Checking out gents

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Hello friends. International Working Women's Day, cutely shortened to Women's Day Sale by companies is almost here and I have been thinking ki how much men cry about there being Women's Days, which are not ‘those days of the month'. As soon as we talk about women, they immediately say, what about us? We also have dreams and screams and themes that should be paid attention to. Feminism is about equality and we deserve to be more equal but feminazis have marginalised us. Okay then, I decided to pay serious attention to gents to see what they are up to and I turned to the logical place: the news.

The first gent I saw was everyone's once-favourite man in a suit: Arnab Goswami creating history. Which is to say, that he kept utterly silent for a whole minute, maybe more, not something we have seen him do in the past, not even with Kangana. That too as a white dude scolded him roundly on TV, and accused him of not looking at India's best interests. Hah. What does he know? Mr Goswami's been there.

Perhaps Arnab was letting us see his strong silent side, which is to be appreciated. But not, let me stress, to be misunderstood for something weak, like, tolerance or even respect for a guest's disagreeable opinions. Because he did retort when he found his voice that don't think you can say anything to me just because you have said anything to me ok. Wait till I tell miss.

Well, in case you thought there is no solidarity to be found in the patriarchy, please think again. Because Rahul Shivshankar, a successful icon of manhood I am told, came to avenge this attack, by scolding a gora on TV in a masterful and manly fashion. I swear I felt like history was being made yet again before my eyes. Finally, after centuries of humiliation by foreigners and other English speaking types, we were ticking off a gora, that too in chatar patar English like "take a chill pill" and "we've had enough of your colonial agenda". We were demolishing the geopolitical hegemony without even putting any boots on the ground! As it turned out Mr Shivshankar had been scolding the wrong man which caused him to deflate, and go from masculine to meme in a minute not to mention bring back some of that humiliation wala feeling necessary to masculinity nowadays. Well, he may have lost the war but you can't say he didn't fight the battle.

In 2014, a young woman reading the news on Doordarshan, called the Chinese president Eleven (instead of Xi) Jinping. It was considered an embarrassment. She lost her job and was mercilessly trolled. I don't think any one fires people on the news for being wrong anymore. Quite the opposite. And as for trolling, who can out-troll the trolls?

To tell women what to wear or not to wear. To tell other men to shut up. To lecture mayors in Romania instead of thanking them. To tell stranded students, who asked you to study abroad, now suffer or take care of yourself? To have the power and impunity to be wrong and uncaring. If this the masculine dream of power it's a pretty small-hearted dream indeed. But here we are, having to live in its paltry reality.

Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at paromita.vohra@mid-day.com