ANEK VILLAINS

What exactly are all of us doing as a nation? Banning a few cabs will help curb crimes against women? NO. The problem is somewhere else and to really deal with the problem we need to understand the male psyche.

Males have always been telling females to do this and that, little minding their own business and their eyes. They would want their wives to be covered in pallu while themselves ogling at girls half their age.

Two recent movies dish out very rightly the plight of an Indian male. It was enlightening to watch “Ek Villain”. Poor guy, the villian, was considered a devta by her wife, so he had to unleash his villainous terror on other nagging females.

Then there is the more recent “Rang Rasiya”, which is a great movie and a must watch for Indian audience. The film makes a humble effort to accept our needs, our desires and instead of being a professing self-righteous hypocrite to actually accept our sexuality.

We still associate guilt and shame with our sexual expressions. We still have khaaps to monitor whom we love. We still hang and murder our children if they marry out of caste. We are quick to forgive the politicians who are discovered with “girlfriends” and “keeps” outside marriage, but we look down upon Dharmendra, Boney Kapoor, Amir Khan etc for marrying the love of their lives. This I am speaking of society at large and Indian mindset on the whole.

Just as a female is brought up telling males as being superiors, Indian males have been told to behave as “maryada purushottam” in society. The sexually repressed Indian male is left little to do besides ogling, watching porn, sharing lewd jokes, touching a female in appropriate places etc

Such men, in action, is what we call rape. That’s the criminal mindset. TRUE. But what to do of it ? Why not nip in bud when the feeling to overpower a woman comes in the mind of a male. That starts in the classroom and there is far greater need for sex-education in our society. The puritans can add Religious and Moral education to make it more palatable.

Total revamp of our laws is needed related to females, exploitation, marriage, divorce etc. We can’t move in cart on 4 lane driveway. We have changed in dressing, in eating, in our relationships. We need to adapt ourselves with changing times with our needs.

How many more girls need to be raped for overhauling of our legal system? How long will I be scared to move alone at night or be stared at or touched? How long will I ignore lewd comments, jokes and passes? It’s time we become civilized and equal in reality. It’s time we become humans.

MUSLIMS WAKE UP

This is my request to all Muslims reading this article and all those who have read about yesterday’s massacre in Peshawar and also the grieved ones who actually witnessed it. Please boycott all such organisations and its members and sympathisers.

Such people, who claim to be belonging to any religion, ARE NOT EVEN HUMANS. Who use innocents as their baits to pressurise the Governments and meet their deadly objectives, should not receive sympathy from even a single person of a civilised society.

All Prophets have taught us to be tolerant. Besides what is the point in being a Muslim without being a human? Mecca was won over by prophet by extreme compassion and love, not hatred and violence.

Even if its a freedom struggle, even if its for a just cause, killing of innocents can never be justified. Islam lies in practise of peace and not just in namaz or jihad or sporting a long beard.

TICKET TRAVAILS

I have announced it in all of my family that this brain drain going on should immediately checked and at least one of my cousins must get selected in India Civil Services or Defence Services. This isn’t because my patriotism has increased. In fact I have come to this deduction that if we have to survive in India, to get Reservations in trains one of the family members should be G.M. Railways as he has a Coach for his own. Secondly, Rank one officer in Defence services are usually never denied Reservations.

Don’t take my words lightly as they are pearls of wisdom of a very frequent traveller. You might be tempted to suggest getting the reservations done beforehand. Yes I do most of the time. But I tell you there are various trains where you won’t get the required seats or class even if you apply beforehand i.e. even 3 months prior to the date. Don’t know where they go.

You might also suggest getting a plane ticket, which is relatively easier. But dear, there are lot of cities where planes don’t land and then again you got to be a minister to have a charter plane.

 During emergencies and festive rush I have applied all sorts of quotas, unsuccessfully to mention Headquarters Quota i.e. from Rashtrapati Bhawan, Ministry of Railways Quota, Press Quota, Quota for IRCTC and Railway employees, various agents, Tatkaal and what-not.

Getting a Tatkaal ticket is even a more prised possession. I share a recently discovered tip that if you have relatives abroad with internet connection, they can get you a confirmed Tatkaal ticket online. Eureka ! you got it now. It may be due to better net speed or you took IRCTC server by surprise from abroad, there are 90% chances of getting confirmed Ticket. Otherwise the IRCTC server doesn’t budge after 10:00 am. And if you intend to get one from a counter you must reach there by 5:00 or 6:00 am. Some agents claimed that they wait at counters from even mid-night in their night clothes.

