Blaming others for what you have become is a sign of a much deeper malaise. Cribbers and whiners have never done anyone any good, so why read about another one? You won’t have any sympathy for a serial killer who blames his father for keeping him tied to a bed post when he was young. Why listen to the mad ramblings of a guy who claims the very air of Delhi makes him sick then?
I had a brilliant sociology professor in college who would come into the class on a thin day, look at the empty benches, shrug and say “It’s not your fault, it’s the latitude. Summers are too hot, winters are too cold and it rains too much when it’s neither. That’s the real reason why the British left this country.” I don’t know about the last part, they don’t have a great weather at home either. But the rest is true. A man, to some extent, is a product of his environment. So, while Delhi can’t be completely held responsible for making me bone sick, it is guilty of making me mildly nauseous.
To be fair to the great Indian city, it didn’t have much of a chance to start with. Sandwiched between groin powered Haryana and frozen in stone age Uttar Pradesh, Delhi is an ideal cocktail of its neighbours. It is populated by pre-historic men driven by their groins. Much like in a video game, they come in different avatars but the basic bag of tricks for the character remains the same.
Delhi men walk around with a scowl on their faces, they spit, they throw acid, they fight over parking, they rape, fight some more, drink in tinted cars and public places, gang rape to escape boredom, pass lewd comments at women, pass demeaning comments at men and murder lonely elder couples at home.
Not unlike the olfactory obsessed pissing dogs, these men are perennially ready to demarcate their territory. Their car stickers will proclaim their paternity, jatta di shaan, Punjab da puttar, proud to be jat, Delhi High Court Lawyer, Police, Press, Rally Rider, Pappu and pinto and what not…you will be amazed by the sources from which these men claim their identity and pride. I was thinking of writing left and right hand simultaneous butt and ball scratcher on my car but my wife thought I was running too far with the truth there.
At times, it seems that the issue with Delhi is communication. People speak in so many dialects and accents in this 51.9 km * 48.48 km city that it is darned impossible to understand each other. When a woman tells a ball scratcher to fuck off, the poor guy has no way of knowing that she is not requesting him to rape her. Come on, we should give the chap a break. The poor fellow has just come from a village where there are no schools, no sanitation and no bare faced women. Someone has to pay for his culture shock.
But why vilify the poor, illiterate bus conductors, auto drivers and hospital toilet cleaners only. There is nothing in Delhi that its rich don’t claim a lion’s share of, including its stock off new born, toddler, pre-teen, post-teen, adolescent, young, pubescent, middle aged, menopausal, old, arthritic, blind, handicapped, literate, semiliterate, illiterate, college going, office working, home cooking and all other kinds of women.
Let’s remember that Delhi may be a centuries old city, but it is only a decade old megapolis. All the buffalo dung cleaning farmers sold their lands and bought Pajeros and Fortuners, doused the glasses in darkest paint, took the last row of seats to install woofers and went around the city raiding malls, pubs, public parks, cinemas and five star hotels. There is no escaping the new landless lords, the vulgar rich, the raging Huns, everywhere they go their stink precedes them. They are the only ones who practice crime and hooliganism as a true sport. Why won’t they? Their parents, community, money, well organized rallies and rampages render them as virtual untouchables. Anyway, when was law and lawmen interested in touching the rich, if it’s not the feet.
Then there are the educated, young, university enrolled, MNC working men. Yes, we will call them men, gentlemen even. These gentlemen have been marching to India Gate to protest for women’s rights, they are activists on Facebook and Twitter too. Poor potato in the great Haryana-UP rock sandwich that Delhi is… these gentlemen are as much victims as the ladies in the city are.
That’s why they bond so well with women you see. They can’t see why women need a separate coach in metro trains or why they have reserved seats in buses. They are genuinely peeved that the short skirted women don’t see them as angels that they are. Don’t they speak the similar sounding English? Don’t they work in similar high rise offices? Don’t they drink same brand beer and carry social media enabled mobile phones? Don’t they go to the same protests?
But the women don’t understand. They see brotherly camaraderie at the protests as groping. They refuse to sleep with these men that they smile at and share a coffee with. Who in the educated world didn’t know that coffee, beer or sharing of any beverage leads to sex? Don’t these women watch the same English movies in the plush South Delhi theaters? A major coffee chain tells it in as many words – a lot can happen over coffee. Heck, they are not promising nirvana or insight into the meaning of life. The modern Delhi man is like a honey bee blinded by cellphone signals. The poor gentleman jumps at every opportunity not knowing stalking from courtship. Befuddled by all the nays and nahs, they take their women friends to their Gurgaon apartments, call their bros and have communal consensual sex. The stupid modern woman calls that gang rape too.
Come on, the cops, the netas know that the woman was asking for it. They have been trying to convince us by giving statements on TV and in newspapers. They have the stats to prove it – 70% of rape cases are actually consensual sex gone wrong. Come on, even in America they are talking of legitimate rapes. Isn’t America always right, about everything? Somebody please go and tell the women that they should stop this global conspiracy.
So is there any hope for women in Delhi? Yes, there was. But the bloody Mayans got the date wrong. I am hoping and waiting the next will come soon.
