Why Do Men Rape?

Men rape for various reasons. I am not trying to justify what they do, definitely not. All I’m trying to understand is why they do what they do. I will also not venture into the psychological aspect of it. I didn’t go to protest, hence, writing something about it is the least I can do. I guess.

Fact: There will always be rapes.

Come what may, there will always be bad elements in the society. There will always be people who would hurt others. People will always be murdered, robbed, fleeced, and conned. There will be that odd war every now and then. And then there will always be rapists.

In my very personal, humble, honest opinion I do not think we can even dream of eradicating all that is wrong from this world. I don’t see it happening anytime soon. I know it is the ideal scenario that we would want to see in this world but if you think about it practically and objectively, it’s almost impossible.

What we can and need to do is reduce the numbers, the frequency, and the rate at which these crimes are happening. Whereas there is nothing wrong with fixing the deep rooted psychological complexities of these criminals from the root, we must also figure some practical solutions which fix the situation we are in, immediately. Simply assuming that there will always be men who would want to rape women can help us in making this city/country/world a better place.

Why are there so many rapes in Delhi? I think it is because there is lack of fear. These men are not afraid of the consequences. The consequences might or might not be harsh but that is really not the point here. Even if we have capital punishment for a convicted rapist, till the rapist does not fear getting hanged, he will not stop.

It is very simple and basic. Remember, back in school, how it was easy to cheat in a certain teacher’s class whereas much more difficult on someone else’s? Their levels of attentiveness and strictness determined whether a student could cheat or not. Both these factors are equally important. Just being strict (say, capital punishment) isn’t enough because a student would still want to cheat thinking ‘Ahh, I know she’ll beat the hell out of me, but hey, she won’t catch me only.’ Similarly, on the other hand, just being attentive is also kind of useless. The kid would obviously give cheating a shot since he won’t be afraid of the consequences, thinking, ‘Let me try and copy some stuff, even if the teacher catches me, I’ll be let off easily.’

Now use the same rationale for a rapist. Both raping and cheating are wrong, on different levels, yes, but still wrong. Till the Delhi rapist is not afraid of both getting caught and the following consequences, women will keep getting raped. It is as simple as that. So when we ask for capital punishment for rapes, we must also ask our government to ensure that the culprits are actually caught and hanged.

In the meanwhile it is fine to fix the mentality of the people and spreading education and ensuring the problem is eradicated from the roots for a better future. But for a better present, we must take swift actions against these rapists who go on their joyrides raping women without the fear of getting caught.

I’ve only stated the obvious and there’s so much more I’d like to say. But then there’s nothing here that I’ve written which you already didn’t know but I guess I had to document this all.

Much thanks for your time, I hope humour is back into our lives soon. There’s too much darkness around.

Also, a suggestion, we need a little girl to sweetly walk up to the Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and give them a tight slap in full public view. That level of humiliation might affect them; or might not actually.

They’ve failed us. They’ve failed us bad.

Oh Weary Woman

The way you walk; the way you talk

I know men all around you gawk

What you wear; and your hair

Turns them on even more, I swear

This is not the kind of world you deserve

For survival, your kind we need to preserve

People are hell bent on destroying your kind

If it gets too late, there won’t be no rewind

Can’t imagine a world without you, oh woman

Imagine Maine Pyar Kiya without Suman

But if it continues the way it is

There’ll be no ‘Her’ outside the loo, only ‘His’

I’m a guy you can trust, come what may

But there’s only so much I can do or say

But till the time I’m with you, my lady

I’ll protect you from lads who’re shady

Alas, 4 guys will come and kill me first

Then come to you to quench their thirst

It saddens my heart when I can’t do a thing

And the men responsible, enjoy their bling

There’s no way to comfort you, I know

And I can’t help you get over this blow

I can’t ask you to relax, or even chill

It’s too late for that, it’s time to kill

Our own humankind is acting like crazy

An they’re making my vision hazy

If I start thinking about the mess, I can’t stop

I see no solution, and that’s so flop

I’m still fine; a guy does not get raped

And you, sometimes, even get taped

Can’t imagine the way you feel

God you’ve dealt them an unfair deal

There are ways to escape it, ways to avoid

Ways to stay alive, and not be destroyed

But that’s not something that I really want

I want a solution which I could flaunt

I can’t do it alone; I probably can’t do it at all

The one’s who’re supposed to, busy havin’ a ball

So come join hands with me, trust me on that

I’ll help you teach a lesson to each spoilt brat

Is it time for anarchy? For that one last blow?

Or do we just wait and watch? I don’t know.

