Last month, my driver — a rather timid fellow of sub-zero looks (and zero IQ), returned from his village with a beautiful, cultured and soft-spoken bride in tow.
The conjugal mismatch stumped me.
I wondered about the girl’s reason for surrendering to this blatant hypo-gamy — although, on an optimistic note, I hoped that some of her intellect would rub off on her asinine husband.
However, just a fortnight into their marriage, the new bride confided in me that her husband was assaulting her for no apparent reason, almost on a daily basis.
Feeling morally obliged to address the issue, I decided to confront my driver point-blank about his unwarranted behavior.
Surprisingly, the guy appeared neither repentant nor defensive.
His usually humble demeanor gave way to smug chauvinism: ‘Whacking is necessary to keep wives in their place… Madam Ji,’ he proclaimed with a lofty shrug.
The audacity of his statement sent a surge of blinding rage down my spine.
Still, controlling my emotions, I gently reminded him that we are living the 21st century where women have equal rights and that he could be jailed for his indiscretions.
Zamana aage nikal gaya hai, I urged, in a bid to counsel him.
Arre Madam Ji, Hum Asli Mard hain. Hamare yahan Zamana bhale aage nikal jaaye, Zanana nahni nikalni chahiye (For a macho man, times may soar ahead but a woman never should)’ — was his cocky retort.
Mulayam Singh Yadav is right. Boys will be boys.
Especially the exotic and entitled species called ‘The Desi Boy.’
Perched atop the gender status-pole — way above mortal non-Indian mongrels — our Desi Boy is a tiger with privileged stripes.
He is god’s gift to mother-kind. A sprouting ghar ka chirag. A germinating burahpe ki lathi. A budding wife-beater. A potential rapist.
Research indicates that a child, who experiences an excessively permissive parenting style during his formative years, is more likely to develop a narcissistic personality disorder.
India’s bourgeois male child is typically raised in an environment loaded with narcissism.
Drip-fed on generous doses of presumption, he grows up surrounded by this bubble of megalomania — where his every demand becomes the family’s command.
While his sister is trained to be passive and regularly tutored about what girls shouldn’t do, he is encouraged to embrace aggression — the only ‘No’ in his instruction manual, possibly, being ‘No crying.’
Routine instances of gender subjugation shape the circuits of his ductile brain.
He witnesses his mother — slaving out in the kitchen, and also doubling as the family’s favorite punching bag.
He watches his sister being consigned to the hearth and kept homebound; her wings clipped, her voice muffled — the morsels of freedom handed out to her, becoming smaller with each passing year.
Although he loves the women in his family and celebrates their selflessness as a virtue, his mind grows to perceive their compassion, and subjugation, as a weakness.
He learns to look up to, and respect, the lone figure of authority in the house — his father.
As an adolescent, our desi boy gets preference over his female sibling, in all family affairs.
During family discussions or decisions, his views are considered of greater consequence.
At family dinners, his plate is topped up with the lion’s share… better-fed, better-cared by parents, over-indulged by grandparents.
A fulcrum of all hullabaloo during family celebrations, he even wears his scorecard of girlfriends, as a badge of honor.
His parents can’t stop gushing about how girls keep falling over each other to seduce their son.
Of course, the moment you ask them about their daughter’s boyfriends, the same parents give you a death stare, potent enough to curdle your platelets.
Our desi boy’s list of privileges grows exponentially every year. A fast learner, he soon starts to take advantage of his fundamentally flawed upbringing.
As a teenager, he starts going out with friends for late-night jamborees, no questions asked.
He bunks school, gets into brawls with friends, smashes people’s heads, predates on hapless victims in the dark abbeys of the city, spends many a night holed up in the clink for his misdemeanors… but gets bailed out each time by indulgent parents.
Boys will be boys… after all!
All those years that could have been constructively utilized, by the family, to give him a balanced perspective of gender roles, are squandered (through live telecast at home) and culminate, eventually, in calcification of stereotypes.
When such stereotypes become extended to a young man’s sexual role, he feels he has the right to demand sexual compliance from any female.
At the same time, the internet has brought porn to his mobile. Sexuality is flaunted everywhere.
This causes him to objectify and devalue women.
Once you have learned to see a class of human beings as objects, it becomes easy to use them with scant regard.
So a woman becomes an object to satisfy his carnal pleasures.
By the time our desi boy is ready to step into the real world, warped ideas about gender superiority and discrimination have crystallized in his mind.
The constant pampering and partiality have instilled in him, a false sense of superiority.
His self-image of grandeur and invincibility has inflated to narcissistic proportions.
Personality traits have consolidated.
The die is cast.
He’s now like the cock who thinks that the sun has risen to hear him crow.
When this conceited cock finally waltzes into the actual brick-mortar world, he confronts a 180 degree.
He finds that society is not prepared to give him the importance that he’s accustomed to receiving in his own house.
Masculinity is a lot harder to achieve when traditional boundaries get mixed with modern ones.
Our desi boy is unable to dominate either in the workplace or public space.
His bloated self-image clashes with his actual worth in the job market and in a society that seems to treat him like a semi-educated piece of flotsam.
Understandably, the poor desi boy’s machismo is now under threat.
His ego feels bruised. His pride feels mauled. He becomes anxious.
Demons of dejection snuff out the oxygen of entitlement — that was once his lifeline.
His poorly calibrated empathy meter and his perception of being deprived of ‘deserved’ admiration and gratification make him prone to aggression and vengeance.
The desi boy’s pent-up frustration seeks a release… a soft target.
Years of patriarchal conditioning, ensure that he doesn’t have to look far.
He encounters a hitherto alien species called the modern liberated woman — whose profile is almost an antithesis of the women he has known so far.
This woman, unlike his sister back home, rubs shoulders with him in every sphere.
So, unwittingly, she becomes his soft target.
Pumped up on testosterone and in a desperate tussle to reclaim his sagging superiority, he attempts to woo her… chase her… hound her. And if all else fails… maul her… humiliate her… acid-scar her… mutilate her… destroy her.
And thus, a rapist is born.
Raised in the loving confines of his own home… under the able guidance of his own parents — a family, who wishes him well, but ends up denting his psyche by feeding him a toxic diet of misogynistic undercurrents.
Because they don’t know any better.
Because they haven’t seen any better.
Because they are mere cogs in the wheel of patriarchal traditions that enjoy a stranglehold over our society.
A paradoxical twist here is the contribution of the mother.
When a woman suffers subjugation and humiliation during a primary phase of her life, she becomes timid.
This psychological churning and a deep contempt for her own situation, influences her to lay down similar patriarchal rules for her daughter, and daughter-in-law.
—Puja Bhakoo, author, MOOD SWINGS
