I was eating patties at Sadar bazar with my pal following our daily routine, when I met some friends from school time and, as usual remembered our anecdotes. Something peculiar, there was an unknown yet familiar face with them, soon to be found that he was our junior at school, and now in class 12th.
We clumsily asked, "how was the farewell, eh?" and mocked the school administration, in best of our traditions. I never knew I was going to be so surprised at his words.
"Are bhaiya, ekdum masst tha. Afterparty me toh khas kar, kafi hukka-daru laye the sab. Ek ladki ko thoka bhi A**** [name, which I won't mention] bhai ne."
Well, I knew we were in Meerut and it's not new to hear about local scuffles and news about someone shooting the other. But, after I heard the laughter that followed, the conversation made me realise it was something eerie, rather strange. That woke my inner journalist, and asked, "bhai thokne se kya matlab?"
You can call me naive. His words were, "Are ladki ne kafi pi li thi, tunn ho ke nach rhi thi. Dost ke bodyguards aye, ladki ko kandhe pe utha ke apni gadi me le gaye, aur thok diya. Ladki ke maa baap aye, dhundhte rahe use." (the girl was drunk, then my friend called his bodyguards and then they took the girl, and raped her. Her parents came and were searching for her).
I was thunderstruck. I knew such horrible crimes happen, but used to think that those cases would be in third world conditions, but NEVER THOUGHT THAT COULD HAPPEN SOMEWHERE SO CLOSE TO ME. We seldom think of ourselves secure in our lives. Good deeds, bad deeds, are all limited to modesty. But thinking about that girl, who was my junior at school with whom I used to play basketball with, had been the victim of horrendous incident.
That, made me anguished. The guy in front of me, smiling and laughing at the incident, had no shame and was so proudly boasting about the girl being raped! The sense of being "cool" on his face was clearly visible!
I will stay true here. I was expecting all others to slap that guy hard on his face, but was all the more annoyed and my pal knew that before I start a fight, it would be better to leave and drop me back home. He shared the same emotions as mine, but we were outnumbered.
After reaching home, I mailed our Principal about the incident and warned her that if strict actions were not taken, I would break the news to the media. Nothing happened. Not even an FIR by the girl, nor the culprit's candidature being suspended. Such heinous act, went silenced. I was shattered. But the key mention here is the behaviour of my junior as he narrated the incident, swollen with pride.
You might be wondering why am I stating this incident and I beg your pardon for using those abrupt and vulgar words, but I had to, to portray how exactly the events went and the exact gravity of the matter. This is a matter very less touched about in the media and will portray how certain representation in media affects the mindset of the youth.
We had just seen the controversy over the "Bois Locker Room" incident which was revealed on social media, and gaining mass support with finally credible fruits. Keeping that incident in mind, allow me to walk you through more of my anecdotes.
Having experienced a breakup just a week ago, my friend was happy and moving along with her life, when, suddenly she received an SMS from her ex, who threatened her with sharing her sensitive pictures on social media groups.
After about one week of it, once again, I came through similar incident where a guy threatened a person whom I cared (and still do) a lot about, to share her sensitive images to different people via different means (he was, in this case too, her 'ex'). I helped them both to get out of the situation.
Moving on to the last one, one of my friends (whom I used to think was a very good one) I made in college, told me about his previous relationship while we were departing from the Vishvavidyalaya metro station. To my utter surprise and adding to my shame of having chosen him as my friend, he literally started calling his ex "prostitute" and stated that if he gets a chance, he won't hesitate to even post banners of her photos referring her the same with her phone number below it.
I was, again, in thoughts. I wished to slap him tightly on the spot; but somehow my hands were stopped.
I hope now you can certainly start relating to events that recently occurred and brought forward at social media as I stated above, the "Bois Locker Room" incident. Contrary to the most reactions, I was not surprised at all when it surfaced. Being in many boys groups, I had witnessed a lot of such activities and have always been a critic of such mindset in the youth. It must be kept in mind that I acknowledge that many are hard- and smart- working youth who are certainly not at all corrupted with this peculiar 'virus', but such number is less compared to the ones we are discussing here.
Now, as we have identified the problem, let us move through the standard boring procedure- starting to understand WHY and HOW such situation arose, and subsequently move on to the solutions.
What has led to this intellectual pandemic, which has made our youth to proudly wear the badge of ignorance and a witness a behavioural change, calling vulgarity and indiscipline as a sign of being "cool"?
"I swear as long as there are fucking movies in this country, people will continue to be fooled."- said the famous filmmaker Anurag Kashyap in an interview given to TheGuardian. The opiate offered by Bollywood fantasy, Kashyap brazenly suggests, is part of India's inability to deal with its reality.
India has a strict culture of cinema and media. Most (if not all) styles, trends, dialogues, accents and all spheres of life have been dictated and standards set for by the Bollywood. Adding to our research, let us look at one more case (The mentioning of these cases is imperative):
A 32-year-old Indian man in Australia, accused of stalking two women, has escaped conviction after a court considered that he had been wrongly influenced by Bollywood movies. (via Hindustan Times, published in January 2015).
