A stolen moment

They both smiled Both stretched their hands

Both rested their palms on either sides of the glass window
Both giggled 

Both were curious to know the other 

Both wanted to see the other’s world to play and be there
Suddenly the cars honked 

Both their hands jerked back

A fleeting look of despair 

And then a knowing smile
While one stepped back on the footpath with the toys in hand

The other looked longingly at the outside world
A stolen moment 

Two worlds colliding 

Whispering to each other

How different childhoods could be 

Lets speak for the men too ! 

Coming back from an official tour, i called up my mom from Bangalore airport telling her i’d take an Ola and get home when i reach Jaipur. Before i could finish my sentence, my mother ( who is a bong) jumped the gun, screamed and said she is sending a taxi(the one we always hire) and i would not come home by Ola. I tried to argue and told her that it wouldn’t be late and by 8.45 i would be home to which I got some more sound effects and I thought it would be better for me and her throat that i agreed without any further ado. 
Gently, 5 minutes into the conversation, i asked her whats wrong. She said there has been a rape case in Jaipur, a girl gang raped and thrown on the road and all this happened when the girl wanted to take a ride back home from the railway station ( not Ola but public transportation nonetheless). 
Hearing this i knew my Ola and Uber days are probably over completely and if not, at least over for a couple of months now. 
I came home with our trusted taxi guy, said thank you, mom paid him (perks of her calling in the taxi) settled in and slept off. 
Next day i tracked the rape case on online news forums like HT and TOI. Seems the case was a fake one. The girl plotted along with her boyfriend to blackmail a man with whom she had consensual sex. 
Hmmm.
When we talk about rape cases, so many fake cases make the headlines. So many guys get wrongfully implicated, so many times the police gives their 100% , looks for leads to give justice to the girl and finally uncover the truth of it all being fake. 
Rape cases have become it seems just like dowry cases, a weapon for women and now a days too many are misusing it. Our laws are bent. They side with women more because women did face a lot of cruelty , molestation and injustice. 
Cut to the present day reality, women have not only become empowered but have also become street smart and now misuse the laws initially made to protect them. 
Every now and then we read in the newspapers something like a woman filed a case against a man because he raped her for 3 years. How he raped ? well, he promised to get married to her but didn’t so magically the consensual sex turns into barbaric rape. (Brain turns into mashed potato) 

Remember that one time when two sisters making videos of bashing up guys that supposedly “eve teased” them or the one time when a woman made a video of a man at a traffic signal poting it online as proof of his abusive behaviour ? Or a woman filing a rape case on the guy she was living in because they broke up?  These are just a few cases that happened fairly recently. 

I generally have a hard time finding any logic in such cases. Before filing for the rape case, doesn’t the woman herself think at least once what is the meaning of rape? Doesnt she think its because of women like her that a lot of actual rape victims have a tough time proving the atrocities committed against them? 
I feel such cases should be made public and the identities of the people involved should be made known. 
Our blood boils when we hear of a rape being committed but somehow the majority of our feminism gets limited to ONLY till the time we are fighting for a woman. To my understanding, feminism means equality, it means no sex should suffer because of the other sex. 
We should be more vocal about the women who make a mockery out of the justice system, just like we bash the men up for being sexist or MCP we should also make sure the anger that we feel at the time of reading a rape case is just as much as the anger that comes to us when we know the laws have been misused and manipulated. 
I have written this before too and strongly believe that its not the gender that makes the man take advantage of a situation or a person. Its the power. Give it to a man or give it to woman. Both are capable of doing some really twisted things. 
Lets speak for the men too. For just like men, not all women are saints ! 

Just Own It ! 

Conversations are the second best way of increasing one’s horizons, views , ideas and knowledge, all achieved without moving anywhere physically because the only thing that works in a conversation is, your mind. The first best? Well.. obviously! Books !!! 
Anyway, 
Even if the conversation one has is fake or pointless or gives no new sane views, its still useful since it at least said something about the person you engaged in the conversation with, said about how different people think, believe and live thus strengthening your own ideas, beliefs, alignments.  
While in a deep conversation recently on a work trip to Delhi, someone said something that stuck to me. The person, after listening to me, after about 1 hour of knowing about me, simply said : you need to choose your battles wisely. 
The moment i heard this, something somewhere moved in me. Something triggered and it seemed like a lot simply started making sense now. 
While at another work set up, someone quoted a writer saying : we hardly ever think these days. If we think for even 10 minutes in a day, life would be very different. 
Both these seemingly simple statements came into my life and made me as a person to rethink about my life, how i plan to shape it and the way i intend to live it. 
The first statement when combined with the second, made my life miraculously simple, less exhaustive and so much better. 
We often carry the baggage of so many misplaced emotions, so many mixed feelings, so many confusions and so many expectations without even thinking about them, without even realising the purpose of those emotions, without thinking through what and how exactly would they affect us. 
With busy lives, busier minds and work pressures, we often lose track of how simple life could be, how simplicity could be beautiful. 
No life is perfect. No situation is perfect. No one is perfect. And maybe its in these little imperfections, these little surprises, these little dismays, anger, smiles, laughters, tears, you realise it’s important to be at least be able to appreciate the lessons life throws at you. 
Thinking things through, knowing your own self would not make u cry less or laugh more or make you happier but it would simply give you the satisfaction that whatever it is, you own your tears, smiles and laughter. Choosing the battles would not make you any less of a fighter, it would just give you the strength and the satisfaction of knowing you fought for the things that mattered. 
One doesn’t need to keep an account of the smiles or the tears that life throws at you. No checks and balances are needed to state whether life has been fair and just. One just needs to be able to know that each and every smile, each and every drop of tear has been owned and well deserved. 
Cheers ! 

The onus is on us

It starts right from the time the child is born. Blue for boys and pink for girls. Growing up, telling the boys not to cry because men dont cry and asking the girls to be polite because apparently girls are delicate. 
It seeps in drop by drop. Through the environment a child is in. The society looking at the father’s work as the “manly” one while the mother’s as the “homely” one. 
The tv ads.. reinstating what a child sees around. The movies.. with dialogues like “hansi to phasi” or “ladki ki na mei bhi haan hai”. 
The objectification, the sexist jokes, the inequality, the supposed “male domination “. 
The subtle entry of an 8 year old brother who walks to the shop down the street with his sister. To “protect” her. The “protection” provided here would not be by the virtue of his strength but would wholly depend on the virtue of his gender, accepted by the society. 
It grows. Builds up piece by piece. And it solidifies taking a shape. 
Takes the shape of a mentality. 
Looking at women as objects, as inferiors, as helpless, as second class citizens. 
Who are the rapists and the molesters roaming around in the society? Are they men with horns or wings? How do we identify such creeps? 
Ummm.. well.. we cant. Because they are a part of us. But, what we can do is, identify our own actions, our own mentality. Be more open minded, teach the boys that they are not here to protect their sisters or mothers or wives. They are here to coexist. Women dont need help. Women dont need men to walk around freely. Women dont need men for protection. 
We form the society. We encourage, accept, implement double standards. We don’t believe in equality. And that one faction, that one small thought at the back of our minds laughing at sexist jokes, accepting that women need help and considering women not equal to the other sex collectively takes the shape of that man who soaked all those things that he saw as a child, things that we showed him, the things he later believed as a man. 
The onus is on us.