If you are living in India, I am sure you have heard of the Delhi Gang Rape incident that shook the entire nation. You haven't? REALLY?!?!? Common! Wake up! So, the poor girl succumbed to her internal injuries ,infection and the agitation continues. This has happened so many times in Delhi (after all our national capital is nicknamed the Rape Capital of India ), however the attention that this case has got makes me hopeful that some change will occur , not with the law & order but with the society's mindset - but my husband says "this too shall pass". And deep within me, I fear he might be right.
There are enough and more sites following this particular rape case and part of the reason why I have not blogged about it is because I did not want to be one more ! However , there are some comments that I need to address here and give my two cents as this year comes to a close tonight!
Ever since I was in high school, I was also the girl the guys would come and share their stories to. I have laughed along with the guys who would narrate Eve-teasing stories to me, silently thanking God that I wasn't "that girl they teased", nodding wisely that I was a better person when they spoke about "that girl who slept around " not once questioning wht authority these boys had for trashing another girl's character. After all,these are nice guys who would nudge at girls on the walkway on the Beach and come back and claim that these were achievements. what can I say, we were young and stupid. Truthfully, I have been upset that no boy nudged my shoulder when I was in my teens.
These were also the same nice boys who sat in the last row of my class and would throw chalk-pieces to girls they liked. No boy liked me enough to throw chalk-piece on me. Today, I would tell my 15 year old self that I am lucky I was spared but back then I have shed my share of tears for realizing that I spent college with no chalk-piece hitting me. .I was always that girl who passed the love-letter chits to other girls in class. I was that girl that guys would come to and ask for help to match-make with the other girl they liked, the other girl they wanted to kiss.
Today, do I regret not making out at age fifteen. No. But back then I wanted to be that popular girl. Ask my parents. They know how many tears I have shed. In college, a Goan guy who was in "love" with my best friend, sent me Goan sweets so I would pass the box to her and convey his love. She rejected him and his box of sweets and I took that box of sweets home.
Where am I going with all this?
My friend Cynthia from Cyn's Adventures In India talks about raising her daughter to be strong and proud of herself in India . I wasn't raised that way.
And my story resembles several of my gal-pals in Middle Class India.... When I took that box of sweets home, my mom refused to believe that the Goan friend liked my friend and not me and he had given me sweets to "help him in his love story and I was not the heroine :D". Instead, I was warned against Goan guys who were "smooth" and I needed to be careful and not be friends with such guys.
If I were to go to the beach on the weekends, I had a curfew to return home from Beach by 7pm. I have early memories of not being allowed to go on trips arranged by Summer Camp people "for my own safety". I was constantly told to learn to do household tasks using my right-hand inspite of being left-handed because I am a girl who needs to go one day into my in-laws place and they might take "offense" that I served them food prepared by my left-hand (and I have met more than my share of people who DO GET OFFENDED so do not tell me my mom had uncalled for fears ).
My brother who is also left-handed has never been questioned as to why he "eats with left-hand". He did not have a "curfew" growing up. No one bothered about his "safety" in summer camps. Because , he is a guy.
I really do not blame my parents here. It is the way they feel this society works. If working late hours, going in a cab, watching a late-night movie etc. results in "rape". They want their daughter to return home at a decent hour, use public transport (ironic considering that the latest crime happened in a bus), and watch morning/afternoon shows in theatres.
I believe we are a generation that has seen a lot of changes happen in India. The era in which we grew up way before the Internet and IT industry took India by storm, and the era that we live in now. Today, most of us girls believe we are equals in our personal relationships with our partners and some of us girls perform way better than our male colleagues at work, but let's face the fact that most men have not really caught up or want to even acknowledge this fact.
All things aside, if I can predict one resolution for the government next year , then instead of banning skirts thinking it can result in fewer rapes , the government should ban item songs! Maybe then, the actresses will be respected and remembered for their ACTING and not their song-dances and men will think of women as individuals and not "objects of desire" !
