Animals lurking everywhere!

Yesterday Sakshi Juneja linked to a story in Midday I subscribe to her blog in Google Reader (my means of contact with the blogosphere) but i did not check the link in Midday assuming Sakshi pasted the whole article. When Amit Varma linked to the same story and it popped up in Google Reader, I checked the Midday link and the video link on CNN IBN.

I am appalled at the story. The whole thing reminded me of a scene i had come across on TV as a child and one that has remained etched in my mind ever since. In the tribal belt of North East India, a dog was tied to a tree and maimed and eventually subjected to a slow torturous death by being speared by about 20 men at the same time, each one holding a pole having a sharp knife at its end. This was documented on "Heads and Tails", a programme anchored by Maneka Gandhi that highlighted cruelty towards animals.

Disgusting is not the word that can be used to describe the behaviour of the people that day. They were not party animals, but animals.

Question is, whats the solution? When will the Indian male understand that every girl who wears a miniskirt is not asking for sex. That every girl who ventures into a male bastion is not loose in morals and will not sleep around if coerced. That a girl going out at night is as normal as a guy going out. That a NO means a NO. Even though it may not be worth raving about, i recall more than one instance of my friends telling other female friends to keep away from crowded places. Call us prudish or whatever, but with animals lurking around, its always better to be safe than sorry.

This thing escapes me. My small mind cannot comprehend the logic behind the incident. I wonder what those groping perverts were thinking? I have thought long and hard on the subject of party hooliganism. Most times, drunken revelry and misbehaviour gets approved on the grounds that the person is under the influence of alcohol. I dont drink alcohol, have never been drunk, and hence probably do not understand how people can resort to outrageous behaviour after fuddling. I just hope tomorrow, they dont begin to approve behaviour of this kind by saying the atmosphere was charged up with raging hormones.

I think its time to tackle the issue head on and call for a larger debate on what factors provoke this kind of sadistic behaviour. Is the Indian male so repressed in his sexuality that he is willing to give vent anywhere and everywhere without even the slightest provocation? We are a funny bunch of people. We are the champions of morality, we drive couples out of parks, we dont like the idea of sex education in schools, we dont like Valentine's Day celebrations, and we protest vehemently when artists and authors use sexuality to express their creativity.

We also need to realise our population is growing beyond expectations and in biology we learnt that a birth can happen only if a man and woman have sex(and you thought they dont have sex in India, he he). We are comfortable watching Rakhi Sawant's dances on cable networks in our living rooms but raise a hue and cry when she dances on stage in Kolhapur. We have problems if a kiss scene is depicted in a Bollywood movie but have absolutely no issues when adult movies that show much more than kissing are shown in smaller towns in cinema theatres at cheap rates. Hypocrisy is our middle name. I am beginning to wonder if it is this kind of hypocrisy that leads Indian men to believe that any single woman who is alone can be groped. Our movies depict women in clothes that are very uncommon on Indian streets. Probably it is this disparity coupled with the lack of undeerstanding that drives the libidos of Indian men.

I am not buying much into the police investigation. The role of the police is not worth wasting Google's server space on and not worth your time if you are reading this.

When I began this blog, i posted a lot of articles written by others which i wanted to archive in one place for my future reference. My hard disk was not as reliable as Google's servers and so i figured out blogspot.com is what i wanted. The initial purpose of the blog has switched though. Its gradually becoming my space on the web where i am posting my thoughts on issues that matter to me. Lately though, i have been venting my feelings through a series of posts which are appropriately cloaked in humour and satire. Although humour and satire are admirable masks, i do not think they take away the existence and seriousness of the core issue.

Some issues however are too disturbing to come under my humourous or satirical scanner. This is one of them. Sorry if you were expecting something funny. Sometimes its hard to be funny.