I’m not a feminist. I feel no sympathy for women who cry when they are insulted by office colleagues, lovers or friends (if that’s what you can call them). I’m not an evangelist for the women’s liberation movement because I don’t believe you can earn respect by yelling till you’re blue in the face (There is a reason why Dolly Bindra is not the perfect candidate for the job). I don’t like women who pine over men who cheated on them and are willing to give them another chance (No, Ekta Kapoor, my Ba will not live to be 500 years old and honestly? Tulsi was an opportunist).
In a lot of ways, I don’t like women.
But then again, I don’t like men that much too.
I hate men who disrespect women and take them for granted. I hate men who think that a woman wearing short clothes is provoking men to misbehave with her. I hate men who stereotype women just because they belong to a particular region (thank you, MTV Roadies, men now think I’m a desperate, loud wannabe just because I belong to Chandigarh) or because they work in a certain industry (so I’m supposed to be all exciting and glamorous because I’m in advertising? Dude. Seriously).
That really doesn’t leave a lot many people for me to like but I usually do, till the second conversation.
Before I forget, Happy Women’s Day.
I hope you found a reason to be happy today because I sure as hell did not.
A DU student was shot in broad daylight in Delhi. Yes, that’s the city I live in.
No, she wasn’t mugged or robbed. She was “just” shot which led the police to the “obvious” conclusion that the culprit was known to the girl and it was probably a case of a “relationship gone wrong.”
Women in this city can’t even have themselves killed without the media and the journalists assassinating their character from thereon.
Be it the Arushi Talwar case, the Jessica Lall case or the road rage case. The victims were all women -women who were conveniently ripped off their dignity after they couldn’t voice their opinions anymore. Because they were dead.
Did Arushi Talwar have an illicit relationship with her servant or her father? Wasn’t Jessica Lall a model who wore provocative clothes and played the waitress at parties where alcohol and drugs were in rampant use? Why was the journo who was killed in the road rage accident driving her car that late at night all alone and did anyone kill her out of spite because of a “relationship gone wrong”?
Does it matter?
I know you need to find the motive for a crime. I know you must walk through a fictitious chain of events to understand what happened. But why is it that the first thought in your head always maligns the woman in question? And why is it that you need to announce your dumbfuck 'obvious' conclusions to everyone on National TV or the internet? Because it is more important that if your conclusion is right, you can say 'I told you so!'??
I’m a 29 year old single woman living in Delhi alone. I’m still scared of strangers. I’m still scared of the dark. I’m still scared of driving back alone late at night unescorted. I can’t just pick up my car keys to go on a long drive alone at night. Someone will jump me before I get to my car. I’m more afraid of the cops than I am of the random stranger walking on the road, even though I’ve never gone against the law (not counting the occasional speed limit I ignore).
If I were to die tomorrow, it would be hard on my family in more ways than one.
I dress fashionably, so I would have probably provoked some man to stab me to death.
The first thing they’ll probably check in the post-mortem report is whether I’ve been raped or not. And if I’m not, they might want to know whether I’m pregnant or not. If not, they’ll romantically link me to every man I’ve communicated with in my life. Of course, blood relations are totally included.
You know why I hate men AND women? Because there really is not much of a discrepancy here. You all would believe what the media leads you to believe.
But I’m not dying that easy, baby.
This would probably be the first time I use Hindi in my blog, but I’d rather make things easier for all those news channels that will sensationalize my death .
Just remember, my last words, whenever I die will be: Bhains ki Aankh!
