Delhi Verdict: A Deterrent?

(19 Sep 2013)

The lawyer defending some of the convicts in the brutal Delhi gang-rape had drawn a lot of outrage from the society, when he said he would not challenge the death penalty verdict if there was no case of rape or rape-and-murder in two months from the sentencing by a Delhi court. Newspapers around the country have been as full of rape news as earlier, stirring the question: has the verdict not been able to act as a deterrent despite all of India curiously following the developments in this case?

While fear of exemplary punishment is a great weapon to perhaps curb violence against women, is it not true that no law and no extent of the enforcement of such laws can do the much-needed social conditioning? A gang-rape, for example, is almost never something that happens at the ‘heat of the moment’; contrastingly, it is generally a cold-blooded plan that is hatched collectively to nail down a potentially vulnerable ‘target’. It is more of a taming exercise than a means of physical pleasure. It is much more in the mind than in the body of a male assaulter. More than the male organ, what is involved in these horrific acts is the psychology of a society that in many ways for ages has okayed suppression of women by the application of force. You cannot call India a sexually deprived nation. It is a country that has multiplied its population with a vigor that would put animals to shame! By no stretch of imagination can you call these rapes as discreet incidents; these are part of the same thread. Women in India have for centuries been tamed and silenced; rape is only one of the means that is getting a lot of lime light these days, thanks to an increased level of awareness amongst women to ‘report’ such crimes.

Until such time when women are truly seen at per with men, when women are made part of decision making, when women are treated with man-like dignity, when success of women is celebrated, when the society takes pride in womanhood, when women are not considered mere sex toys, no legislation by the law making and enforcing authorities can make a significant positive impact.

Charity, as they say, begins at home. What kind of home for tomorrow are you building today? 

Deciphering Bollywood Item Numbers

(20 Sep 2013)

Bollywood is big business today. And it’s getting increasingly bigger with filmmakers generously spending on raunchy ‘item’ numbers. Money is what gets you more money: this apparently is their mantra.

Let’s decipher the meaning of an item number in this context. It is the shameless celebration of an open invitation to lustful men for ‘possession’ sent out through the gyration of myriads of curves and parts of the female body. It is the act where a woman is portrayed as having been born only so one day she could lure men to ‘have’ her, and feel extremely proud of that. The guy seems to think, why not, if she herself is so welcoming of the idea?

Being sexy isn’t offensive; being attractive is a gift not bestowed upon every woman; seduction is an art not every lady is skillful at. Do our item numbers, however, exhibit any of these? Well, I could bet my head in saying that I don’t have any doubt they do not! What is dead unfortunate is that there seems to be an open admiration society consisting of both women and men that has found this systematic commoditization of women as cool. Here we are, looking at an ‘object’ that is available to be sold, to be bought, to be had. This is too disdainful to be any iota of sex or dance or entertainment, or anything that goes along with the taste of a mature consumer.

I pity the confidence quotient of most of the filmmakers in Bollywood. They’re so low on it, they need to sell their stories wrapped in flesh. Bankruptcy!

The irony is when the makers and patronizers of these item numbers appear on ‘national’ debates on issues concerning women’s rights and crimes against women, and talk about protest rallies they may have organized or been part of. An analogy that perhaps gets close to this joke is a politician preaching about values!