There! My two cents!
Oh yeah I think Bollywood perpetuate the nastiest stereotypes and gender inequalities out there, from these seriously tacky item numbers that in the oh so immoral West (sigh) never really leaves the confine of cabarets with an strictly 18 and above entry age. Here my 3 year old could easily watch them on TV if I ever allowed. From schools thinking it's appropriate to conduct an annual event with toddlers dancing choreogrphed numbers on Bollywood song...but even more disturbing the fact that the Hero in these movies often stalk, harass, pester and tease the heroine in a way that is no more than glorified eve teasing, the movies start with the heroine angrily saying NO and the guy to be more obnoxious with each of his attempt, until the heroine finally say yes...they call it love and romance of course!
ReplyDeleteBut what message does it send? That men cshould keep on trying as hard as they can to win the object (and women are nothing more than objects) of their desire? And that a woman should bend to them? How can thing change when the film industry show such things on no end. I would love to see a desi movie with women kicking butts and not needing to rely on a Hero to save them at all.
And have you noticed that in items numbers they hire the stereotypical Gori to dance in a slutty way in the back ground too? Blonde, skimpily dressed (even more than the Indian back drop dancers), looking their tackiest best so that my kind is passed as the ultimate slut...that infuriates me to no end.
You must of course be familiar with all the hoopla over a mouth-to-mouth kiss that is still TABOO in Indian movies...My mom and I often comment to people who give us crap for watching "English movies and getting spoiled in character" that a scene with a kiss in a Hollywood movie is so much more decent compared to the hip-gyrating dance moves the hero-heroine does in our regional movies all in the name of love - the love of course questionable as explained by you . Really, how do you fall in love with the guy who eve-teased you into falling for him?
DeleteI really sympathize with you regarding toddlers having to dance Bollywood choreographed numbers. The age of innocence needs to be celebrated. I fail to understand kids at age 5 dancing for Bollywood Item songs( in fact exactly like professionals which is really SAD to see )in these dance shows on TV for eg. Boogie-Woogie or Dance India Dance kids. What should the parent make of her son/daughter who is 5, skimpily dressed, dancing for Munni Badnam Hui and winning first price for imitating Malaika Arora's moves?
Regarding Gori backup dancers in the background, I never realized that it could indirectly portray white women to be tacky and slutty! The way my friends and I discuss it is thus - we assume that the stereotypical Indian Male's ultimate object of desire is a white skinned female (Gori or fair indians...). The British people have ruled India and gone, but the obsession for fair skin continues in India :) So adding fair-skinned back-up dancers ensures that the song becomes a hit , because that is what the male population wants to see :D
Oh yes I fail to see why a mouth to muth kiss is deemed undecent when some of the bollywood dance moves are so explicitly suggestive too, as I said these Item number dances are the type of stuff you would find in a gogo dancing club in Europe where no minor is allowed, yet it's on day time TV uncensored, but then you have movies on english channels that come with the disclaimer of having being editied for family viewing in India. I disagree that all TV stuff should be familly viewing stuff, parents should use discretion and switch off the idiot box once in a while. Some of the moms in my daughter school are starting to say their daughters and sons are emulating what they see on TV, Ishita does it too, the difference is that my daughter emulates Dora, Ice Princess, ad various other Disney movie characters. They don't dance disturbingly too accuratly to Shiela Ki Jawani or recite SRK's latest movie lines. I was met with odd looks when I told them that in my home Ishita is only allowed to watch Disney Channel when there is a cartoon I deem correct, and the rest of the time it's exclusively age appropriate DVDs, no MTV, no Serials, I think the only other thing she sees on TV are National Geographics or Discovery Channel.
DeleteI wait until she sleeps to watch things I like.
A relatively lighter post compared to everything else out there. Guys in "your" school either had a bad taste in girls or were just too timid :-P
ReplyDelete