The Indian cricket team lost a game to Bangladesh. Then it went on to lose a game to Sri Lanka. In between they won a game against another team from another country - Bermuda? Bahamas? Barbados? So the Indian cricket team did not earn the right to participate in the next round of the cricket world cup -a “World Cup” consisting of teams from a dozen (or is it two?) or so countries where cricket is played at all. (A football world cup is a real World Cup since football is played in practically every country!)
Not a tragedy. I minor piece of news. But one newspaper called the first loss, “Disaster Strikes India”. Oh, get real!
Then there were protests or incidents across India. Protests against what? Whom? That was a bit of a tragedy. It only shows the immaturity of some people, apparently jobless or at least senseless – hopefully temporary. What is worse is that some newspapers and some TV channels made it the “main course” in what they dished out whereas what they “dished out” hardly deserved to be even hors d'oeuvre.
One of the newspapers showed a picture of some women (girls?) protesters from (Lucknow or was it Kanpur, really does not matter confirmed later to be Patna) ‘heaping insults’ on an extremely talented and apparently committed Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, definitely past his youth and perhaps prime too. The form of protest? A poster of his, blackened in places and the girls are (posing for the benefit of the press photographers, obviously) making the Sachin in that poster wear bangles – a classic, abominable Indian method of insulting a man.
That is a tragedy.
Does it mean that those who wear bangles – women – are … what? Useless? Incapable? Weak? Unskilled? Unable to win? Or what? Why do these women have such a negative opinion of themselves?
Where is Feminism in India going? Whither Feminism? Or is it Feminism withered?
Not a tragedy. I minor piece of news. But one newspaper called the first loss, “Disaster Strikes India”. Oh, get real!
Then there were protests or incidents across India. Protests against what? Whom? That was a bit of a tragedy. It only shows the immaturity of some people, apparently jobless or at least senseless – hopefully temporary. What is worse is that some newspapers and some TV channels made it the “main course” in what they dished out whereas what they “dished out” hardly deserved to be even hors d'oeuvre.
One of the newspapers showed a picture of some women (girls?) protesters from (Lucknow or was it Kanpur, really does not matter confirmed later to be Patna) ‘heaping insults’ on an extremely talented and apparently committed Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, definitely past his youth and perhaps prime too. The form of protest? A poster of his, blackened in places and the girls are (posing for the benefit of the press photographers, obviously) making the Sachin in that poster wear bangles – a classic, abominable Indian method of insulting a man.
That is a tragedy.
Does it mean that those who wear bangles – women – are … what? Useless? Incapable? Weak? Unskilled? Unable to win? Or what? Why do these women have such a negative opinion of themselves?
Where is Feminism in India going? Whither Feminism? Or is it Feminism withered?
Self respecting women should protest against those women and also against the paper that published it, I think.
You are right - this is truly sick. And what makes it even more sad for me is that it is a bunch of women who are doing this, little realizing they are insulting themselves in the process.
ReplyDeleteBTW, do you remember which paper was this? Any links?
ReplyDeleteRite....apne pairon pe khuladi maarna!!!
ReplyDeleteWhoa! I was just about to do a post on this very issue!!
ReplyDeleteGood that I didn't write on this.
ReplyDeleteI fully agree with you.
Looks like I stopped two fellow bloggers from writing on this topic. Both women. Feminism is not dead I am sure now. :--)
ReplyDelete1. "A football world cup is a real World Cup since football is played in practically every country!"
ReplyDeleteI had never thought about it, previously. Nice point!
2. "A poster of his, blackened in places and the girls are (posing for the benefit of the press photographers, obviously) making the Sachin in that poster wear bangles – a classic, abominable Indian method of insulting a man. That is a tragedy."
(i)What's more tragic is that such women portray wrong picture of feminism in our society. Sad.
(ii) It simply shows how much respect they have for themselves and other all women,in general.
(iii)I'm sure they aren't aware of women like Kalpana Chawla & Lata Mangeshkar in male dominating (really?) society.
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A very thought provoking post. Very well done!