Sunday, July 30, 2006

The Indian Male

These three words describe more than half a billion people, yet today they have a decidedly negative connotation, possibly because they have on innumerable occasions been used by various people to describe what is wrong with our country. Most of what you would read on the issue would be by women authors, obviously so. Accordingly we are depicted as dominating, wife-beating, self-worshipping, autocrats with a propensity to commit atrocities against those of the fairer sex. Admittedly this may be true for a few but (in my experience) broad generalizations seldom apply to enough to justify their use.
Face it some guys are completely the opposite, I’ve known of a guy who was physically beaten up by his wife and thrown out of his own house. Even though I feel he’s a bit of a pussy for not going to work on her with a hockey stick (the proper wooden, lawn hockey type), I can understand his reluctance; I might not be able to do it myself.
Since we are on the topic of violence toward women, lets talk about the whole dowry death thing. Men take a lot of flak on this issue, rightly so, if however you would chose to read the newspaper a little more carefully, you would notice that in such cases, the husband is often accompanied into police custody by his mother. The mothers are generally involved either in inciting their sons or in the act of murder itself.
I feel our mothers (and occasionally) fathers are responsible for the current sorry state of affairs. We are brought up to believe that we are demi-gods. No household is considered complete without a male heir. Many try and try and try and try some more, just for that elusive male child. When he does arrive, he is typically treated as a prize, how do you expect to raise a normal human being this way? We spend our entire youth getting what we want; convinced we can do no wrong. Why do they act surprised when we do? In most homes, women are subservient, quietly performing whatever is demanded of them, why do you then expect us to accept any other form of behaviour in the real world.
There’s nothing wrong per se with the Indian Male, we aren’t genetically predisposed to violence, we can be sensitive, affectionate and caring, it’s just that no-one bothers to tell us how to.

No comments: