Women and their insecurities

I am a small town guy who came in this big city for better prospects. Say it my hard work or my luck or as some would say by God’s blessing today I have a great job, a good house and a car. Some would say I am living the perfect Indian dream.

Unfortunately, my car broke down today and I was compelled to take a route seldom travelled by me in the last five years. I was going to take the bus to my office! I got up on the bus hoping for an enjoyable bus ride after many days, but something happened on the bus which did shake up my morality and my grey cells and forced me to take a closer look at our civilized and humane society. Rather maybe it is always happening on public transports and in places all around us; maybe for some it is not even an event worthy of notice or thought. But it did strike me.

Luckily, (I guess) I got a window seat. After sometimes a school girl sat beside me. She seemed to be a very lively as any other school girl clad in her school uniform of shirt and skirt but still she was a bit too self conscious for her age trying to read through her co-passengers’ mind. It felt that she was very uncomfortable about something. I was a bit amazed seeing her fear, as I was constantly trying to guess who, in this “civilized” world, would be a reason for her discomfort.  As time went the bus started getting crowded; people had to stand due to shortage of seats. When the bus was almost full, something caught my eye and I was shocked. A middle aged man was very badly pressing his body against girl’s and girl though she understood the fact that she was being “mildly” assaulted couldn’t do anything except trying to move away as much as possible. I felt sorry for the girl and offered her the window seat. I felt awkward when she wasn’t even comfortable there. It felt from her body language that she even suspected me for offering the window seat being a stranger and of course being a “man”. I was literally shocked!

After a while I turned my mind away from these and tried to take a short nap but my nap was interrupted even before it got well under way. There was a heated argument going on somewhere towards the back of the bus. I turned back, searching for the source of the shouts and saw a boy and a girl, by the looks of them both looked like college students, engaged in a fight of words. From what I could make out of their conversation was that the boy had done some kind of misbehaviour to the girl, maybe he tried to grope her or something and she protested.  But what amazed me even more was that some of the co-passengers (that included some women also), instead of supporting her, were blaming the girl for her misfortune. They said her dress was “inappropriate”.  Others were enjoying the show.

Just as I was thinking to come to her aid, the bus came to a halt at my destination. Taking a final glance towards the commotion, I vacated my seat. I turned back once and saw that the same middle aged man who was standing took my recently vacated seat beside the girl. Her face was full of terror. With a deep sigh I got down from the bus.

All these thoughts kept rumbling in my head the whole day. I was oft pondering about our status, where we were, and where we have reached now, searching in vain but with tremendous hope for signs of any kind of betterment in the way of life than our forefathers. But I neither could see nor feel the silver lining.

Maybe I am thinking too much. Maybe the people who always avail the public transport system are well accustomed to all these. Maybe that’s why these don’t strike them as it struck me. But I literally can’t stop my fingers from pouring down all these words on my WordPad as my grey cells are swimming in my head, gurgling out memos on our present humanity. The more we change the more we remain same. Some may think that I am frustrated (or intoxicated) enough to think philosophical sayings. Well they may not be much wrong.

But it’s not really philosophy, it’s a perception. We have to just take a look at today's world; and more importantly we have to take a quick peek at the curious case of "Woman".  Don't we find our mythological "Draupadi", "Sita", "Kunti","Ahalya" and so on all around us? Have we really changed? Though we have so many reservations   for women in almost every arenas of daily life still are they secured ?? Have the narrow lanes of our mind been transformed into freeways? Well my "frustrated" brain doesn't feel so. Our social outlook and acceptance haven't really moved on. Places, appearances, language, transport, habits, fashion, trends, and modes of entertainments may have changed; inter relations, education, science may have advanced a lot; they may have made loads of changes to the social backdrop but have it made any change to the essence of it?

Isn't it like some old wine in a new bottle but unlike wine it doesn’t improve but deteriorates? The caramel of the society just remains the same changing its wrapper era after era. And the candy is losing its crunch with the passage of time.

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