THERAPIST

A friend wrote on her Facebook wall that maybe our country would be better off if still ruled by the British, than by the spineless Government we have now. This was a reaction to the inability of the Indian Government to take affirmative action against the recent rape rhapsody that is being played throughout the country with the North hitting the climax every alternate week. Although I understand the frustration which led to the comment, it is sad that we don't even realize the importance of freedom, really. I would just go Marathi on this and say we would be better off if Shivaji still ruled, not to mention his punishments for rapists.

image source: DNA India

It's not really the politicians who make the nation, it is the people. After all, they are the same people - they represent the same crowd. Our country is going backward. People need some mass mental therapy. In a nation where even the Dhongi Baba's are involved in sex scandals and ancient texts put women at the bottom, even religion can bring no change. How someone could even imagine doing shit like putting foreign objects in a five-year old still surprises me, but blaming the politicians or the place is not going to help. Mass male thinking needs to change, attitude towards women needs to change and some civic sense needs to be induced before these Barbarians take over our society. This might take generations.

I am in no way attempting to defend the rapists and further reading might give that impression. My attempt is to understand/ identify what really might be the cause of kids/ men acting the way they do. Why, having the same anatomy doesn't make me a Barbarian, but the rapists can’t keep themselves within social boundaries?

Making all schools co-ed can be the first step maybe? I am no expert to make an opinion, but it is pretty apparent that the country lacks co-ed school, rather it lacks girl students. It looks like a small thing, but the way a child grows makes a big difference. These kids who have never known a girl in their entire 13 year life-span suddenly hit puberty and run across town waving their dongs. What they don’t understand is that you can’t simply objectify a female to fulfill your passion/ madness. There is no respect, no human value devoted to the female, because she is never looked at as an individual. To this teen-age wanker, the girl is not a person. He looks at her just as an object to satisfy his desire.

We always come across the commonly agreed notion that the girl should be educated. Why’s that?  I think the girl should not be educated only because she can know her rights and be in a better position to protect her and be an equal part of the society. A girl should also be educated, so the boy knows that she is just another person, like he is. She has her own dreams, ambitions, feelings and he can get close to her, but with respect. He has to win her respect to be in a position to be part of her life. To understand that he can’t wake up one day, walk in her life and destroy it for sake of satisfying his urges. He should understand the better part of his cardinal feelings rather than getting carried away with lust.

Till we keep treating girls differently, protect them more, keep them locked in rooms, send them to separate schools, have separate compartments in trains (even buses to my surprise, in some cities) and expecting them to silently cook, eat the left-overs and clean-up before going to bed near the kitchen platform, we can’t really have these dong-waving baby boys to turn into men. We are building an army of losers.

With media being so active, the cases are coming upfront, but this issue has existed for way too long. The number of cases hasn't increased; the number of cases people hear/ know about has increased. And this is not a political problem; this is a social problem, rather a cultural issue. Co-ed schools might just be one step, but I think it is very important for our society, specially the rural parts of the country, to make education more interactive. To let the girl out, to let the kids mingle and grow together.

Rape culture is not very common in cities like Mumbai, because we always grew with girls around. They were always talented, they painted, and they sang, they danced, they played. All we guys knew was Cricket. We always looked at girls as someone better. Someone we wanted to know better.  Maybe a particular girl – let’s not get there. And doing something bad to her, or letting something bad happen to her was out of question.  I remember I have been part of fights because someone said something bad about a girl I knew. We would go in and get him. Not the proudest moments, but that’s what co-ed’s do. That’s what knowing someone does, you get protective towards them. You don’t think of raping them.

Once we have a stable education system where there are as many girls in school as there are boys, till they out-perform the guys and there is a competitive environment, like in pretty much every average co-ed school in Mumbai and suburbs, the boy won’t run around town waving his dong and he won’t grow up to be THERAPIST.