Hey fellow countrymen

[This one is for the Indian men. Hence it is going to be illogical, stupid and brainless.]

Hey guys, have you ever thought on what the women might be thinking of us? I have been trying hard to figure it out. Well, many wise men had spent half their life time trying to get an answer. So the question isn’t exactly foolish as it sounds.

How easy it would be for them to live in a society meant for men? Men who blame molestation on the T-shirt and jeans the girl wore and still desperately yearns for a peek from the sari clad women. Yes, we a society of pretense and hypocrisy.

I was watching an amateurish, non commercial porn video starring Pamela Anderson. Here is a spent out actress who rubs herself in front of the camera just for fun. And we treated her as our national guest. Our media was celebrating her arrival with huge fanfare. She had turned out to be old and wrinkled with only her prime assets holding up. It doesn’t matter to us, does it? We wanted to see if anything wild/spicy happened at the ‘Big Boss’.

Judging from my Facebook wall on the morning after our historic World Cup victory, we weren’t exactly that excited about winning it. We were more excited about Poonam (was it Bhajwa or Pandey?) who did promise to strip. The poor girl did under estimate the Indian team and thought they would fall apart at tough situations. But Indians managed to hold themselves up and earned a victory much to her dismay. The poor girl had to go hiding. Her popular pictures showed only a small area left for the imagination. But we don’t let go of an opportunity to strip a woman and are worse than Taliban at that.

The one technology we are really good at is – The Spy Cam technology. When we don’t use it to catch our politicians and babus red-handed, we manage to plant it at all the unimaginable places- Train toilets, hostel rooms, hotel rooms, convents, kindergartens. In case we fail to plant it somewhere, we shoot a porn video and sell it off as secret MMS.

A few days back a big bold headline screamed from a popular daily- Yana Gupta beats Bipasha to an item number. The news item in the movie section of our dailies is no longer the awards, reviews, or plum roles. An actress no longer needs to get a good role for the publicity she needs. If she manages to get an item number and promises that the skirts are shorter and moves are hotter than her rival, it’s guaranteed to stay in the headlines for sometime. She can survive on that till the videos come on YouTube when there is going to be a mad rush of clicks. Well, that’s not all. Blogging and tweeting about all inane things was another method our ‘spent-out’ actress devised to stay afloat. But after the initial hoopla no one even bothered to pass by their ingenious literary works. So now if you need a sudden shot in the arm for success, walk into a party or function and ‘accidentally’ offer the cameras a sneak peek into the ‘real’ you. Your name would suddenly appear in the top searches of Google and you are sure to get a dozen interviews giving you an opportunity to explain the mishap and its impact on the kids.

You might be wondering why I stick on with these meaningless rambles. Last week, I laid my hands on Dalrymple’s ‘White Mughals’. It’s a book on how the white men came here and had inter racial intercourse and ended up being part Indian. The Mughals, Portuguese, French and the British came down to India to conquer. They didn’t have much trouble in getting rid of the divisive and weak Indian kings. But as soon as the white men settled down, they were fascinated with the culture and women. They developed their own harems but the Indian woman insisted on maintain their traditions. The Whites had no problem in forsaking their barbarian culture. They preferred Indian silks and Pajamas to the English attire, they grew whiskers and even learnt the Persian. Some soldiers even went on to become fakirs.

This went on till the British monarchy decided to club down the dangerous liasions. So privileges of Anglo Indians were drastically cut down. Tough evangelists were sent down to rule and there began the real colonialization.

What the Indian men failed to do with their swords and elephants, our women did with their charms. They succeeded in bending the will of the conquerors. I remember the story narrated by an ex-alcoholic. He hailed from a traditionally rich family and loved to spend his evening getting drunk. This did create troubles in the family until one day he decided to quit. One day the ‘usually nagging wife’ started smiling very divinely. She, who used to send off the husband to the pub with curses, started waving him tata every evening. Even when he started hitting the drink, he was totally confused on the sudden friendliness. He went back home early that day. As each day passed his duration at the pub started going down until he quit.

I sign off with a few lines by Charles Stuart:

‘The Hindu women are comparatively small, yet there is much voluptuousness of appearance- a fullness that delights the eye; a firmness that enchants the sense; a sleekness and purity of skin; an expression of countenance, a grace, and a modesty of demeanour, that renders them universally attractive. I have seen ladies of Gentoo cast, so exquisitively formed, with limbs so divinely turned, and such expression in their eyes, that you must acknowledge the mot inferior to celebrated beauties of Europe.’