SAFE CALCUTTA?

Calcutta is supposed to be one of the safest cities. Hmm….Let me reconsider that. Well yea I guess you would rarely come across any girl who hasn’t ever experienced any kind of abuse in her lifetime. Whether she lives in a city or a small town, weird men can’t keep their hands and ahem…other things to them selves.

Just the other day I was traveling in an auto rickshaw with two guys sitting next to me. The guy sitting adjacent to me had some guts. I don’t think I need to spell it out for you, but well he had his hands in the wrong places. I couldn’t resist...I had to give him that one tight slap he so deserved. Some men are major despos. He was just one of them. But what disturbed me was that the other guy who was also seated in the same auto continued to talk on his mobile phone like nothing was happening. I sat there cursing the despo guy but neither did the other guy nor did the auto driver care. I mean I am not some “abla naari” who requires your help. But the least you can do is be aware of the surrounding. The driver didn’t bother to stop the auto in spite of me asking him to do so. I am a city girl and prepared to handle any kind of situation but I will never forget that day because of the way the other men turned there heads away like I didn’t even exist.

I so wanted to verbally abuse them, but I really haven’t caught on to the public usage of the “F” word. Neither was I in the state of mind to take him to any cop. Anyway after seeing those men laze around and watch the show, I had no faith left that anyone would genuinely want to help. I am glad I slapped him and well yea I did punch him as well. I did what I had to do and don’t regret it. Not with reference to this incident, but I have been labeled as a feminist by some people maybe because of my liberal mind set. I don’t know if I am one. I am just a simple girl who believes in equality and is not going to take such abuse lying down.

KKR vs. DC (20th April, 2008)

This time around all the cricket fans must be hooked on to the IPL 20-20 series. Personally I am not a cricket crazy fan but I do enjoy the game. Last Sunday I managed to get tickets for the KKR vs. DC match to be held at the ever famous Eden Gardens Stadium. I was pleasantly surprised to see that not just the so called youngistan but the whole of Calcutta was there. Oh Boy! What a game. It wasn’t just cricket. It was cricket plus glamour in the true sense. The peppy dance numbers, the hot-bod cheer girls and quite a significant part of Bollywood. Oh, of course how can I forget the cricketers? Well I am not complaining. All the glamour added is welcome as long as the spirit and essence of the game remains.

Anyways, things weren’t very pleasant after a while. Some elements in the crowd couldn’t stop staring at the cheer girls. I mean all right, that’s fine; guys are guys. So stare and do whatever. But they didn’t just stare. They sat there passing the lewdest comments I had ever heard. It continued for as long as I can remember. They were a bunch of despos who lacked any kind of civic sense coz they didn’t care that there were people around who weren’t very appreciative of the foul language being used.

And then how can we all forget the city’s display of mismanagement skills. Shortage of water half way through the game and then the flood lights go off for about 30 minutes right in the middle of a nerve wrecking game. Being a SRK fan, I was certainly disappointed coz he couldn’t shake a leg as promised because the concerned authorities didn’t set up the stage.To add to the series of unfortunate events, was the lack of respect being shown by a certain segment of the crowd who yelled out the “M” word every time they saw Andrew Symonds. The more rational part of the crowd was dumb struck to see these people call out “Monkey” over and over again in unison. And we say we are not racists. I am not sure as to how Monkey qualifies as a racist term, but if the International Cricket Board Authorities say so, then it is our duty to respect it. I wonder what satisfaction they got by doing that except for showing how uncouth the Indian crowd is.

On second thoughts, it wasn’t all that bad. KKR won after all. So like they say, “Alls well that ends well”.