Tag: respect

I Don’t Believe In Women’s Day

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Screen Shot 2018-03-08 at 12.13.41 PM.pngI’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

If you’ve wished me, I’ll wish you back because you believe in it and I won’t ruin it for you. But I will not buy into the facade that you’ve dedicated an entire day for me when the remaining 364 days of the year, I have to walk around afraid of what label you’re about to give me.

“Celebrating women, their beauty and their strength!” – Forward message of the day. Really?! How? How are you celebrating our beauty and our strength? By whistling at us? By winking at us? By grabbing us? By making kissing faces at us as we walk to our car in broad daylight with our father less than two feet away? By telling us children aren’t a choice? By judging us for not being married? By labelling us for dating? By relating the respect we deserve to the number of times our vagina has been touched?

You’re right. Not all men do this. But almost all women go through it. So good for you that you’re not all bad. But there’s enough of you to ensure we’re ALL suffering from the perverseness and your belief that you have the right to choose for me.

To choose my career – when it begins, when it ends, how far I go, how much money I make,
To choose my marriage – who I marry, when I marry, how big my wedding is, how long the wedding lasts,
To choose my role as a parent – if I can be a working mom, if I can be a full-time mom, if I can be the only parent who gives a fuck and changes diapers, IF I WANT TO BE A MOM,
To choose what I want done to my body – if I want to get tattoos on it, if I want piercings on it, if I want you to touch it, if I want you to admire it, if I want you to take pictures of it, if I want you to fuck it,

You believe you have the right to choose it all for me.

So where, in all of this, are you celebrating me?

From the moment I wake up until I fall asleep, I have to watch what I eat, how I look, how I smell, how I laugh, how I stand, how I sit – because you can’t keep your eyes, your hands, your words, your thoughts and your penis to yourself.

But hey! I have a day to celebrate me!

And it’s not just the men. Women label each other, too. Sometimes, we can be the worst kind of hypocrites. She’d show up at her house past midnight every night but, “Hey! Did you know that other girl’s out late every night? Someone’s a little slut!”

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a woman bitch about another, I’d be buying myself that Rolex right now.

Because having the latest gossip gives you street-cred. Knowing who is currently sleeping with whom makes you the talk-of-the-town. Because sometimes, the only way to get attention for yourself is to focus on someone else’s life.

The truth may be a hard pill to swallow. But if you can’t relate to the above, you’re probably the one doing it.

I mean, it’s so nice to sit at your favourite restaurant on a pleasant day with your best friend, updating each other on your other friends’ lives, isn’t it? “Oh she gained so much weight,” comes so naturally. That’s not bitching. That’s updating. Right?

But is it?

Remind yourselves of your conversations with this person. Have you ever mocked someone? Have you ever talked ill about someone?

Newsflash: If you’re an adult, chances are your best friend has another best friend and if she’s bitching about her to you, she’s bitching about you to her. Doesn’t feel good, does it? To know that you’re being spoken about? Yeah, I thought so.

It’s the year 2018. I’m a 25-year-old afraid to speak her mind, afraid to wear what I want, afraid to hold my boyfriend’s hand in public, afraid to show up home late, afraid to post pictures of alcohol, afraid to walk outside once it’s dark, afraid to scream at that asshole driver and afraid to live my life without watching every little thing I do. Because I’m not just afraid of the men and their minds and their hands.

I’m afraid of both the genders. Because being violated physically is horrifying but that doesn’t mean gossiping about me and saying mean things behind my back while calling yourself a friend to my face is great.

You feel like celebrating Women’s Day?

Then do it the right way.

Teach your children (and yourself, if necessary) the freedom of choice. Not the freedom for you to choose for me. But MY freedom for ME to make MY OWN CHOICES.

For something as simple as being able to wear my favourite pair of shorts without having to worry about what man is looking, what man’s going to corner me on the street, what he’s going to say, what face he’s going to make or if he’s going to come touch me against my wishes. And without having to wonder if at that moment you’re looking at me and smiling, you’re also texting your other best friend – fat-shaming, name-calling and mocking me.

Until then, I’m calling this day what it is…

A SHAM.

