Celebrating Womenhood..... Or are we?

100 years of women and womanhood was celebrated on 8 March 2011. Every store had special offers for the women, events dedicated to the better sex on TV, radio and print. Suddenly every person, a stalker, a rapist, a khaki clad, a concerned father, a loving brother and just another person.... all seemed to have dedicated their day to the women in their life and also those not in their life.

Being a crime reporter and specifically a lady crime reporter, I did not celebrate the womanhood. Obviously because i did not find one good reason to do so. After seeing crime with extreme close proximity, its hard to believe that women hood is actually celebrated.

I meet a cop : the one who is supposed make people feel secure. But surprisingly i feel insecure with the dirty stare i get in return. I visit a court and see the black and white clad lawyers stalking at me. Just like the crows on your roof top when you are trying to drop something out. I visit my office, i see my senior a boob starer making you feel uncomfortable despite covering every part of your skin. On Women's day i saw NO difference.

When women talk for their rights, men argue and at the end of their conversation they term you a feminist. A man argues and when comes close to his defeat, he hits your week spot. If he still loses, then the girl's image is tarnished big time. Men talk about equality, but they are certainly the ones who cant digest women's growth.

A father rapes his daughter, a husband hacks wife's id to keep a check on her, a senior officer seeks sexual favours in reputed Institution, failing which a peon is made to head a post graduate. It happens till date and hopefully not further.

I am sure to hurt many sentiments of people whom I know, who belong to the stronger sex. No matter how liberated they are in their thinking, the stigma still prevails. I say with no exceptions... only hoping that there are exceptions.

Stone heart.... Am I ???

Someone called me stone hearted today!

Although i dont like this person, a lawyer who just tries to grab an oppurtunity to shake hands with me and stand next to me, he called me i am stone hearted. The reason being that i had refused to receive his calls, for obvious reasons. But his words still echo in my head as i really think if I have become stone hearted.

Every job has its good and the ugly side. Being a crime reporter i have faced more of the ugly side than the beatiful one. Surving your day hoping some crime happens on that day so that i could meet my deadlines and file something for the day. I think I have become stone hearted.

Been in the profession and seriously being in the profession, i really think i have become a lesser human. Death has become a routine, and my day doesnt end without suicide, murder, rape or the likes.

Although i knew about this creeping in, I could ignore unless people started pointing out inhumanity in me... Time to move on with no regrets and turn more humane...

Section 377

From now on its safer walking with the opposite  gender because people will not doubt your sexuality! I heard people saying this on the evening of June 2, 2009 when the section 377 was read down to decriminalise same sex behaviour among consenting adults in a historic judgement by the High Court of Delhi.  

I wonder if this order was made to announce whether you are straight or not.. 

the motive of this order was something else... Duh! 

I don't understand what and how is this order gonna affect a common person like you and me. Even after the High court orders, the sun and moon are still in the sky, you and me walking on the streets and birds are still flying in the air leading their same old life. Of course those who actually fought for this and are not a man and woman must be celebrating their IDENTITY. So what. 

Just flipping the channels today, I saw that so called "Baba Ramdev" will be appealing against this decriminalising gay rights. I wonder what draws a baba's interest into this. I guess his asanas and his pravachans are not getting him enough publicity these days. 

Each day we do find these people(the other sex) begging near signals and trains demanding money and when you refuse they blurt out curses. But somewhere in the bottom of the heart I am sure all of us would feel sorry at them and even discuss that they have no other option, but beg and give away some chillars expecting some blessings in return. Aren't you happy, after this order, their number in the signals might come down?

If this order helps them gain an identity, acceptability and a freedom to live their own life,  convinced that they will not be termed as criminals, then how does it spoil or any way affect  our society!  

I am sure many senior citizens are against this, considering it as something vulgar, but end of the day its not about choosing their sexuality, but being and living with it.!!

Its not easy to put ourselves in their shoes, but soooo many people who call themselves belonging to the other sex cannot be wrong. 

Its high time people accept the change and live their own life and the "Bam Bam bole Babas" need a lil more asanas to widen their vision and think beyond mantras and asanas. For their kind information, even our epics have characters from other gender!!!

Crime reporters are not GOD

I am not such an established crime reporter yet, but still have begun to feel the heat of this profession. In this four months' experience as a crime reporter with The New Indian Express I have learnt that people consider us to be very much like God. I mean ... Anybody has a problem, they rush to us.
Talking about my latest experience, one of our office managers, came to me saying that his wife's chain was snatched while she was walking towards her residence. Alright, like a decent reporter , I jotted down every detail from where she was coming from, how was the chain, where was she going, what time, which direction etc etc etc. Though our paper has stopped writing about the chain snatching complaints (Cos it is very comman and our paper lacks the space) I wrote this one which even got published. The story should have ended here right?
Wrong, I have this man asking me as what happened to his chain.. For God sake how would I know that? I am not the one who snatched. Did you tell the commissioner? did they find the chain? when will I get it? and with a zillion such questions, this man haunts me everyday. Seriously, even I am praying to God that let this man get hsi chain as soon as possible, so that I am spared...
This is just an example, we face such problems each day, where people approach us with a lot of hope and expectations without understanding that we too are just like them, serving a job.

Rakshita Adyanthaya