I have faced TTE’s acting like high and mighty Zamindaars of yesteryears and felt before them like a petty villager when I had to request for a seat with a waitlisted ticket. You realise their position when caught in such sticky situations. Waiting on a platform, once with a waitlisted ticket, I asked a TTE to please attend a call from Chief Ministers Home. He flatly refused saying whoever wants to talk should call on my cell. His comment pissed me off and left me fuming. I wanted to call him all the “f” words and grab his collar to say who you think you are. But my HR-friends guidance on Emotional Intelligence made me say “please Sir ! my ticket is waitlisted, help me out,” that too with a spot-on face of a damsel in distress. And on that day, thankfully it worked.

KUMBH MAGIC

My mother always teases me how I used to react when I was called Allahabadi when I was a kid. I hated that word and always said that when I grow up I will run to England and live there for 10 years and then no one will know that I am an Allahabadi. Anyone listening to my logics would burst into laughter.

Little did I know History and importance of my city at that time. My recent visit to the Kumbh city made me wonder. I was amazed to see the religious fervor of the city and the crowd. Waiting at the platform, which was packed by devotees from all segments of India, I was left to watch the crowd. There were all types of people, of all ages and you could listen to all possible languages spoken in India.

Usually I am averse to any kind of religious exhibition but there was one gentleman who really left me thinking for long. He was a South Indian and he was as expressive with religion as one can be, as evident from his pic alongside. From his appearance he was one of those I detest the most. He seemed illiterate from the way he was talking to fellow passengers.

It was the day after the Shahi snan and I was wondering that all these Holy men must have purified themselves. This person was standing on the platform when the seat behind me was vacated. He quickly walked towards me to grab the empty space on bench. I looked at him with disgust written all over my face. But the decency with which he sat and his mannerism made me think about the etiquettes of all the educated ones around me.

There was a woman carrying a wailing child in her arm. I was watching her requesting for a seat. As soon as this person saw her he sprang on his feet and gave her place to sit. I tell you, to give your seat to someone unknown was an act of greatest sacrifice at that moment. I kept observing him from then on and all I could see a nice human being helping people there.

I had always thought that people who dressed religiously were zealots and no good could expect from them except vacuous religious discourses. I don’t know whether it was my city and its water that had done magic on this person or it was his nature. It’s my pray and request to everyone who are coming to gain from Maha Kumbh, that if all the politicians, movie stars and commoners purify their hearts also, world will be a much better place to live.

HOPE AGAINST HOPE

By the time you read this article, Nadia, a foundling, will be off to Primary section of one of the best Schools of the city. The headline “Newborn bitten to death by dogs in Guwahati” in Telegraph India on January 16, reminded me of her. It has been almost half a decade I first heard of her.

A middle aged man was on his usual stroll on a foggy morning of a cold December, 5 years back. Except for a few street dogs pulling on a branded plastic bag, nothing was unusual. He overheard two child rag-pickers engaged in a very serious conversation about the bag. He stopped dead in tracks as soon as he heard that they had seen an infant in the bag. He rushed back and shooed the dogs away.

The street dogs had pulled the baby out of the layers of cloth she was wrapped in and dragged her some distance. The infant was wrapped in a bed sheet and by looking at the cloth and the packet she was wrapped in, she seems to have belonged to a well-to-do family. The canine had sunk teeth into soft flesh. The blood stained, wounded infant was rushed to the authorities and hospital. She spent some weeks in neonatal intensive care while she recuperated, although medics had no hope of her survival.

Nadia, as her name signifies “hope against hope” survived. She survived the bitter December cold and the multiple canine bites, starving and all alone. She was christened Nadia by her adoptive father, the man who rescued her. Over 5 now, she casts her white magic wherever she goes be it school or malls or acquaintances. All she does is shake her Rasna-girl-like ponytail and flash her ear-to-ear wide grin.

But all abandoned infants are not fortunate enough as Nadia. Like the infant found in Guwahati last month, who succumbed to injuries on way to hospital. In both the occasions mentioned above sex selective abandonment with intention of homicide was suspected. This along with sex selective abortions has become a significant social phenomenon in several parts of India transcending all castes, class, communities and even the North South dichotomy.

According to a report in International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences January 2006, it was found that out of 8,000 foetuses aborted in six city hospitals 7,999 foetuses were of girls. N. Desai in “Born to die” (1988) reported that female infanticide was so widespread in Jadeja (Rajput) families of Kutch and Saurashtra that only five of such families were found who had not killed their ‘new-born’ daughters.

A series of government circulars banned the sex determination tests from 1977 onwards. But this attitude is rooted in a complex set of social, cultural, and economic factors. It is the dowry system, lack of economic independence, social customs and traditions that have relegated the

female to a secondary status. The degree may vary but the neglect of the girl child

and discrimination goes hand-in- hand and it requires a lot more than orders, laws and circulars from the government to be eliminated.