The story has been narrated time and over again in the past few weeks. I kept wondering why they are this dead intent on publicizing an insignificant issue so magnanimously. I daily read the bits and pieces splashed across the papers till my restraint not to comment on the issue broke. Damn, this has become outright ridiculous!! Hilarious too, if you can see what I saw..
The way of our life is one of our most personal choices and most fundamental of all rights. Nobody, and definitely no local goon is entitled to say what is right and what is not. Goddamn anyone who dares to try!!
The Mangalore pub issue with a bunch of thugs assaulting young pub hopping women was an unfortunate event that needed to be dealt with lawfully. People proactively protesting, was good. We will conveniently forget for the moment that the general elections are around the corner and this is most definitely about saving face, but Union minister for Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdary showing personal interest in the issue was good too. Involving the otherwise dormant NCW was great. But inevitably, the flipsides of the situation were all criminal in nature.
Pramod Mutalik was a complete nobody and all this hue and cry has now made him a public figure. Once spotted by limelight, all publicity is good publicity. I bet he nurses political ambitions and now intends to contest in the next elections.
There is a Subhashitha in Sanskrit –
GhaTam bhitva paTam chitva kuryaath vaa gardhabha swaram
Ena kena prakaareNa Prasiddha purusho bhava
Meaning –
A man has many ways of becoming popular; by breaking the utensils of his house, by tearing his own clothes or even by braying like a donkey.
So much for the protests!!
The pub issue gave him a platform; Mutalik took the biggest flaw of the working of typically Indian collective minds to his advantage and used the V-day opportunity too to further elevate his public figure status. It was an old trick, used for years in Maharashtra and became a super hit this time all over India.
That our law has so many loopholes is an open secret. Incriminating Mutalik and his gang of goons under some IPC section leaving no loopholes open, none whatsoever, and not paying more attention would have been a better idea. Instead we glorified him and his bunch of thugs became local heroes.
What was worse was when things took a 180 degree tilt. The actual issue was unabashedly thrown aside in favor of the same old rabid feminist man v/s woman superiority contention.
The “Consortium of pub going, loose and forward women” was a bouncer. If a woman is classified as “loose”, I assume we are referring to her character. I really really hope “pub going” symbolizes assertiveness and “forward” means career oriented and successful. I’m all ears to anyone who can satisfactorily explain what pub going women, loose women and forward women have in common. A grudge against Mutalik?? No amount of permutation combinations of these three adjectives seems to make sense to me.
“Pink Chaddis” were the heights!! If these “pub going, loose and forward women” really believe couriering undergarments are strong means of fighting injustice, we should have tried sending langotis to the British rather than Satyagrahas and our non-violence movements. I’m sure that would have created greater history than the first ever of the kind non-violent struggle did.
Despite being categorized as taboos to be demolished, it is a matter of decency to limit certain issues to esoteric forums, as long as morality and values exist. I’m loath to think of the mentality of all those women whose collective brainchild was this “Pink Chaddi” movement. Then again, these are the days of fag, booze, dope, pre marital sex and I-pill. Skin show is a sure shot ticket to stardom. “Big deal” is no longer a big deal let alone open discussion relating to lingerie, which reminds me of Alfred P. Doolittle in the film My Fair Lady and his clichéd phrase “middle class morality”; the upper class do not need it and the lower class cannot afford it!!
Another bouncer was the recent claim that Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati got drunk according to Hindu Scriptures so how dare Ram Sena kick a fuss over women pub hopping!! Why the bloody hell did anyone need to quote from Scriptures, wrongly though, without actually doing a thorough research on their claims?? Their audacity is shocking. Neither Mutalik nor his bunch of goons are any authority on Hindu principles. And not even those who made such blasphemous claims!! I’d be shocked if they as much as know who penned “The Hindu View of Life”. If this is about taking potshots at Hindu Scriptures and Hinduism in general, then it is to be condemned as being excruciatingly in bad taste. It is as criminal as penalizing all Muslims world-over for one Osama-bin-Laden. It is as inhuman as branding all Germans as mass murderers for one Adolf Hitler. We live in a secular democracy and it is the duty of not just the ruling party but all political parties and the entire battalion of common citizens to learn to be secular and tolerant towards all faiths. It is of greater importance for people to realize that it is even more wrong to take advantage of such situations, as in using such anti-Hindu accusations as potential vote banks with regard to voters of other faiths, portraying one thug like Mutalik to display the current ruling party in bad light etc.
Caricatures of the Prophet created a global uproar. Fatwas for beheading the artist, though criticized, were proclaimed far and wide. Books and films slightly deviating from the Vatican outlook have been banned. But why are Hindu gods, Hindu scriptures and the Hindu faith in general always taken for granted?? And this is done every time a creature like Mutalik shows its head over the majority. It is amusing to note that it is the majority itself that gives a platform for such anti-social elements. Mockery of the Hindu faith has been done umpteen other times like painter MF Hussain depicting the Hindu Gods and Goddesses in the nude. That was about artistic freedom and creative liberty, my foot!! At the moment, let us just let this matter be, without running the risk of straying from the main blog.
Men have been bar-attendees over ages so why not women, was another offshoot from the issue. NCW apparently held the pub owners to blame for frail security. Here is my advice to all women who were offended over this stand of male chauvinism - Good for you, go ahead and get drunk, in presence of anonymous strangers if you please. It is of common knowledge that alcohol increases sexual arousal and reduces sexual inhibition. Your security will your bloody concern and if things get nasty later on, no one else is to blame but you and anyone who later complains of lack of security can be cheerfully sued for defamation.
When Mutalik and his goons announced they would be sending a Saree as a return gift for every Pink Chaddi received, I could not stop laughing. Global economic meltdown does not seem to have affected the Ram Sena. I wondered if they could sponsor a few projects in the IT sector that are on the verge of being shelved due to lack of financing. I mean, it would be such a great social service they would be doing. Providing employment opportunities to thousands of engineers is not just a noble task but a great publicity stunt too. I, for one, would definitely vote for Mutalik at the next polls. The rogue becomes a hero, filmi style..
Shakespeare, though not in the same context, rightly called it – Much ado about nothing!!
