An entire day was disrupted in the capital with the arrival of Shri Sharon. For this one man and his wanderings around the city, we could not get to work or to hospitals or to anywhere. Nowhere, but nowhere in the world does this kind of madness happen. Nowhere are citizens treated like dirt. It is shameful and embarrassing at the same time.
If our security systems are so primitive and if every road has to be emptied, either the government should declare a national holiday when there are overseas visitors, or the ?dignitaries? should be choppered into Rashtrapati Bhavan from the airport and caged there in full security. There are suites there that can house all such people and large rooms where meetings can be held. This would allow the city to function and not come to a standstill.
Then, there has been the response of the Centre to the courts on the question of whether homosexuality and lesbianism should continue to be deemed a criminal offence! Our government feels both these proclivities are anti-Indian culture. Wish they would feel as strongly about rape, murder, dowry deaths, sati and all the other social assaults on women that go unpunished day upon day in the India of 2003.
Is this inhuman attitude towards women part of Indian culture? Man and man, woman and woman, is unacceptable but man assaulting woman is permissible? Imagine for a moment ? if all sapiens were homo, there would be no population explosion!
How we waste our time on inconsequential matters. If as much energy and passion was expended on dealing with hunger, water, law and order on our streets, safety for our citizens, we would have generated a sense of dignity for our people. Frankly, some of the most creative and sensitive men around are gay. They are not loutish and are not like those ghastly ?eve teasing? types we encounter in every bus and at every street corner, with a sneer across their faces, hands in pocket!
To deem homosexuals as people indulging in criminal practice, is absurd. Maybe the Centre should deal with men raping women as a first priority, along with the banning of dowry and dowry deaths. Let?s have committed action on that. The attitude to women in this country leaves much to be desired. Here, it is not the muslim woman who is in purdah, hindu women are as well. There is no ?real? difference in the manner we are treated. We are expected to adhere to archaic norms; we have been ?allowed? to go out and work only because additional income is required for living as a nuclear family, otherwise the ?man? would prefer his wife to stay at home and look after the kids, cook and press his feet!
Educated men continue to allow their mummies to dominate their marriages, wives continue to play second fiddle. Rural women continue to do the hard manual work like drawing water from a well or hand pump and collecting firewood. They work on the fields, cook and care for the old as well as for the children while the men hang about having ploughed the fields. Indian men thrive in this situation and have as a result become increasingly unpalatable. With their mothers they are wimps and with their wives they are bullies. A confused lot.
The more the BJP talks about Sonia Gandhi?s foreign origin, the faster it is becoming a non-issue. If only political discourse in India would shift to the issues that concern us as a people. If only the politician would understand that there is a whole new generation voter who is not concerned with the baggage and shenanigans of the past. These young women and men are looking for a new and fresh idiom that will change their lives in this country, allowing them to join the world. We remain so archaic and backward. We are delighted with silly little developments that are a taken everywhere else. We still get all excited with a metro line or a high-way without pot holes which proves where we are at. Alas!