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The video post, the call for followers’ attention on social media, and the horrific, nasty, leering comments drooling at the voyeurism all point to just one thing - the depravity of the average Indian man.
A video from New Year’s Eve on Marine Drive in Mumbai, India, has gone viral, shared by a handle that actually asked for 10k followers to “post full video”.
I have a story to tell you. Picture this:
A turbulent/iffy/memorable year, as the case may be, is finally coming to an end and you are with your significant other (SO). As passion strikes you, you seal the moment with a lip lock, a warm embrace. You forget to draw the curtains because the moment takes you in and expressing your emotion at that special instant becomes a pulsating imperative, the only action that makes any sense, nothing else matters.
Some of us have been lucky enough to be in that ephemeral minute and understand how very special that point is!
When the throbbing heart overtakes the senses, the cautionary head does take a back seat. Sadly, this situation of succumbing to the diktats of thy heart doesn’t always work for the better.
Take for instance this young couple who thought they had stolen a special moment. Only they didn’t account for the countless voyeuristic passers-by, who actually stood on the road below hooting lustily at them.
Have I scratched your conscience yet?
No?
These men then ripped their phones out and started recording the couple’s making out.
Some even shared the video on social media, asking for an increase in the number of followers, inviting comments and promising to share more footage if the counter went North.
One such prized citizen is …
Forget the nauseous post, the cringe comments on this post make one wonder what kind of debauched society have we become? Have the men who are passing lewd remarks feel that they have arrived on this planet via immaculate conception? Have they or their relatives never indulged in a moment of amour?
Is privacy such a difficult ask?
Why is a simple peck by a couple in the confines of their room, turning random gaping men on so much?
It feels perversion and voyeurism have become mainstream and this is Mumbai we are talking about which is supposed to be an advanced society compared to the rest of India, where time is money and people have no time to spare.
Yet scores of grown men stopped walking, stood still, stared unabashedly, shouted, smirked and passed obscenities.
Could you imagine the plight of the young couple? How scarring this would have been? How a special instant degenerated into a scalding hell?
Would they overcome this trauma somehow?
Perhaps!
The scary part is that anyone with a camera can pry into your life and upload it for collective consumption.
The scarier part is the no-holds-barred, public armchair flogging by random strangers on such seriously worrisome shares.
The video post, the call for followers’ attention on social media, and the horrific, nasty, leering comments drooling at the voyeurism all point to just one thing – the depravity of the average Indian man.
My question is why and how do random men get away with this sort of blood-boiling behaviour with zero accountability?
Will these sleazy beings ever be taken to task? Will someone stand up and ask the right questions? Don’t the parents of those bois who went berserk at Marine Drive have their fair share of blame in this sordid fest, for their sons’ tacky demeanour?
Where does the genesis of this terrible problem lie?
If we raise our sons right because our daughters are already at fight, will we see a shift in societal behavioural patterns, even a generation later?
Too much to hope for?
As a cynical and jaded pen, I thought I had seen much, but this Meta post share gets my hackles up.
On New Year’s Eve, we were out with my daughter. As the clock ticked away towards midnight, we were heading towards the parking and the malls were already getting rapidly filled with men who gave you the mental strip-scan. As I hurried my young daughter to our car, she said, “Mom, don’t get frightened so easily, this is the daily affair on my way to college.”
I stood still for a second as my heart sank.
And that, dear reader, is the crux of the story.
The baser thinking of the prying men, that women are easy meat available for public gazing and ogling, privacy be damned!
And people living in glass homes should know better.
Anupama Jain is the author of: * ’Kings Saviours & Scoundrels -Timeless Tales from Katha Sarita Sagara’, listed as one of the best books of 2022 by @Wordsopedia. Rooted in the traditional storytelling of Indian legends, warriors, read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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