History of calling names
It is sad. For a long time, we have been harassing you. We have dragged you to the pyre of your husbands and called you ‘sati’. If you were single, either widowed or orphaned, we had legitimately dragged you to brothels where we could devour you, molest you, and could call you a 'whore'. We have tortured you even at homes as our wives living under the so-called ‘protection’ of families; we called you ''kulta' (bitch), 'dayen' (witch). We have killed you if dowries were not sufficient; called you 'churel' (unlucky). We have molested you in public, whose examples abound in our Epics too.
Stories
Then we started abusing you at the workplaces, public places like shops, public transports; we trespassed into all the possible premises, like schools, colleges, hospitals, places of worships and so on. We have raped women of all ages, from a newborn to a nonagenarian. And yet there is no atonement.
Me too v/s Men too
When women gathered the courage to talk about the atrocities they faced for decades with a MeToo tag (Please read), we had to rubbish it with a counter tag MenToo (Please read)? What torture are we talking about exactly? What disrespect? Please let us ask ourselves whether what we have done to women is at all comparable to what, in our parlance, those ‘false cases’ have done to us? No one would disrespect MJ Akbar if he had the wisdom and affection of accepting what he did to his women colleagues for years. It is so sad to find that we are also defending the father who abused his daughter? Please think…please think…please let us accept our faults, if at all…. let us genuflect in front of the life-givers and seek for their forgiveness so that years of sins could be absolved.
A single story
I will share a story with you. There was this guy working in an office. Let’s say his name was Krishna. He never participated in any office gossips…male gossips…because he found that whenever men got together they were talking against women, they would have their definitions of ‘good women’(mostly ‘gharelu aurat', women staying at home or the ones who never raised their voice against those hidden masculine hands that traveled across their bodies in private or in public places, ‘bad women’ (mostly working women or women talking against injustice, gender inequality, and oppression, or the ones who floated around in western outfits or smoked and drank openly, like them). This man who never participated in gossips obviously became a threat. Although an engineer by profession, his passion was into writing, he would write poems, fictions, and anything that made him happy or sad. As mediocre writers normally do, he would constantly pester everyone to read his posts…no sooner an article would be posted, he would go around with a begging bowl to his friends, relatives, colleagues and send them group texts requesting them to read. Once he sent a group text to his colleagues at 11 p.m.! Unfortunately, in this group were two ladies. These two ladies were very close to the group of men with whom Krishna never spoke. After a series of events, Krishna was thrown out of his organization on grounds of sexual harassment. The news had spread in the circle like wildfire and Krishna never got a job, he was thrown out of work for good.
Krishna should have indeed respected the dignity of his women colleagues before hitting the send button. He bears no grudge against those women, neither against the group of men who took the opportunity of the situation to throw him out of the organization. But he feels sad about men who think and talk ill of women who work, who are independent, those who smoke and drink or dress differently; he wants men who are judgemental about everything women to do to question their own belief-systems rather than pointing fingers at women. He doesn’t mind being severed from working life…if men have tortured women through the years, a little bit of injustice is no injustice at all… he takes it as a punishment for his entire race.
Atonement
At the end of it all, who are we fighting against? When women have started speaking up, the least we can do is to lend them our ears and seek for forgiveness for the years of unspeakable sins we have committed to them. For this meaningless battle to end, this mindless wall between the genders to melt, we need to come forward and acknowledge what we have 'really' done to women, on one hand, we have subjugated them, disrespected them, violated them and on the other, we have called them 'ma' (mother) and 'behen' (sister); this hypocrisy needs to end; from the heart of our hearts we need to coalesce our thought and action to say, on no uncertain terms, ‘We have sinned’.
It is sad. For a long time, we have been harassing you. We have dragged you to the pyre of your husbands and called you ‘sati’. If you were single, either widowed or orphaned, we had legitimately dragged you to brothels where we could devour you, molest you, and could call you a 'whore'. We have tortured you even at homes as our wives living under the so-called ‘protection’ of families; we called you ''kulta' (bitch), 'dayen' (witch). We have killed you if dowries were not sufficient; called you 'churel' (unlucky). We have molested you in public, whose examples abound in our Epics too.
Stories
Then we started abusing you at the workplaces, public places like shops, public transports; we trespassed into all the possible premises, like schools, colleges, hospitals, places of worships and so on. We have raped women of all ages, from a newborn to a nonagenarian. And yet there is no atonement.
Me too v/s Men too
When women gathered the courage to talk about the atrocities they faced for decades with a MeToo tag (Please read), we had to rubbish it with a counter tag MenToo (Please read)? What torture are we talking about exactly? What disrespect? Please let us ask ourselves whether what we have done to women is at all comparable to what, in our parlance, those ‘false cases’ have done to us? No one would disrespect MJ Akbar if he had the wisdom and affection of accepting what he did to his women colleagues for years. It is so sad to find that we are also defending the father who abused his daughter? Please think…please think…please let us accept our faults, if at all…. let us genuflect in front of the life-givers and seek for their forgiveness so that years of sins could be absolved.
A single story
I will share a story with you. There was this guy working in an office. Let’s say his name was Krishna. He never participated in any office gossips…male gossips…because he found that whenever men got together they were talking against women, they would have their definitions of ‘good women’(mostly ‘gharelu aurat', women staying at home or the ones who never raised their voice against those hidden masculine hands that traveled across their bodies in private or in public places, ‘bad women’ (mostly working women or women talking against injustice, gender inequality, and oppression, or the ones who floated around in western outfits or smoked and drank openly, like them). This man who never participated in gossips obviously became a threat. Although an engineer by profession, his passion was into writing, he would write poems, fictions, and anything that made him happy or sad. As mediocre writers normally do, he would constantly pester everyone to read his posts…no sooner an article would be posted, he would go around with a begging bowl to his friends, relatives, colleagues and send them group texts requesting them to read. Once he sent a group text to his colleagues at 11 p.m.! Unfortunately, in this group were two ladies. These two ladies were very close to the group of men with whom Krishna never spoke. After a series of events, Krishna was thrown out of his organization on grounds of sexual harassment. The news had spread in the circle like wildfire and Krishna never got a job, he was thrown out of work for good.
Krishna should have indeed respected the dignity of his women colleagues before hitting the send button. He bears no grudge against those women, neither against the group of men who took the opportunity of the situation to throw him out of the organization. But he feels sad about men who think and talk ill of women who work, who are independent, those who smoke and drink or dress differently; he wants men who are judgemental about everything women to do to question their own belief-systems rather than pointing fingers at women. He doesn’t mind being severed from working life…if men have tortured women through the years, a little bit of injustice is no injustice at all… he takes it as a punishment for his entire race.
Atonement
At the end of it all, who are we fighting against? When women have started speaking up, the least we can do is to lend them our ears and seek for forgiveness for the years of unspeakable sins we have committed to them. For this meaningless battle to end, this mindless wall between the genders to melt, we need to come forward and acknowledge what we have 'really' done to women, on one hand, we have subjugated them, disrespected them, violated them and on the other, we have called them 'ma' (mother) and 'behen' (sister); this hypocrisy needs to end; from the heart of our hearts we need to coalesce our thought and action to say, on no uncertain terms, ‘We have sinned’.
keep praying
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