Once the Bollywood heroine told the man she loved that she was not his slave as in the song Bindiya chamkegi from Do Raaste (1969) where she sings Maine tujhse mohabbat ki hai, gulaami nahin ki balamaa. In Prem Nagar (1974), the hero, a bit of a playboy with a drinking problem nevertheless beats a rich man to a pulp for overpowering a woman and tells him “Jab tak auraat haan na bole paas naa aana” (till a woman says yes, don’t come anywhere close).
However, since 1990s, most of the bollywood movies revolved around the fact that if a boy stalks a girl for long, she would eventually fall in love. Without realising about this cringe and legally wrong and humiliating act, the beloved superstars from Hindi movies have set a new standard and new definition for love, which includes molestation and eve-teasing.
Cinema has been a dominant media in India because of the sheer size and reach of its indigenous film industry. According to Derne (in a study from 1999), Indian film portrayal form a "privileged arena for construction of sexuality" for the common person, often defining an ideal relationship should be like between a man and a woman.
In the movie Hadh Kar Di Aapne (2000) , in an airport scene, Govinda falls over a girl (literally), and refuses to get up saying "appeal plus lust", even after being asked to do so by the girl. Eventually, after analysing most of the movies from the 90s era, movies starred by Govinda have shown the most number of molestation incidents, which are portrayed in the name of "romance". Examples include eerie songs of Raja Babu and Haseena Maan Jayegi (whose song literally had the lyrics "kab tak roothegi, cheekhegi, chillayegi").
In an estimate, most of the films from 1990s till early 2000s had at least one forced kiss (examples include hit films like Hum Tum, Ishq and the list goes on). One blockbuster needs a specific mention, Hritik Roshan starrer Kaho Na Pyar Hai (2000), where it was even portrayed that Hritik Roshan forcibly removes skirt of Ameesha Patel just because he needed to make a flag, even after the girl reacts strictly against this act. But, as usual, bollywood makes it look like an awesome "love story", and people watch it unmindful of its subconscious impact.
In the famous movie Dil Wale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995), a film which supposedly sets benchmark for true love among Indians, it has so much 'casual' molestation imbibed in it that people fail to even recognise its (molestation) existence. When a girl is on her first Europe trip, clueless about the surroundings, SRK moves on to touch her inappropriately on the train, which would be really disgusting for a girl experiencing such act in real life. Also, when Kajol gets drunk and gets asleep, she is greeted by SRK with lipstick marks all over his chest, trying to make the girl think and believe that last night she had slept with him. And when the girl is freaking out, the male character just, absurdly, gets like, "oh, I was just joking", as if rape is such a casual matter, and then slaps her in the name of patriotism (which in no way justifies the act he did). In the movie Judwaa (1997), it took vulgarity to another level, where its shown that Salman Khan cannot control his hand to literally slap a woman's back. (I am truly trying to use as subtle words as possible).
One truly remarkable movie from which many boys take inspiration from (sadly), is Kabir Singh (2019). The movie is filled with idiotic unrealistic toxic masculinity, where it completely justifies violence, forced kisses, forced touch, forced everything with a girl.
After witnessing several horrendous rape cases, people now realise that the "chamatkaar-balatkaar" scene in 3 Idiots might not actually be as funny as it was shown in the movie and making fun of such crime is totally.. deplorable. In fact you wonder how could someone actually think of a crime as gruesome as rape in a way other than what it really means?
While kids grew up watching these movies, it failed to teach them about consent, girl's autonomy of decision and the fact that stalking does not mean love. A recent study sponsored by UNICEF and Save the Children Fund in the Indian subcontinent showed that the film medium is influential, especially with teenaged boys, in teaching notions about masculinity, power, and violence in relationships with women.
While we have looked on to bollywood movies, we also have to recognise the imperative impact of vulgar songs in India. While most of the Indian rappers focus more on vulgar perverted songs glorifying alcohol usage, one can imagine the impact it makes within the minds of the youth. The trend in the contemporary times started with Honey Singh's Volume 1, which reached high levels of vulgarity and he was then forced to delete the song from all sites, but the song remained and is still cherished by the youth- and became inspiration for other rappers to follow the suit.
Feminist scholars are particularly concerned that popular films in India too often portray women in stereotypical roles of subordination—accepting sexual violence as a normal part of relationships with men. Further, they have pointed out that men’s abuse of women is often glorified within Indian cinema. More specifically, critics have pointed out that the repeated glamorization of eve-teasing in films as a macho manifestation of a tough-acting, college student hero, who initially upsets the heroine but finally wins her attention, has fostered a climate supportive of such acts in real life. The reason for which I had stated the personal cases and incidents earlier in the article. While Media is to be blamed; there are more dimensions to the problem of mindset corruption in the Indian youth.
*The actors' names are to be referred to the characters they portray in the film, not to be associated in any way with their personal lives.
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