Monday, November 5, 2012

The problem with us Indian Men.

Being an Indian man and having interacted with my close friends, uncles and other fellow members of the tribe over my lifetime, though I might not be qualified in my opinion of psychology but I would rather entertain a thought that I have had more than a few conversations and experiences to know us dickheads better than what most presume I might. (Pardon me for the phrase).

The thought to write this has lingered with me over a period of many months especially when I hear my good friends referring to women as sluts just on intuition whereas the same is a sign of masculinity when we meet up to howl together on full moon and also oggle at the other sex. Since we more sophisticated, we do it very mildly. Never the less, only we can do what we want.

Dominating women and giving them a second grade status has been one of the profound disguises of our cultural heritage which we seem to ignore or to be put more aptly, have a blind side to it. Sure, I am not questioning whether we are loving Dads, brothers or husbands but I am questioning the very way in which are brought up thinking we are even if subtly more important than the women in our families. I am not only referring to the eve teasers / rapists the capital of our country seems to produce or the molestors of guwahati who blatantly go about tarnishing the image of our gender in unmendable ways but also our so called degree holding educated class and modern city men too. We have been born and raised with an ecosystem right from our families, societies to our movies portraying our superiority or our more important role in the average Indian daily life. What amazes me that despite all our worldly books, we guys still refuse to have women as equal partners in our relationships or decision making process. Very often I come across smart intelligent friends who loosely refer to women as Used or Second hand because of the fact that her previously unsuccessful relationship has come under the lens for scrutiny, quietly forgetting their own dating history. Virgin bride or girlfriend is still chaste. Women seen having just a coffee with someone are still whispered about in some circles. We ourselves want our girls well behaved and an open discreet license for us. Just because we can't handle confident women, we will demean her.

Most Indian women might spend a lifetime in this patriarchal circle without truly discovering their individualities ever. We might also take pride and establish laurels on success of our marriages over western cultures without analysing the still widespread domestic violence, infidelity, lack of voice of women / support from families and the stigma of the word divorce. A woman standing up for herself without her own family support will be all in vain and will add to the success data of Indian marriages. Let us celebrate our statistics.

We love to control. Not just our generation, it is historical. We have been so afraid of women's sexuality and our inability to understand it that we have made a whole society to distinguish everything into the segments of morality and culture, bending towards the 'inferior' sex. Over the period of our civilisation we have managed to come up with traditions and taboos to reiterate the fact. We might see; learn; understand but snidely cast it aside in the garb of our rich heritage and ancestral gifts probably coming from apes themselves, no but let us not disservice by questioning. We have obtained our professional degrees better than most countries in the world but failed our education and we will refuse to get out of it. Yes, we are proud and intelligent Indian men.

One of the facets why this happens is that we men lack making some of the most important decisions of our lives. I should call us Indian boys rather then men whether we are 20, 25, 30 or 35.
Come what may, we just refuse to grow up and are really afraid to do so. We are feeble, we have always been spoon fed and refuse to do anything on our own. Even if we manage to marry an educated woman with career, we still want her to feed us like our mommies and added perk, be mistresses in our bed. Because of course sex was a gift bestowed upon us on marriage. I still hardly see men who can talk to their fathers face to face and it is certainly not just out of respect. We are an afraid bunch who has refused to grow up, take our decisions and stand by it.

Maybe we are all not so bad, but it is sometimes disturbing to see lack of equality; truly and genuinely. Indirect cheap remarks on women who are different from our instilled moral patterns are nothing but just subtleties of more prominent public attacks by insane orthodox activists. Culture is never static, it's beauty is what each generation shapes and grows it into, not just a modern silent manifestation of an age old hypocrisy.

One way to open up your mind from our generations of stupidities is accepting. Yes, we have a problem.