I felt that this photo (taken during Ayesha Takia’s wedding reception) says a lot about the class-divide in India that we continue to talk about. Notice the ladies in the top left corner and the young boy in the bottom right and, of course, the unmissable back of a celebrity representing the ‘elite’. Although it is just one of many random pictures taken during a celeb wedding, it does provide a social commentary on class distinction that we rarely see captured in photographs.

This photo reminded me of the Pink Chaddi Campaign and I looked up the PCC blog. They are now attempting to bring people together for ‘peaceful’ rallies to raise a voice against the recent attacks on women in Bangalore for wearing ‘jeans’. Good for them. Better late than never. Two things on their blog captured my eye:

1. First, one of the victims who was attacked in Bangalore writes:

First they started hurling obscenities at me in Kannada and then it became physical. They started touching and pulling at my clothes. One of them tugged so brutally at the shrug I was wearing that he scratched my neck. Their goal — to show the collected crowd the top that I was wearing underneath my shrug.

When the shrug didn’t come off with their tugging, the violence of the tugging increased. In self defence I hit out at an offending hand that was trying to disrobe me. The response, he slapped me hard across my ear. Then they began trying to lift my top up while making references to ‘pink chaddi’ – the only words I could understand of their tirade.

hmm. Need I comment?

2. Second was a lady called Avanthika’s comment on the PCC blog:

(unedited because it shows that there is a class in India different from the perfect-English speaking and writing group that we become accustomed to through our blogs)

Dear Pink Chaddi Campaigners!

I really appreciate your efforts; you peoples by sitting inside those air conditioned cubicles are doing a wonderful job for the normal and ordinary females like us who are verymuch comfortable in living a happy and secure life by following the unwritten yet very clear laws defined by our caring parents and brothers. Pls don’t consider each and every females in this country belongs to your category people who loves do anything if it is believed to be modern or any activity which the westerners are doing in the label of individual freedom. We are extremely happy with the freedom we are enjoying in the society and we never need the freedom beyond that limit so that we can go to pubs during midnights and enjoy the whole night inside having drinks and do all that modern adventurous stuffs with other like minded males/females.
[...]

Anyway the Great Pink Chaddi Campaign is proving to be really effective day after day, the response that the normal people like we are getting in the streets these days proving the effectiveness of your campaign. Now that, people like us are forcibly manhandled in daylight by the pink chaddi fans, their intensions are pretty clear, they just wanted to check whether we are Loose, modern and pub going, by checking the color of our chaddis in public. Now we are not able to wear modern looking attires like jeans or long skirts, because the pink chaddi fans will approach us for a date thinking that we are modern loose pub going open minded girls…

Nonsense got its own limits… So please stop the nonsense in the name of individual freedom, if you people are having any other political/regional agendas, plzz spare us.
If you have anything to do with the BJP or any other rightwing parties, deal with them in straight line, rather than creating such cheap and third rate gimmicks.

Please do not make us more insecure in our own land… It’s a request.

Avanthika

Surely an interesting read and somewhat reiterates a point that I did try making a while back which I see no need of repeating now.

While we’re on the topic of class distinction in India, I came across a comment on Amitabh Bachhan’s blog today that had me snickering. He writes:

And after a days hard work for my daily bread, I delight in the company of loved ones

Daily bread, eh? That doesn’t even qualify as a matter-of-speak for someone as loaded financially well-off as him. He is not justified to be using such phrases even if it is only a cliche. He considers himself a master of words; he must know better than to craft words as such that only make him appear distant from reality (to some while the rest of the fools think of it as ‘humility’ on his part ugh). Or wait, maybe he IS distant from reality! Like most of us sitting in “air conditioned cubicles” (as Avanthika puts) are.

When I told Pati about AB’s comment, he simply said:

“Why do you even read his blog? It’s like knowingly watching a bad film and then complaining about it. I have no sympathies.”

True that.

Maybe escapism is the best route. Don’t bother with anything that you don’t like or approve of. No need to voice criticism for anything that you can stay away from if you don’t like.

Too bad I am not built like that. I tried doing that though … a while back. I had an argument with a good friend who I immensely resepect over something very trivial. I opted to walk out of the discussion mid-way because it was only getting us agitated with each other. Something he said and I’ll never forget was that without discussions, without criticisms, without people voicing their opinions against things that were not right, our civilization wouldn’t have moved forward. We would’ve just stayed stagnant and gradually perished much before our due date. By criticism, I don’t mean creating a hullabaloo against everything and anything you dislike or be cynical at all times. Constructive criticism lies in acknowledging the positives in everything you observe while voicing views that are backed with logic on the negatives as well.

I hope more of us can do that … without the desire of fitting into any group, without the need of having to please anyone, without the want of being liked by many, without the pressure of painting a picture of ourselves as we’d like others to see us …. I hope we can be true to ourselves … our thoughts … our actions … and be able to talk out loud (with logic and diplomacy) of things that we feel are not right and justified.