Are you equally confused about what the hell is happening to the country? Inflation is an an all-time high, bombs are bursting everywhere and communal riots dot the sub-continent.
In the middle of all this, we have a nuclear deal pushed by an Italian head ..i mean party president... and her cohorts in government.
somebody, please give the country a break. We deserve it.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Had written this piece in Manushi 10 years ago or so.
I can still touch the seething anger and see the fire in my belly.
If you ask me whether I still turn around on men who misbehave, I do, mostly. But there is no fire in my belly any more. Life trains you.
Can’t Feel Free
I am not sure if in this society, any woman can actually feel free. Yes, we wear what we like, do as we wish, but are we free of those unnerving stares aimed at us, allegedly because of our “seductive” clothing. Are we free of the general fear of being harassed? I have yet to see even an unostentatiously dressed woman having an undisturbed walk along the quietest or the busiest street in Mumbai, a city hailed as the woman’s
paradise.
Many women will frown and rush to correct me that they have a peaceful walk almost every day. I ask them to think again and probe their minds, check if there is an image or two of some ugly monster lurking in the dark recesses of their subconscious memory.
Recently, I was standing at a railway station when a decent looking chap walking afar in the opposite direction saw me, suddenly cut the horizontal distance between us in a few quick paces and without touching me passed by a hair’s breadth. The idea obviously was to unnerve me so that I am on edge till he walks past. By no stretch of imagination can this be termed as sexual assault. Sadism? I would think so. This was not my first or last such experience. Men with such indulgences are uncannily similar in their modus operandi. The universal male obsession with females may be essentially sexual in nature but the
wild gestures and catcalls, executed so helplessly, have mainly to do with a certain sadistic streak that women probably do not possess, and if they do, is not easily manifest.
There is a hidden agenda to a catcall, to a delibrate brush or bottom-pinching: show her who is superior.
Let’s watch her suffer humiliation and helplessness, the feeling of violation that burns through her every time someone darts that look and mutters in that alien language. The offence almost never meets a defence. The glory of watching one’s insults being absorbed through her skin without fear of reciprocation is something men savour. And since most women prefer to pretend they have not felt humiliated even as their
whole mind is seething with the humiliation, the man’s confidence is vindicated. The victory is savoured till the next prey.
On another occasion, when I was dressed miserably and looking it, a chap came close and breathed some offensive-sounding syllable in my sweaty ear, upon which I snapped, with some help from the humidity
and the heat, and decided to confront him. Digging up some Hindi invectives reserved for his category, I hollered at him loud and clear for the benefit of several others who were drawn to the scene.
The bewildered man did not know what had hit him, just as I hadn’t two seconds ago. With an incredulous look on his face, he tried to hide his mortification by walking away, face
sunk somewhere in his chest. The rest of my audience was aghast.
The expressions around me clearly suggested disgust. I was being disowned for mouthing such unpronounceables, which are reserved for the unfair sex. A fitting defence is always perceived as an offence.
All the women I know are afraid of physical assault, molestation and the darkest nightmare of all, rape. This form of offence again is necessarily the prerogative of the male. If there were only good men in
this world, women would probably see no need to marry for safety or to keep an unhappy marriage going. Often, it is to protect herself from unwanted attention that she stays
married to an unworthy man and takes his name.
I can still touch the seething anger and see the fire in my belly.
If you ask me whether I still turn around on men who misbehave, I do, mostly. But there is no fire in my belly any more. Life trains you.
Can’t Feel Free
I am not sure if in this society, any woman can actually feel free. Yes, we wear what we like, do as we wish, but are we free of those unnerving stares aimed at us, allegedly because of our “seductive” clothing. Are we free of the general fear of being harassed? I have yet to see even an unostentatiously dressed woman having an undisturbed walk along the quietest or the busiest street in Mumbai, a city hailed as the woman’s
paradise.
Many women will frown and rush to correct me that they have a peaceful walk almost every day. I ask them to think again and probe their minds, check if there is an image or two of some ugly monster lurking in the dark recesses of their subconscious memory.
Recently, I was standing at a railway station when a decent looking chap walking afar in the opposite direction saw me, suddenly cut the horizontal distance between us in a few quick paces and without touching me passed by a hair’s breadth. The idea obviously was to unnerve me so that I am on edge till he walks past. By no stretch of imagination can this be termed as sexual assault. Sadism? I would think so. This was not my first or last such experience. Men with such indulgences are uncannily similar in their modus operandi. The universal male obsession with females may be essentially sexual in nature but the
wild gestures and catcalls, executed so helplessly, have mainly to do with a certain sadistic streak that women probably do not possess, and if they do, is not easily manifest.
There is a hidden agenda to a catcall, to a delibrate brush or bottom-pinching: show her who is superior.
Let’s watch her suffer humiliation and helplessness, the feeling of violation that burns through her every time someone darts that look and mutters in that alien language. The offence almost never meets a defence. The glory of watching one’s insults being absorbed through her skin without fear of reciprocation is something men savour. And since most women prefer to pretend they have not felt humiliated even as their
whole mind is seething with the humiliation, the man’s confidence is vindicated. The victory is savoured till the next prey.
On another occasion, when I was dressed miserably and looking it, a chap came close and breathed some offensive-sounding syllable in my sweaty ear, upon which I snapped, with some help from the humidity
and the heat, and decided to confront him. Digging up some Hindi invectives reserved for his category, I hollered at him loud and clear for the benefit of several others who were drawn to the scene.
The bewildered man did not know what had hit him, just as I hadn’t two seconds ago. With an incredulous look on his face, he tried to hide his mortification by walking away, face
sunk somewhere in his chest. The rest of my audience was aghast.
The expressions around me clearly suggested disgust. I was being disowned for mouthing such unpronounceables, which are reserved for the unfair sex. A fitting defence is always perceived as an offence.
All the women I know are afraid of physical assault, molestation and the darkest nightmare of all, rape. This form of offence again is necessarily the prerogative of the male. If there were only good men in
this world, women would probably see no need to marry for safety or to keep an unhappy marriage going. Often, it is to protect herself from unwanted attention that she stays
married to an unworthy man and takes his name.
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