Frankly, I’ve never personally been in awe of the pubgoing crowd whether it’s girls, boys, bhais, behenjies, uncles and aunties simply because this behavior is a pathetic western imitation, and not an original socio-cultural indulgence for the purpose of spending some quality time. For most of them going to a pub and "taking a shot" is a style statement. The moment they enter a pub premises it dawns upon them like a heavenly realization, finally, we have arrived! Nonetheless they have all the right under the sun to indulge in such activities whether they’re pretending or not and nobody has a right to stop them.
In light of the recent attacks on pub-going women in Mangalore a FaceBook group has been created by the name of A Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women and they have decided to send thousands of pink panties to the offices of the Sri Ram Sena whose workers had attacked the inebriated ladies in the pub. I think it is a novel way of reacting to such cultural thugs rather than sitting quietly at home and commiserating.
Interestingly, Kanchan Gupta wrote a column in the Pioneer, berating the entire pink-chuddy-bhejo activity; he says this is a ridiculous activity and the country has much graver issues to tackle. Certain bloggers have also articulated their opposition here and here. I never noticed Kanchan Gupta writing a column in protest when the activists of the Sri Ram Sena went berserk and beat up the women. I also wonder if these bloggers had a few words to reprimand the action or if they were repulsed by the attack, the way they are when the others do such things.
Sadly, balanced view is rare in our country. People are either totally Left, totally Right or totally conspiratorial (our secular media). There is a big chunk of the population that is constantly finding stupid excuses for everything the fundamentalist Muslims indulge in. And there’s another section that is constantly sneering at reactions to Hindu fundamentalism and finding excuses for Hindu excesses. Both the sections imitate the very behavior of which they perpetually accuse each other. I think the only exception is the news channel Times Now… their reporting is unbiased to a great extent.
Yesterday we saw Slumdog Millionaire. Recently Kanchan Gupta had written that the movie is about defaming Hindus. This was a totally WTF column as there was no such thing in the movie and in fact it is quite a nice movie with a fast-paced plot and an interesting theme. In fact the slums of India is just a theme around which the story has been woven and it is nowhere like that poverty stricken art movie crap. Unfortunately there are people like him on both Hindu and Muslim sides who are constantly creating shadow monsters to beat them and spread fear in their respective communities.
Coming back to the loose, pub-going, forward-thinking women, no, I don’t support their cause, but I do support the reaction. I don’t think going to a pub makes you forward-thinking, but since our law doesn’t take its own course in such cases and you’ll find apologists in every nook and corner of the country (and the Internet) always pointing you to "look what the others are doing and we are not that bad" some kind of protest, even in the form of the pink-chaddi-bhejo-abhiyan must be appreciated by every responsible citizen of the country. The chuddies may be smelly, but the manifestation of the protest is certainly not.
Apparently the campaign has been organized by a Tehelka reporter (not sure) and it is a publication that I detest, but this is not the point. It is symbolic, and ideally, it should have been started by a person or an organization that really cares for the country, but even if it hasn’t been, you should support it simply to annoy people like Muthalik and show them that this is the sort of reaction their antiques get. Attack a fellow country man or woman in the name of culture, you get jail, and you get a pink chuddy. People who don’t see the implication, are simply dumb, or don’t have a sense of humor.