Things are taking a turn for the worst

I’m telling you, even my head’s going to burst

Get a knife, get a gun, do what it takes

Carry a cobra, maybe they’re afraid of snakes

Oh weary woman, just try and stay strong

We’ve to work together to right the wrong

All this won’t help either, but it’s just my way

My way to tell you I care and that you must stay

Stay strong and collected; you can beat the heat

Because without you baby, I’ll be incomplete

I write to you simply as a man who cares

You, oh weary woman, into the oblivion who stares

I’m sorry about the world around you right now

I have immense respect for your bravery, here, take a bow

It’s not you, of course, it’s us who’re to blame

I know times have changed, it’s not the same

But I still dream of a better tomorrow, honest

Where we live in city; without the mentality of a forest

Here I sign off, still as clueless when I started

This effort to send out a message is not half hearted

So remember, oh weary woman, don’t you dare

Think that I don’t love you, or I don’t care

Pubic Interest Litigation

“Animal rights NGO files PIL against Salman Khan for Ek ‘Tha’ Tiger. Since it’s in past tense they are talking about a dead tiger and hence promoting killing the few remaining tigers.”

“Fevicol to sue Dabangg 2 producers for using their brand name in a song.”

“A flop dancer in Mumbai appeals to the public on Twitter to force an apology from a leading TV baron who said ‘fuck’ to her father.”

This world is being taken over by idiots. And this world is, apparently, going to end. Co-incidence much? I think not.

The first two scenarios mentioned at the beginning might or might not be true, but the last one surely is. Taking undue advantage of her significant following, a so called ‘Tweleb’ is raging about how her father was disrespected by a respected (or not so much) member of the TV/film fraternity. ‘Apparently’, I say apparently because there is no proof yet, other than her ‘word’, her father was called an ‘old fool’ or some such. This disgrace goes even further when reports surfaced that the F-bomb, which is of course the foulest expletive ever, was thrown towards her father. And to make it a life threatening situation, an incidence which could cripple any man for life, he was shown the finger. Thankfully she did not do katti with him. That would’ve broken his heart then and there.

Who in this world has ever asked somebody to fuck off, right? Have you ever shown the finger to someone? Of course not. And yeah we respect each and every old man in this world so much that we touch their feet at their very sight. This is the world we live in na? How dare anyone even look at that old man in the eye?

Gaah! Give me a FUCKING break.

We all curse like there’s no tomorrow and the middle finger is used as often as we used to use our little finger while at school to tell the world that we needed to pee. Most old people are a little slow and it gets a little difficult for our fast generation to deal with them. I’m not saying that we should go ahead and keep dissing these oldies at will but don’t you dare say that you’ve never cursed, albeit under your breath, some random old man on the road driving his car at 38 kmph. Or that annoying old man who keeps giving you gyaan about life whenever you cross his house.

All our teachers and bosses and seniors and even parents at times have been subjected to incidences of outrage by youngsters who’ve been unable to cope with them. I’m not trying to defend any of these ‘immoral’ activities but then let’s not make a hue and cry about it. We’ve all done it. We’ve all said kya kutiya hai bhancho under our muffled breath to that teacher in school who was very strict. Obviously that translates to what a bitch for all you preppies. I’ve even heard a friend of mine say my dad’s such an ass. Grandparents are obviously worse. It’s a natural progression of life where there is a slight gap in understanding between a particular generation and the one preceding it.

Why go ahead and demand a public apology for an incident as lame as this where an influential and powerful person calling a regular old bloke an old fool. Just try and look at yourself in the mirror first (apne girebaan mein jhaank ke dekho) and picture yourself react when the old guard of your colony fails to recognise you at night when you come back from a crazy party and does not let you enter for a minute or two (before he adjusts his glasses and recognises the cute dolly beti who’s all grown up now) . Or the look you give to an old beggar trying to walk across your car after the light at the junction has been turned green who ends up wasting six seconds of your precious life.

I reiterate that I am not trying to say what happened was right but then raging over such a puny incident is pretty lame. Deal with it; move on. Give your old man a hug of reassurance and tell him that you’ll go and withdraw the money for him instead of raging on Twitter and getting idiotic sympathy votes from your six thousand followers who’ve got nothing better to do in life. In case you want an apology, everybody should first apologise to Tusshar Kapoor for making fun of him. If you can’t make a public apology for making fun of Jeetendra for wearing a white shirt, white pants, white socks, white shoes, a white underwear, a white condom, a white nappy, white teeth, white hair, then bitch, please. 

Open Letter To A Parent Or A Parent-To-Be

Dear Parent/Parent-To-Be

I am writing to express my extreme displeasure about the fact that you had a kid or that you’re going to have one soon. What I am feeling is not without reason, but most of you all’s decision to have one, is.