Understanding the Differences

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In a world of over-achievers, I’m a mediocre. I live my life in a way that I see fit and not everyone understands or approves of it. But that’s every one of us, isn’t it?!

My brother has a book coming out called Ketchup & Curry. As he explained to me the concept of the book, I started thinking – We live in a world that is unbelievably diverse. What I saw in Los Angeles,  I can never imagine seeing in my city and it works the other way around as well. So what happens when one of us decides to go and live in a place that is filled with people who couldn’t be more different than you are?! How do you live in a foreign country surrounded by people who are unlike you and still live peacefully and happily?

I’ve travelled quite a bit. My passion is to learn and understand different cultures and someday, write about it all. I need to be the most nonjudgmental human being on the planet to pursue a career out of that. Like I’ve mentioned before, my parents raised me saying “thou shall not chill with a man who is not your brother, father, family or betrothed.” When I first moved to a foreign country, the first couple I saw making out on the street were both women. Here’s the culture shock – you don’t kiss people in public. If you’re older than 20, your own father will flinch when you try to kiss his cheek in public. Then comes “OMG ! THAT’S TWO WOMEN !” But I thought that was the most beautiful thing. The freedom to be who they are and not having to hide. I lived there for about four months. When I left, I no longer had the need to judge people for the choices they make out of love. That was the first thing most people didn’t understand.

When I started university, my classes were only a few hours a day. I had plenty of free time on my hands and I spent three quarters of them on YouTube. Have you ever been so bored that you started out with a music video but a few hours later, found yourself in that weird part of youtube? That happened to me. I was watching Paradise by Coldplay and somehow ended up watching videos of people with Gender Identity Disorder and videos of Transgenders and their everyday struggles. In my city, the only kinds of transgenders I’d encountered were the ones who usually come and ask for money. When you say no, they try to bully you into giving them money or whatever it is that you have. So whenever I saw them, I’d get scared and try to walk away. But those videos forever changed my idea of them. I never realized how incredibly nice they can be if you just understand them and accept them. You know when you’re the black sheep in the family and everyone’s giving you the cold shoulder and you just look at them thinking “My friends understand. Why can’t you? Come on ! A little acceptance would be nice!” Imagine living life like that every day. But you’re not just asking your family. You’re asking the entire human race (with the exclusion of a few people here and there) to understand you and accept you. I might not be their best friend, but I stopped running away. I chose to stop and give them an answer when they asked me something. Sure there are some of them that are thieves and cheaters. Tell me a time when a man or woman you trusted wasn’t a thief or a cheater? We’re all human beings and the least we can do is treat each other the way we’d like to be treated. In a society that already lived like that, I learnt to accept them and live in peace. That’s the second thing most people don’t understand.

I still meet people who are completely different from who I am. I meet people who make choices I can never imagine making for myself. “She had six boyfriends in the past” is a statement that is approved in one culture while looked down on in another. Judging the people who disapprove of it isn’t going to make my life any better. But that doesn’t mean I have to change who I am. Every person is entitled to their own opinions. I can’t control my thoughts about things. Similarly, the other person’s thoughts are his own.

I can be cheesy here and say “Please let us love one another.” But that’s a statement that won’t ever work. We can’t all love everything. So let me tell you what I’ve learnt in my life – “Yes, we’re all different. We may not all have the ability to accept our differences and love each other. But the least we can do is to keep the hate to ourselves. Stop the stupid fights on comment sections. Stop comparing. Stop name calling. You do your thing and let them do theirs. If you don’t like something, walk away. It is not your place or in your right to judge someone who likes it. You can go ahead and live your life the way you want to. But the next person’s life is theirs. It’s their choices. It’s their interests and if they screw up, it’s their consequences. Unless you’re asked, don’t give your opinions. It’s as simple as that. Remember, who you are is insignificant when you’re gone. It’s the words you say and the actions you do that you leave behind..”

In a world of over-achievers, I’m a mediocre. I live my life in a way that I see fit and not everyone understands or approves of it. But nobody gets to judge it. Nobody but me.

And that’s the only thing I wish people would understand.