While office commute can be a
source of endless complaints and heartburn, it can be a blessing in disguise.
It is completely your ‘me time’ and it can run into 1, 2 or more than 3 hours
daily. Imagine in a day of 24 hours, where people choose to work for over 12;
this is the time when you can completely zone out. Maybe drive, listen to
music, pray, read, watch a series or chose to talk to all the friends and family
members who you ignored through the day
On one such day at work, I
happened to time my exit perfectly well with a couple of colleagues who could
give a free home delivery of my self. At times a company is not always
considered as intruding upon this ‘me time’. After complaining about
controllable and uncontrollable things at work, we decided to give ourselves a
break and talk about everything but anything related to office. From which are the
newly opened restaurants or movies you have watched recently; our conversation
went to women empowerment. A theme, maybe overused, abused in all forms of
media. Lipstick under my burkha was a trigger for this discussion. While one of them
said it was too dark, the other said it was soft porn and one felt it was real
but crude
If you think about it, why would
you call it soft porn? The movie did talk about female sexuality in a nation
which is probably sexually frustrated. But it also did tell the story of an
aspiring rockstar and woman trying to gain financial independence. But what
most chose to remember was a hag who fantasized in her old age and the young
girl who couldn’t take a stand between her boyfriend and her fiancé. We all
know pornographic content is viewed the most on mobile phones. People across
social strata, literally invest in data packs to calm their nerves or possibly
titillate their senses. One of the colleagues said India’s population is
testimony to the horniness of the country. Well, I flatly refused the claim
saying it is the testimony to India’s under-education in the areas which need a
lot of attention. We all have seen people abroad making out in trams or
metros; we still are a nation which tries to ‘get a room’ in most circumstances
if our wallets / houses provide. So yes, we are not the horniest; probably a
highly curious and an unsatisfied bunch of people somewhere struggling between
traditional expectations and a modern outlook
Having read a couple of
adaptations of the Mahabharat, and a few other mythologies; I strongly feel
India has regressed greatly in the last 200 years. If our schools taught the
unadulterated version of the Mahabharat, our children would have understood
teenage pregnancies, surrogacy, infidelity, polygamy a lot better than what
they do today by talking under wraps. Not only is the epic one of best ways to
understand human emotions of love, enmity, friendship and deceit; one can have
modern day parallels to everything that happened thousands of years ago. It is
hypocritical how carvings on the temple of Khajuraho are pious but uttering the
s-word is against morality! We are the same nation which spoke boldly about
Balbir Pasha a couple of years ago but is banning condom ads during the day, today!
Possibly people dying of STDs is a better way to control population!
I briefly did feel bad about the
state of affairs but then got back to reading The Great Indian Novel, where my
favorite characters from the Mahabharat were brought to life during the British
Raj
