Slang Match - JaaL - desi satire eZine


Have Indian Men Entered The 21st Century?

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	Spins & Needles

Have Indian men entered the twenty-first century?
Ask me if they've entered the twentieth century first.
Hah. Indian men are still frozen at various stages of evolution and periods of time. From the Neanderthal Ape who skulks around muttering four-letter words into his mobile, to the Dark Age Monster who hasn't stopped beating his wife. From the Medieval Knight-in-Shining Armour who opens doors for women while keeping his own wife behind a closed door, to the Renaissance Know-it-All, Do-it-All who patronises young lovelies with his Been-There, Done-That professorial vibes. From the Victorian Bore who pontificates in public while his private interests remain prurient, to the Decadence Decadent of whom we need not say more. The current joke on the email circuit is, why are women coming out of the kitchens? Because the leash is too long. Ha,ha, polite laughter, you've come a long way, baby, and all that.
Hiding behind Mummyji's pallu, the Indian male looks at the changing world with some trepidation. Wife? Oh, Wife is Life for Mummyji's boy. Only, he wants to see Mummyji all over again in the Missus. At least, he wants one young lady, hymen-intact, milky-white, dowry-laden, educated-but-not-too-much, working-but-not-ambitious, professionally qualified but not nurse, secretary, typist, for those aren't professional professions, if you know what he means (nudge-nudge, wink-wink). Wife must also be mistress and concubine for husband, besides doing Karva Chauth and dancing on tables, as India's most progressive sociologist, David Dhawan, goes to some lengths to point out in his films, notably that watershed film Biwi No I. Wife is all, wife is Numero Uno.
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And where does the Indian male even have the time for anything these days? In the state transport buses he's too busy pinching bottoms and coming uncomfortably close to women. In the workplace, when he's not burning up with jealousy (the boss is a "bitch") or having a little ishq with his shapely secretary (no matter that he's been married fifteen years, with three kids of various sizes to show for it), then he's standing near the water cooler smoking a low-level cigarette and making lewd remarks about the Anglo-Indian typist who wears skirts to work.
On the screen, he's even busier, playing role model for all the millions of Indian young men who want to learn how to goggle at slim waistlines, bobbing bellybuttons, heaving bosoms. He's there pulling and pushing the nubile nymphet he wants to impress, asking for her smile number, mobile number and her private number. On the cricket field, he's too busy endorsing toothpaste and credit cards to bother about winning matches. On the net, he's too busy thinking up blonde jokes and then forwarding them.
He's still busy clubbing and pubbing, roaring and whoring, sighing and whying, sliming and two-timing, leering and jeering. Wanting his feet to be pressed, his fragile ego to be stroked. With so many primitive preoccupations, has the Indian male even realised that a new Millenium is happening? Even men won't want men any more. So will the Indian male be around to enter the twenty-first century?

Uma Mahadevan-Dasgupta is a bureaucrat. She lives in Mumbai with her husband and their two-month old butterscotch Labrador puppy, Whisky.

Ask me of the Indian male in the 21st Century and I'll spin a yarn, tell a tale; weave a story.
A story of long ago, when the great battle of Mahabharata was yet to be fought and the Indian male was a puzzled male, looking for answers to questions he couldn't find an answer to. And war was serious business; with a comely female, part of the booty to be fought for. But where to fight - the battleground, that was the question haunting the Indian male. Intrusions didn't take place those days and heights like Kargil and Drass and valleys like Mashkoh were not the idea of a battleground for the squabbling Indian male of that Age.
So he turned to God for inspiration.
God took the Indian male on a journey. On and on, they went, atop a chariot driven by God. After, God and the Indian male came across a strange spectacle.
What God and His companion saw was another Indian male, a grizzled old one, plowing a field with a plough hauled by a single ox. Close to the field where the man sweated and shouted at the ox, lay the body of a young male, obviously dead, departed. Even God was puzzled. He strode across to the field and hailed the grizzled old Indian male.
'You, there what are you up to with that single ox and a dead man lying not yards away?'
God's words made the grizzled one plowing the field look over his shoulder and when he saw God, he recognised Him immediately. 'O! Father of this world, Almighty! Pray, do not punish me. I'm only doing my duty as permitted to my Varna by the Gods themselves,' he implored.
'But why drive that single ox to death and whose body is this,' God questioned.
'Almighty, it's not my fault. I'm but a poor farmer. I can afford but one meal a day for my family. I cannot buy another ox. As for this body, it's that of my son whom I had been using as a second ox. Today, it was too hot and he pulled too hard. He died on his feet. O! God, it's not my fault,' the grizzled old male stuttered and trembled, his palms folded in obsequious prayer.
'Ok, Ok! I understand. But can't you at least cremate the body, shed a tear for him before you resume work; that's the body of your son, your son,' God admonished the grizzled one.
The admonition was lost on that ancient male.
'And miss my meal? I have to make do with whatever I have, continue working and eke out a living. As for my son, this world is a maya. He is dead and gone and no one should worry over the dead. Life goes on. I'll cremate him in the evening,' he said with the legendary resignation of the Indian male.
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God had no answer to that, and no more questions to ask. He and the Indian male of the royal lineage traced steps to the chariot and once again began the journey to locate the ideal battleground.
On and on they went and chanced upon a young Indian female with a bundle on her head. God halted the chariot once again and hailed the woman who too recognised Him and was immediately obsequious.
'O! God, I recognise you. Please accept my prayers,' she mumbled from below the bundle, hands folded.
'Where are you off to my daughter and what's that on your head,' God questioned.
'That Lord is food for my husband and father-in-law. They work in the fields yonder,' the young Indian female answered.
'Ah! Well good woman, I'm afraid I've bad news for you. The man you are married to is dead and your father-in-law continues to work with that single ox. He must be famished so rush to him with the food and urge him to cremate the body of the man you were married to,' God informed and advised the young Indian female.
Alas, God's words had the opposite effect. Instead of hurrying off to where her husband lay dead, the woman coolly squatted on the ground, Indian female style, and opening the bundle began to voraciously feed.
God and the Indian male with the royal lineage were stunned, and God more than a little angry.
'Hey, woman I'm surprised, and angry, too. I tell your husband's dead and his body is lying under the hot sun and you don't shed a single tear, not even rush to the spot. You just feed,' God did more than just admonish.
The words failed to move the young Indian female. From between stuffed cheeks, she managed: 'O! God, don't be angry. If I rush to the field without eating, my father-in-law will eat even that what was to be my husband's share. As for my husband's death and body, he is dead and gone. No use shedding tears over him. The world's all a maya, an illusion. Life goes on.'
God stood rooted to the ground, as if admonished.
For a moment only, though. He turned and said these words to the Indian male of the royal lineage, 'Here, we have found it, the battleground. This is your Kurukshetra. Nowhere else is a male of the species so obsequious, so resigned to his fate, so uncaring and so brutal in his actions that are spurred by hunger. Nowhere else is a female of the species so hardhearted, so greedy and so brutal in her thoughts spawned by hunger. This is indeed fit land to wage war. Mass the armies and go to battle.'
You ask me of the Indian male in the 21st Century. I say that the Indian male, as well as the female, continues to be in the same groove he/she was in the century when God went hunting for a battleground. Time stands still and Life goes on for the Indian male/female. There's nothing he/she has got which he/she missed in the centuries before the 21st Century. Even the world-wide-web won't change the pace of life for him/her. He/she is caught in a web of his/her own, a web spun out of hunger, poverty, deprivation, disease, death and a possible Life after Death!

Sushil Kutty is the News Coordinator for Neighbourhood Flash

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