Goodbye to the Man's World!

Is it really a curse to be a woman in today’s world?

The endless number of shameless, ceaseless incidents of rapes, molestations and other domestic violence related cases shake off our sanity almost every day. What is further shocking is that the perverts have not even spared elderly women. Raping a 60-year-old lady — come on, that’s the height of barbarism.

Only a few of them are reported, while hundreds of similar cases vanish into oblivion, but not necessarily with the scar those incidents left in our society. Who knows every single minute a crime might be committed. We do not have a crime-tracing machine. The fact is we can never have one such machine in the future too. Simply because, we are still only an animal, slightly better than those animals in the wild forests.

As far as our reaction to any crime is concerned, we share our grief — over the bereaved’s condition as well as protest, remarkably for a few days at the lambi-sorok-lamjao. Then, after a few weeks, with our trademark collective memory we will forget almost every thing. We would possibly add one more story to our history, though we never learn from it. Long live the short-lived memory of the public!

After all, we do what we always do: mawong maalhanbagi eraang saagatpa. Sometimes, we have nothing better to do in life but kill each other. On other occasions, we would let more people come from every corner of the world and kill us.

The impotent nature of our system makes it more difficult for the families of the victims to follow up any concerned department to seek justice.

The issue of justice is in itself nauseating. Justice is like a moronic creature that is allergic to truth. It’s not only difficult but impossible to seek justice. And for the record, its reach is beyond anyone’s imagination. From underground to over ground, justice has bribed every one.

So, despite knowing what, how and where things have gone wrong, we never ever give a damn. In such conditions, being the other half is like making a useless sacrifice.

In our society, there are many who are in the pursuit of truth, liberty, justice and what not. However, there are only a few of them who stand by their principle and integrity. The majority always wins the vote in a lousy democratic nation or state. Hence, those with the right voice are always hindered from speaking out.

Meanwhile the pseudo revolutionary activists and whosoever stay in the limelight and are obviously considered the ‘Voice of the hoi polloi’ by the wakhal-thoktraba meeyaam.

It is the high time we refrain from the playing only the role of mute spectators. We have to raise our voice against these intolerable acts that are happening at every nook and corner of our society. It’s time to rise and raise our voice. We are not supposed to live with a triggered fear on our mind every single day.

We should welcome positive suggestions from all the sensible, hypocrite-proof citizens of our society. Let us stop amusing rapists, hypocrites and killers. They never had and they should not have a place in our society.

And to all the women, stop feeding the pride and arrogance of the male lots which encourage them to belittle and consider you as inferiors and later mal-treat you.

‘Courage is like muscle,” Ruth Gordon puts it succinctly, “We strengthen it with use”. Let us strengthen our courage. Let us not belittle ourselves. It’s not a man’s world. It’s not their rules we should follow. And they do not have any right to molest, rape or torment us on any ground.

Let us celebrate womanhood in a brave and bold way. I shall keep on following this space for a lot of workable ideas from time to time. Please do drop in all your suggestions.

This article was published on 23 June 2013

The Galloping Chariot of Time

A few days back, I read in one of the national dailies that the telegram service in India is going to close down forever. I know not why but I felt an upsurge of unrefined nostalgia while going through the news. I cannot help remembering about my early college days during which we were acquainted with the procedure of sending telegrams.

I have not been tricking myself with the ‘feel young factor’ but I don’t know why I suddenly feel old after going through that particular news. It seems to me as if we are in a transitional era stepping towards a brand new world.

I always have this confusion about technology and its influence in our lives. My confusion is still vague. Amid all these changes and evolutions that are happening across the world, I wonder if we have proceeded one step ahead towards civilization or remained miles backward in terms of culturing our age-old moors.

Never mind, welcome to modern times where people used smartphones but act like dumb asses. Welcome to a brand new world of technology where people can be remotely controlled and emotions play a minor role. Men, Money & Machine rule the roost.

Every single day, a new technology is introduced in the market. Technology is fascinating. It allures and grants us comfort and convenience that we never imagined about. But it equally prompts us to seek our own self amid the humdrums.

The chariot of time waits for none. And as the years pass by, we have come across many changes in terms of our lifestyle and mindset. It may though seem out fashioned but I often wish things had remained the same and that we had ceased to surrender to the dictatorship by the changing norms of technology.

When we were kids, we grew up listening to khonjel naachom, angaangi thouram and baro leela on the radio. We are now pampered with many choices of entertainment- MP3 player, laptops, mobile phones, tablets — you name it. Listening to a song of choice is but a matter of a few clicks. Except for some, it is now an out dated norm to listen to radio or watch the Doordarshan channel on the television.

At times, I have this feeling that modern kids are lucky and simultaneously unlucky. Lucky because they are pampered with many choices that we were not lucky enough to avail when we were kids and unlucky because they have missed the best part of technology-free days of childhood.

Well, call me a person from the past, but I miss those carefree days of childhood when life seemed easier and much fun. I miss those days when bread meant to us the Best Quality — the one-rupee worth dabooti. I miss those days when watching television meant staying glued in front of a black and white television set with siblings and cousins.

Sundays always used to be fun days. Besides, the Sunday morning serials on Doordarshan channel, the baro leela was a must listen. We still listen to the baro leela on every Sunday but the feel has gone.

As the saying goes, change is constant, we are supposed to adapt to all these changes. We won’t stop growing old. Memory may even start playing tricks with us anytime. However, I am pretty sure that there are some colorful memories that will always make us smile even when we don’t have any tooth left.

Well, it would be stupid to trade all our tomorrows for a single yesterday. So, it’s better to live in the present. Howsoever, I wish technology surprises us someday with a time machine through which we can travel back to those good old days. I do wish technology reinvents another telegram service in the near future, as we pay homage to the galloping chariot of our time.

This article was published on 16 June 2013