Dear Zealots Protesting The AIB Roast,
I was puzzled when I heard that you have all been protesting that the AIB knockout video humiliates the clean image of Indian women and Indian culture. I went back and watched the video twice. Both times, I laughed helplessly, but no matter how much I tried, I could not feel offended. I asked my female colleagues to also check out the video. They too tried very hard to feel offended, but they also failed. I suppose I must politely thank Akhilesh Tiwari, President of Brahman Ekta Seva Sanstha for taking up cudgels on behalf of women and Indian culture. But I fail to see why. So thanks, but no thanks!
But since you, Mr. Tiwari are particularly insistent and have even filed a police complaint on behalf of us women, here are other instances where we women felt offended. Perhaps you could file police complaints about this too. Some of them may be about your political and religious bedfellows. But I am sure a tiny detail like that would not deter you from helping the cause of women, right?
Let me see….there is the time when Samajwadi Party’s Mulayam Singh Yadav dismissed a rape as ‘Boys will be boys’ or when Baba Ramdev declared a cure for homosexuality or when he came out with his fertility pill, Putrajeevak Beej, that loosely translates to ‘seed that creates a son’. In fact, I was offended every time a woman or a child was raped by a man, or men. But I have never heard you speak up on behalf of these women before.
As for the rest of the religious zealots, you can’t see it obviously, but I am currently shaking my head sadly and going tch..tch..tch. We Indians can’t bear to laugh at ourselves it seems. Everything takes on a religious or cultural colour. In fact, I am positively bored of taking up this issue again and patiently explaining to you, not to react like you just sat on a sharp pin, every time religion is mentioned. We just went through all these arguments and explanations a month ago with the movie, PK.
And what’s with this whole protesting against everything, justifying that it is ‘misleading today’s youth’. Come to think of it, I can think of several instances where your brand of communalism has misled yesterday’s youth, i.e, today’s oldies. It’s your communalism that suddenly turns my sweet neighbor uncle to a crazed fanatic. The same culture, that you so zealously defend, creates caste and religious segregation in villages, propogates child marriage and tortures women in the name of dowry. Are you upset that today’s youth tries not to follow these ‘cultural values’?
In fact, you should be more worried about the misleading effect of these religious hate speeches on ‘today’s youth’. Get a life, will you?
Everything is not about you, it’s not about your religion. Take a look at the video again, the only mockery there was directed at people; people participating in the show and Bollywood film stars. And I don’t see any of them objecting.
If you are still not convinced, not that I care, see the number of hits the video has got. More than 8 million! Anything that can make so many people laugh their hearts out is not a bad thing at all.
And if you are still offended by it, then don’t watch it. Just disconnect your broadband and 3G services and stay at home, wrapped in your ‘cultural’ cocoon! The Internet is clearly not a place for you.
Sincerely,
Exasperated Woman Netizen
Image courtesy: BCCL
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