It’s a fact, face it.

Image credit - twitter.com/blast_famous

Having a kid, especially here in India, is a natural way of life. The majority of us take the beaten down route; study well, get into a good college, graduate, get a well-paying job, get married, have kids, live, laugh, love, enjoy. This is how we are brought up and this is what we do. For some of us, the order of priority might be different, but most of us do end up taking the path one way or the other.

I don’t have a problem with people taking the path, it’s safe, it’s reliable, and you know others who’ve taken it and you feel comfortable on it. Fair enough. What I have a problem with, is, you, who has taken the path, looking down upon the ones who did not. Or could not. How or what makes them wrong is something I fail to understand, because it is not right to pass your own judgement and call them wrong. Hence I fail to understand it.

An unmarried 38 year old woman in India can easily be tagged a good-for-nothing frustrated soul who ‘could not’ get married. Her life’s a disaster and ‘OH-MY-GOD-I-DON’T-WANT-MY-DAUGHTER-TO-END-UP-LIKE-THAT-MUST-GET-HER-MARRIED-RIGHT-AFTER-COLLEGE’ is the attitude you will carry towards your own daughter. A 40 year old single man is obviously a drunk. Even if the said bachelor/bachelorette is NOT crazy, over time, the world makes them go mad. The woman stops taking care of herself and the man takes up boozing instead of eating. A once bright dream has now turned into a dark and depressing reality for them.

Tell me, who are you to say that a couple is ‘incapable’ of having a baby if they haven’t conceived even after 15 years of their marriage? Not having a baby at all is something most of us can’t even think of, can’t even consider. Sooner or later you have to get married and similarly sooner or later you have to have a kid; is how we roll. Have you ever thought about why you want/wanted a baby in the first place?

Oh it’s a magical thing they said; oh it’s an experience everyone must have they said; oh it’s so beautiful to hold your own baby they said; it’s the purpose of life they said.

It’s just overrated bullshit, tell them I said.

Just because we can have sex and we can procreate does not mean we have to. My definition of happiness does not include me having a baby with my partner. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure if you give it a thought, you would be clueless as to why did you have that kid (or going/planning to have one soon). There’s no good reason other than simply following the norm and the mumbo jumbo of a beautiful and a magical experience.

In today’s times, things are much more complicated; life is much more complicated. There’s so much more to do and people’s lives are becoming busier by the day. In spite of knowing all this clearly, we still end up adding more to the existing chaos. We decide to have the experience of a lifetime and have a kid. Bite me.

We won’t think about the fact that our lives will be finished (you know what I mean). Our individuality will die and we’ll happily cremate it. We’ll live on believing that now our kid is our life and that is how it is supposed to be. All our happiness and joy and adventure shall now revolve around the kid. We’ll take them to movies and annoy the fellow patrons; we’ll go to five-star hotels and let them jump around the posh restaurant and hide under tables while they play catch-catch; the mother shall stop working just so that she could raise her own flesh and blood in her own hands because she dare not keep the kid with some alien of a babysitter. No sir, we live for the kids, and that is how it is supposed to be.

We won’t care if our marriage is unhappy and the kid will have to endure it all and get affected by it when it grows up; we won’t care about the crazy times we are living in where the crime rates are increasing at alarming speeds all across the world; we won’t care about the fact that we can’t fend for ourselves because we’ll share that one roti three ways instead of two after having that god’s gift called a kid.

Right now, I don’t think I want a kid anytime soon. There are things I want to do and then there are things I don’t want to do. Is it so difficult to understand? I don’t want to have a kid. Simple. Why would you want to convince me otherwise? I’ll take my chances of living a lonely life when old but I don’t want to screw my youth because of that. I believe with the energy, effort, money and time I save by not having a kid; I’d be able to do a lot of other cool things and be a much happier person. It is a risk and I am willing to take it and I shall stand by my decision till my last breath.

I might change my decision tomorrow; I might never change it. Either way, I’m entitled to do what I want without you giving me that nasty look of how I’m going all wrong about my life. You’re nobody to say that. It is my life and I shall do what I want with it. You can give birth to a litter if you’d like, I shall make do with loving a dog, so to say.

Good luck to you and your kid or the future kid that is on its way. Be warned, it’s not going to be easy. Think about it while there’s still time.

Anyway, don’t tell me that I’m wrong for not wanting a kid. There are plenty of people in the world, there’s plenty of love around.

Quoting a Queen song I love – ‘Too much love will kill you.’ 

Sincerely,

A confused but an honest soul.