Society

Good guys do it like Sachin does

I was not comfortable posting this picture here, since many a times, too much righteousness backfires and makes readers search for some contradictions in the author himself. But I am ready to take the risk :)

Once, one of our professors asked the girl students to share if they had faced some kind of harassment in public. One girl told us how once she had to shout at and force a guy to retreat who was not giving her enough space to sit in a bus. Now a day, this very girl hangs out with some ‘cool’ guys in the campus who are jovial and funny. These guys, once in a while, break dirty jokes in her presence. And she doesn’t know how to react! She can’t enjoy those, and she doesn’t even believe her chiding will change them. Hence, she has to live with such things. It makes me wonder if we have two sets of rules – do we accept the unacceptable things when they come from the people we like…

I am also surprised at my female friends who take it as accepted thing that boys will ‘look away’ even when they are committed. I had said once, “Our thoughts and feelings don’t have logic, but our actions have!” Feeling attracted is one thing, making advances, or to ogle is another. And in the end, when the guys come to know that the ‘guy things’ are accepted by all – will not they take it for granted and move on for more?

Some days back, I went to attend an interactive session by the famous writer Chetan Bhagat. Someone from the audience asked him why his lead characters were always boys. He, being a very honest man, replied, “I’m actually not sure about how girls feel and think, so I don’t develop the female characters much”. Fine? Next, a girl asked why his books showed girls asking for or accepting sex before their marriage. His reply was something like this: “I think we all dream about that, so what is wrong if my books show them happening?” Well, there are things that we may dream about, but it won’t be called boldness if we go on realising them. And here also, one old-generation question should be able to pinch him: “What if that girl was your daughter?” I know it is fiction and fiction doesn’t need any censorship. But we can’t go on glorifying one part of fiction as real and another part as real fiction! And someone who thinks himself to represent the generation Y should not only care about their ‘dreams’, but also about their ‘directions’.   

In fact, each and every society has some words and ways to show women down and make them appear as ‘items’. It is irrespective of country, language or culture. But what makes me wonder is the great extent to which we are beginning to accept these things as normal.

Tell these cricketers (including that cute Yuvi): All of us can’t play as well as Sachin does. But we all can become a gentleman like him!