Saturday, August 06, 2011

Driving me up the hill

I have been known to make generalised statements about men, much to their consternation and fury. However, no matter how hard they try to prove me wrong and act out a different character, when the guards are down, men act like men. SO! At the risk of losing my male readers at this very point, sorry guys, here's another one.
I can't say about other parts of India, but the rural to semi-urban strata of Himachali men (men born and brought up in Himachal Pradesh) are downright xenophobic! And this especially towards 'foreign' women. For them, these fair-skinned chicks (mind you, I'm talking only about the west here) are meant only for porn, music videos and bed.
So if an English lady walks into the state, gets upset about the heaps of garbage piling up and decides to do something about it while the government and locals prefer to lay back and snore, they can't stand it. Anyway, women are best kept at home under wraps where they can't be much trouble, soon to be married off to a stranger. But this here is a 'foreign' lady to top it all! Ouch! Those smarting egos!
Hearing their derrogatory banter, I felt like slapping all of them in one go. They treated her like a dirty joke. What she had done and achieved held no regard nor earned her the respect due to her. All those obnoxious mules saw through their blinkers was the colour white and a British accent.
I've felt and observed this in my course of work in Himachal and it's beginning to bug me. I'm afraid that these men, their blatant jealousy and insecurity may just drive me 'up the hill', enough to give them the sounding of their lives - in Hindi, pure desi style!