I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong
And he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the morning light
He’s gotta be sure
And it’s gotta be soon
And he’s gotta be larger than life

Up Where the mountains meet the heavens above
Out where the lightning splits the sea
I would swear that there’s someone somewhere
Watching me
Through the wind and the chill and the rain
And the storm and the flood
I can feel his approach
Like a fire in my blood

I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong
And he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the morning light
He’s gotta be sure
And it’s gotta be soon
And he’s gotta be larger than life...


Courtesy : Bonnie Tyler

And I wonder

We Indians at some level have just accepted that nothing good can happen to us; to an extent that when something good does happen we feel its a plot of a grand scheme of things. Whether its the media or our own paranoia; that it makes good things feel like an unaffordable luxury is still an enigma.

Case I: My brief time period in UK I had bought a phone with a T-mobile connection. After a year when I was back it had barely been a few days that I had got my new BSNL sim than I got a text from T-mobile that I had won £750,000. I was shaking in my boots as I took this text to show to my mom. I had already started planning how I'm going to start my own cafe in a quiet forest and what not, which all came crashing down as my mom smirked and said,"Welcome back! It's a scam!"

Case II: Desperately looking for a job mode was ON and I got a mail from None-other-than GE Healthcare EOU and I was like Europe here I come! All this came to a premature tragic ending as they asked for money too early on. I Google-d the offer letter to find so many consumer complaints.

Like Kelso said in That 70s show, "You know..For once I want the right thing and the topless thing to be the same thing!"

For once I want the letter thing and the real thing to be the same thing. Even by law of rarity the number of spams that attack every Indian everyday (and going by India's population that's quite the amount!) someone needs to uselessly get sick rich or get way lucky by taking hook line and sinker at an awesome job or just worthlessly get happy!

Have you ever wondered that even one of these texts or mails that you get every off day, if even one of them is true you are in for a real jolt. But what are the unreal chances of that happening when you have already warranted off the fact that you can't get lucky.


I wonder if one day you check your mail and you get a mail that says, claims and delivers, "The solution to all your life's problems"- At this point would you be happy that this life comes with a troubleshoot manual or, would life have blinded you to such an extent that you wouldn't be able to see the good in anything or believe in anything, even if it came up and bit you in the ass; cause by default nothing good can cross your path remember?

Do you ever wonder...

Molestation.

Did the country whose cultural heritage developed kamasutra, where females have ruled empires, which developed “swayamvar”, the country with second highest population almost neck to neck with China’s population count sure to overtake in the near future, that devoid of sexual satisfaction; that it can only be sought by beating, harassing, molesting a girl on a street in a group fashion? Where I’m sure half the number of the people started then the rest of the bystanders instead of stopping it saw and thought,”Chalo beheti Ganga mein haath dho liya jaaye?” Somebody brought to my attention the ‘bystander effect’ which states that the more the number of people around an incident the lesser the probability of the heinous activity getting intervened; something normally known as mob mentality.

Women generally produce about two-thirds the amount of total strength and applied force that men produce (Read: http://www.livestrong.com/article/509536-muscular-strength-in-women-compared-to-men/#ixzz20hJaJPKb) does that mean that you abuse that fact that brutally? Your mother could have not sent you to school, college, provided you with medicines or just sold you off and earned a lot of money – but did she? No? Did these men ever think why? Of course not, these men are too busy praying to the Lord above that their strength be intact so that they can scar more innocent girls’ lives forever.

Let us for some time consider that she was drinking, that she was enticing people in that bar and that she wore exxxxtreeemely provocative clothes; does that give them the right to shoot the first episode of ‘Vigilantes gone bad’? I’m not surprised that people are pointing fingers at the fact that she was out at “late” in the night! 11pm, of course it is late; for we have been taught since the first day we stepped into adolescence that some men are vampires: who turn into clothes-tearing, groping, women-lashing people post sun down and we should be well shut in our rooms and if anyone were to even seek a sniff of our womanhood turn into a man, Voila! The only possible way to save yourself when they try to break your dignity. It is every woman’s ultimate dream to electrocute every man who tries to harass her on a day to day basis hence, the development of pepper spray! Almost, as old as the ancient art of alchemy.

Till then we are relying on the indeed “Aandha kanoon”! Rest assured my friends, Chivalry, is long dead. If you are reading this at work, be damned its post sun down; rush back rest the vampires seek you.

Run Run Run, like the wind....

(Ir)responsible Media

No one could have ideally said it better than Sir Paul McCartney himself. The thin line that the media often oversees is the right to information and right to revealing. Angelina Jolie (for whatever unscrupulous reasons be) is trying to get a law passed that bans reporters from prying on their personal lives. There's a reason it is "personal" because it is purely no one else's business. The media sometimes gets so bent on getting news that sell, that they quite often than not forget their mortal mission, reporting 1-0-1 if you may - you broadcast news to make money but not at the cost of the society.

Say for example, the 26/11 incident. Covering the incident was important, but what was deemed unnecessary was them camping right outside the hotel and covering from every possible angle how, when, who and what was then being done. What was unnecessary was them to give out globally, where a certain group was safe and soundly hiding. While I do get it was partly the cabinet ministers fault who let out that juicy piece of information of the same but under such tormenting situation it is a mere miracle that they didn't blow themselves up but rather held on patiently waiting that soon something good is going to come out of it.

While the media has more than often abused their right to speak and write; they have on a very few occasions brought justice to the ones deprived of the same. Like the Jessica Lal murder case. Shot down publicly at a socialites party, brimming with evidence yet the case was suppressed. The criminals were acquitted after the initial hearings. Devoid of media pressure the criminals would be going around scot free. It took 7 years to drive the criminals to their rightful places, behind bars!

There is always two sides to any story and the media is supposed to cover not just the two sides but the possible parallel dimensional third side as well. However lately the media seems to be interested only in the dimension that clears their bills and good spirited journalism seems shockingly passée . Hope this is one thing that sure makes it back in vogue.

"We dont need no Hateration"

We all know about Speed dating. Be it up front or on the screen. Strangers sit in a room and everyone gets two minutes with the other person after which a bell is rung and the person has to move on to the next seater. If they like each other then the person stays and they talk on and exchange numbers and all that. If they don't like the person at the other side of the table before two minutes are up, they can sound an individual bell and the person has to step aside from the chair and wait for his turn with the next participant.

In today's pessimistic world we have made our own hateful version of it. Also known as, "Speed Hating". You just come across strangers and you blurt out stuff that you don't like or that is piled up inside you.

I for one, fail to see what good comes out of that! Of course you get to yell stuff and that ought to feel good, but what about the unnecessary rants of others that you get to hear. Don't you already get to hear that everywhere;  in the form of your colleague who keeps thinking you give a damn about his computer that has broken down or your boss asking you to run an extra errand or your friend breaking up for the n'th time in a blink of an eye and thinking that you still care. Besides, don't we all come across enough people who don't get you either way already?

All this makes me wonder, Didn't anyone hear Mary J. Blige singing out in "Family affair" :
"Don't need no hateration, holleratin'
In this dancery
Let's get it percolatin', while you're waiting
So just dance for me."