Thursday, December 18, 2008

prerogatives of being someone

I laughed at quite a few women in my life, not always out of intentions. The reason was simple, they were women. Few simple situations enlighten us to eternal ‘elemental realities’ of life. Mine was the simplest. I went to a late night show of a superhero film, when I came back home my younger sister said,” Dad only allows you to go out?” Numerous questions and emotions were bundled together in that single question; it made me think a bit, finally an insightful thought struck me. Prerogatives of being man. Late night movies, parties, fun, more freedom in general. This is what made me show a sarcastic pity on women until a recent incident, when I took a leave for a break from the work, which turned my insights, inside out.

Our maid was washing clothes; she was startled breathless when she see saw a snake creeping under some wood lying near her. She ran inside screaming which made others run screaming outside. “Where is it?” my mother who was a step closer to the wood than me asked. The maid after regaining some consciousness and fair amount of confidence came out and pointed towards the woods. My mother, frightened, so fast swapped her space with mine that it made me immediately tremble my legs uncontrollably. Sometimes our body parts have minds of their own, like in this situation my legs had a mind of their own, I splutteringly ordered them to stay still but they preferred to tremble. I gave up.
” Take this stick, shake the snake out of the wood”, my mother pushed me handing me an old hockey stick. My hands mind was reluctant, but my mind forced it take and shake the wood.
I saw the biggest snake ever, the snake swiftly tried to make an escape, its body and movement cued all my body minds to wake up suddenly as in a shock. My eye’s mind was frightened to beyond limits, hearts mind was cold with shock, hands mind was chocked, throats and nose mind was suffocating. Ears mind was the only thing which was periodically beating like heart.
But some mind in me I don’t know which one, started hitting the snakes head with the stick, with such precision and force that few could have easily mistaken me for an artist with an art to kill snakes. I was exasperated, and seeing the dead snake and its blood even made me feel dizzy.
I threw away the stick having won the battle with the beast. My ears opened doors to more voices which were more than just hissing sounds and eye’s vision stretched till my house’s fence’s horizon.
All the women from my colony were standing around the fence along with my mother and sister, men were out for office. I was about to enter my home when I heard voices which said,” It was so small, maybe of the size double the lizard.” Few voices even giggled and few women even laughed at me, more on my life, few I could hear smiled with a sarcastic appreciation.
Next day I heard two army men talking to each other while in a bus to office,” sir, my wife says she is lucky to be at home and enjoy our kid grow each bit, she is lucky for she doesn’t have to go on war”, to which the other replied,” prerogative of being a women sir, mid-afternoon karan johar coffee shows, kitty parties, gossip, fun, more safer life in general”.
“Excuse me”, a lady pointed me to somewhere above the window saying,” It’s a ladies seat”.

I wouldn't have minded being born a women either

17 comments:

Prianca said...

I doubt if you are feminist coz you definitely dont sound like one in your post
yet, you have used a good argumentative subject (men vs women).
interesting post.
keep blogging mate

Unknown said...

that was awesome.... great way of dealing the different genders in your story.... neither we were cornered nor the gals.... it was so very complete (as i keep mentioning u all the time)cool buddy. hey was almost in there when u were killing that snake....
do keep writing such nice blogs...
love u man c u soon

kunal said...

@prianca,
i am a feminist. The post implies so... thanks anyway.
@sudhir,
thanks man.

Lena said...

wow, was written awesome, really liked the way you put the thoughts into writing.
And yes, we have more prerogatives than you can think of ;)

Preetilata【ツ】 said...

each one has prerogatives of being someone.n i loved d way u hv narrated d whole thing. :)

~vagabond~ said...

I know you didnt mean to sound this way, but it does sound as though what you're saying is that women have it easier than men. There are many more prerogatives to being a woman other than kitty parties (geez!), gossip and KJo shows (double geez!). That is such a stereotypical notion that women enjoy any or all of these.

I dont have a brother, and growing up my dad made it perfectly clear to both me and my sister that anything a boy could do, we could do it...perhaps even better. Including catching snakes.

PS. I used to catch snakes once a week for a conservation program during my undergrad years. Not at all scary.

I do think you write well, but I just didnt digest this post very well. Sorry.

kunal said...

@preetilata
thanks a lot.
@vagabond
tried to bring out different prerogatives attached to men and women not all and did not try to analyse the prerogatives case to case. it would take a book to do that, atleast for me.
if someone says its not scary to catch a lion some day i would still be as much afraid to catch them.

I loved ur comment.
i respect what u have to say.
anyways thanks.
(i have changed the last sentence so that u can now get exactly get what i tried to explain)

kunal said...

@lena
ya lena i agree with u a lil more than completly

Jahnabi Roy said...

snake??? in th house??? where do u live??? in a jungle???

ps: blogrolled u.

Anonymous said...

Well written post.

Well, both genders have their own prerogatives and generally both think the other one is better.

I said generally because I am not in that.

kunal said...

@everything burns
thnaks for leaving a comment.
@cuckoo
thanks man

Unknown said...

Ha.

EVERYthing has advantages AND disadvantages.

mArOoNrOsE said...

hey kunal. I like to read ur article. thats really interesting n thanks 4 visit

shootingstar said...

There r different types of people in this world..some bluff abt themselves..others gossip..others way too proud of what they are..n others always babbling on what they r not..Its not cuz of the gender...i believe woman's r sensitive than men ..perhaps thats the thing..
btw,,interesting post :)

Anonymous said...

Interesting.
However what I think is that both sexes would like a little bit of what the opposite sex 'enjoys', no?
So the grasss is, as always, greener on the other side! :D

Anonymous said...

Perfectly put... NeatLy written...

sur said...

This is great stuff. i really like your thoughtfullness on things like that. Such miniute details bringing out such deep meanings. Good going really!!