Owing to my recent renunciation of car-pooling, I now travel
to work like a lone ranger in a desi sawari.
One resultant side-effect that immediately cropped due to this was me
dreading all the days I woke up to the urge of dolling up. I am well aware that
a well-dressed woman draws quite a few glances. That it something that happens
anywhere in the world.
But my country has taken this to another level all together.
These days on my way to work, I get some
appreciative honks. I have some dudes pretending to be not-so-navigation
friendly, asking for directions. I have strangers passing me by, muttering a
“looking good” and vehicles trying to speed-up and overtake for no reason.
While, during most instances this leaves the taxi wallah baffled, it
makes me think, am I a fragment of someone else’s imagination with no choice
about it?
If the term “checking-out” refer to a process of mentally
copying an image so that men can edit it later as per their convenience, that is.
From a purely psychological perspective, every choice we
make, is preceded by the process of checking-out. For example, we check-out the
entire collection of clothes only to pick one or two that fit-in. That makes me
wonder, if a woman passing by is merely an option before a guy checks out the
entire passer-by collection to determine which visual segment he is going to
choose to temporarily titillate his senses.
What does that make us women, the contents of a magazine? If
the dynamics between both the sexes is steadily evolving, where there is fine
balance in wearing the pants and winning bread, then why are the dynamics of
“checking-out” primitive? Given a
chance, would women in our country choose to be equal by checking out the
male-counterparts in return. Or would they choose to be known for finer traits
like elegance, grace and charm?
Forget freedom at midnight advocated by Gandhi. If a woman
can travel on the city streets during the day and not feel disgusted about it,
then I’d consider that to be a truly free country.
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