Came across an interesting news @ BBC: "It took nearly a week of protests for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to appear on TV pleading for calm and promising to make India safer for women." Really!! hard to believe that we are one of the few countries where women have been in ruling positions. This blog is not for discussing the political aspects of the incident, but the mentality of a common man or in my recent vocab "mango-person". What is cause and effect of such an incident on mango people? What do "we" do when we hear such things happening? So, different groups will show different reactions..1) chchchch!! Delhi has become so unsafe for everyone!; 2) Ruling Political party is not doing anything/ Too much of importance to the issue by opposing party!; 3) These bastards (oops!! sorry!) should be hanged after cutting their private parts out in public; 4) Media is making an unnecessary hoopla out of this whole thing; 5) Lets have a meeting and plan a protest march (Applicable if you "actively"belong to NGO/ political official)....and blahblahblah!! Trust me, over my 2 weeks recent India trip, I have come across all these options at different points of time, in different situations, and have also come across a sixth (largest) category of reaction who read the entire news calmly, sighed, folded the newspapers and move on but they keep thinking about this!!......I am guilty and accept that I belong to this sixth group! But, I have been thinking over this again and again.....and not finding a way out....(but, I am sure that I don't want to be a part of that protest group where I have seen guys whistling over a group of girls wearing low neck shirts (True story)! I don't want to be a part of media either who's overwhelmingly involved in caring about TRPs!) Social networking sites have their own to do business affairs with such incidents.....Anyways! I am not here to criticize what others are doing, but to share my peace of (existing) mind with people reading this blog! I strongly believe that the era never changed for women, be it India or any other country (don't forget the news of a woman getting raped at an airport by a cleaning staff member last year around same time in one of the leading countries); because we (the people) encourage women to participate equally in all parts of life but do not accept them completely! Now, by "accepting" I mean absorbing the fact that someone travelling alone on a bus after restricted hours is a human first and then a female.....and when we can not digest this fact, such incidents happen. We all need to change our gross thinking about someone being a male or a female and consider everyone as a human being to fight equally with bigger challenges of society like illiteracy and unemployment which are widespread in all countries. If we can not digest this mere fact, we need to get back into ancient Hindu times where everyone (especially women) were forced to be home by 7 PM (or before it gets dark)......Although in modern times, that still doesn't guarantee prohibition of such incidents but it would definitely reduce the frequencies.
So, as usual I didn't think a lot before writing this one but I am sure it conveys the message hidden somewhere that more than tough punishments, entire society needs to think and decide if we are ready to "accept" women in real equal positions (and not equivalent positions) or we all should seriously think about getting back to Saat Chya Aat Gharaat!!
(PS: If you haven't watched this movie Saat Chya Aat Gharat in Marathi, I would highly recommend it).
So, as usual I didn't think a lot before writing this one but I am sure it conveys the message hidden somewhere that more than tough punishments, entire society needs to think and decide if we are ready to "accept" women in real equal positions (and not equivalent positions) or we all should seriously think about getting back to Saat Chya Aat Gharaat!!
(PS: If you haven't watched this movie Saat Chya Aat Gharat in Marathi, I would highly recommend it).
