Ridin' Wit Da Flow

Sometimes breezing past everyday life seems like the easiest way out. If someone mentioned this in court, I'd be guilty as charged. Because hey, it's easy. Easy to look the other way, easy to sigh in relief cause it's not us. Ah... the quiet lull of false contentment. But somewhere, the devils' playing peekaboo and you fear you could be next.
So what provoked this mind numbing subject? Something as mundane as stepping out of my gym after a much needed and yet begrudged workout. As I stepped out in my track pants, pink jacket and gym bag in tow, what just about stopped my heart for a good ten seconds was a bunch of hoots and cat calls. A sharp 90 degree head turn allowed me to spot what was in fact the source of my superficial heart failure(LOL). A bunch of local boys, doing what they know best: rule the land like the lord and masters they were raised to believe they are. My mind reeled; flashing images of abuse went by as I decided on my next course of action. Should I make a run for it, or play it cool and calm. What do I do next if one of them decides to get too close for comfort? This little, albeit silly incident roughly translates into the following-:
1)As long as you have a Weaner, you can walk, talk, dress and behave any which way you'd like.
2) As long as you seem to have traces of womanhood ( read- breasts & legs), you will be subject to the kind of unruly behavior (in India) that the rest of the world would probably deem 4th world or worse.
3)If you so much as step outside the four walls of your house with clothes that remotely bear hint of the fact that you are a woman, you will be subject to hoots and cat calls and perhaps worse.
4) Even if you are COVERED as per the norms of those who make rules when they want to, you'll still be made to feel like you have no right to exist.
The list is endless, but I am sick and tired of feeling like I have no right to be myself when I'm out and about walking down the streets of a country that's supposedly mine and to whom I pay hard earned money in taxes that go nowhere that I can see. It makes me sick to my stomach to watch this patriarchal society run around believing they are the face of the new world, when the stories inside their own homes are dark and cloudy, filled with horror.
I even had a discussion with a female friend of mine. And the more you talk about it, the murkier the waters get. For example, any form that you fill, government or otherwise, will always ask you to fill in you father's name or your husband's name. Well, no offense to the fathers and husbands of the world, but shouldn't it be my choice whether I want to write my father's name or my mother's name or for a man to write his wife's name? Why force it on us? Does the worth of a woman begin and end with her ability to produce offspring and an occasional den to rest hungry lions? For God's sake, who gave you the right to claim the title of the be all and end all of the world??? Uh.. in case you didn't notice, ur only half the equation. Dim wits.
My anger mounts with every passing second. I cry hoarse if someone makes the mistake of labeling me a feminist. I AM NOT a feminist. Not in the least. I don't need to be treated specially or differently just because I am a woman. All I ask is that the world treat everyone as equal, that people be treated according to their merits and strength of character and not their gender. But the problem is, I could scream from now till the end of eternity, write a million blogs, garner strength from women across the nation who suffer worse on a daily basis, but the situation won't change. I say this because I come from a country where a lingerie store must face the wrath of the moral police who cannot digest the very idea of human beings requiring a decent pair of undies for their own personal hygiene. All lingerie store owners must live in fear of when some activists will come and tear their store down for having the audacity to sell underwear to those of us who wear them everyday of our lives. Oh! curse befall those who use condoms because oh! the moral police would rather have a nation succumbing to AIDS than educate people to make informed choices. Take a sneak peak in their own personal lives and you'll find worms crawling out of the woodwork; and I don't mean the ones the early birds eat every morning. But then again- maybe I do.
Don't pretend to be the face of the new world, when you don't know the first thing about being part of a moving, changing, growing and embracing world. Don't pretend to be the next super power country in the making, when you'd rather sit on ur arses and make polite and empty statements to the media while ur countrymen get burnt and hacked to death for just being Indian. Better yet, don't exist.