Not Again :(

If another soul even as much mutters 'Women's Day' another time, I might just break into a dance. Not a happy jig around a tree, mind you. A very elaborate tandav is what you'll have to endure. Bhagwaan ke liye, stop marking this day on your calendar every forsaken year, to patronize, validate and venerate us. A woman these days, atleast in civilized parts of the world, is NOT defined by her gender anymore. Now, before you brand me as another impractical, star-gazing, dissing, humbug idealist, think again. Yes, I am aware that many of us are still ill-treated, pushed around and bossed about today because of our very sex... the menace of dowry, physical abuse, denial of education, mental trauma still haunting countless women, even in the present, much-hailed 21st century. Yet, half the women I know despise the very idea of having a hot summer day per annum dedicated to pseudo-venerating them... their TVs, newspapers, radio stations and even workplaces densely dotted with a bunch of oddball czarinas talking through their heavily made-up mouths about 'empowerment', 'winning-against-all-odds' and 'liberation' - SO BORINGLY done to death now. All this should no doubt happen. But not just because you're a woman. Why, I know so many men too who have won against all odds. Whether the odds in question are a caste issue, a coming-out-of-the-closet issue, a class issue or a medical issue. Why doesn't anyone celebrate such individuals? Why focus on women, apparently the 'weaker' lot, who have defied convention and carved a place for themselves in society? That's not to take credit away from them... all I'm saying is DO NOT chant for us or pedestal-ize us, because we're women. If need be, go educate those sections of the society - the socio-economic backward regions, about how its not fashionable to ostracize women anymore. Because it simply does not make sense in the world of today. There's nothing a man can do that a woman cannot and vice-versa. (yeah yeah... except for the you-know-what stuff, of course). I think many of us have realized that and can relate to that.

So you may be wondering what is a (scary-looking) Rihanna video doing in this crusading post of mine. For me, women like her symbolize how the woman of today has truly arrived. She is confident, aggressive, even a tad brash and abrasive (qualities we usually tag men with) and does not expect brownie points for being a woman. Oh, and she made life miserable for her jerk-of-a-boyfriend who physically abused her. I'm sure we will soon have her clones everywhere. We don't need a special day in the year to applaud all this. Let this be a continuous phenomenon - day in and day out.

PS: For those of you who've dozed off by now, I apologize for this humdrum topic that I've chosen to rant about. Its just that I'm being harrowingly stifled by all this talk about Women's Day around me... today there is this workshop on the same being organized by my organization and I'm SO dreading it. Not the gaseous talk, of course. The ensuing tandav is what I'm worried about ;)