As the sun shone upon me on a bright sunny Sunday, my mind was almost resolved to have a good day. In an equally bright mood I was casually crossing the road when a bike passed in front of me with a man calling aloud... big boobs...! Yes, I know I have them but I do not expect any stranger to inform me so, publicly like that. 🙄🙄 (Just in case if my disapproval was not obvious) No, it was not midnight but broad daylight. No, I was not inappropriately dressed.. I had wore a decent t shirt and jeans with a stole fully covering my so called big boobs. 😏
Well in reality, I am quite thick skinned,old enough to be used to such incidents and not someone who gets effected easily. Frankly, we women are so used to men looking at us with eyes saying the same words, silently but loud and clear. If so, then someone shouting the same shouldn't bother me much right? After all ,this is not such a big incident ! But for few hours it did bother me a lot. Suddenly I was conscious of how I look, stand,walk,talk and what not. Not only did I question the bubble of civilized society in my head, I almost questioned my whole existence! Moreover, I really don't know what we are supposed to do.. shout back at that man who passed a derogatory remark oh so casually..hold him and beat him up or just be thankful that he didn't try to touch me like they have in currently viral clip of blore. No,its not that blore has suddenly become unsafe for women. It is like any part of this country.. sometimes safe and sometimes not. Also, It's not that we women feel like this all the time about everyone. We are sensitive enough to feel and know the difference between admiration and ogling. I myself even sympathise with the theory of generalising every man as lustful. But here I was suddenly hating every man I know and every man who came in front of my eyes for next few hours. Is this something we are supposed to accept and get used to?
How do we change the sense of normalcy which has existed in society about few men having this attitude towards women ? How do we deal with both men and women having the attitude of ladke to ladke hai kind of nonsense in their heads? Why this obnoxious acceptance about how the world is ??
Being my optimistic self, I am hopeful that the next bunch of men and women will be better than us and by then we will learn to focus more on teaching men how to respect and behave with women than teaching women how to be safe.
But till then?? May be we should just rely on luck !!
