Can We Have A Chamatkar To Stop The Recent Rash Of Rapes By Entitled Men, Please?

The balatkar chamatkar joke in 3 Idiots was in horrible taste – can you imagine this scene from the point of view of a rape victim?

How many of you have seen 3 Idiots? I guess, almost everybody. And how many of you remember that prank played upon Chatur, where his speech was changed? Where the word ‘chamatkar’ was replaced by ‘balatkar’? I would be lying if I say that I did not laugh watching that scene. Like billions of other viewers, I too enjoyed that scene. I too was an idiot who failed to realise how cruel that joke was.

Now, can you for once, watch that scene from the perspective of a rape victim? If you truly can, then can you laugh on watching that scene again? Can you now feel how a rape victim must have felt watching the most dreadful incident of her life, being displayed as an entertaining joke?

The trauma, the suffering, the fear, the insecurity, the hopelessness, the disgust, the wrath and hatred, all wrapped up in a silly joke. And jokes like these are not uncommon, you can find one in almost every movie, or you might just read it as a whatsapp forward with lots of funny emojis, or on various social networking sites.

The day I started thinking about it from a rape victim’s perspective, I felt guilty, I felt low, I felt sorry for being a part of a society where we joke about rape so casually, where we regularly hear the F word being associated with mothers, wives, daughters and sisters, where instead of raising our voice, we chose to turn a deaf ear to, all the objectionable words used against us.

Have we totally lost it? Are we actually so lame? May be we are. And those who are not, must be at the verge of becoming so. News about rapes and molestation have become so common these days that, we read it or listen to it just as causally as we see/read any entertainment news, or a review of a blockbuster movie.

When something like Nirbhaya tries reviving our dead soul, then we start to think, feel, and act. But, that doesn’t have an everlasting effect. It withers away soon to be revived by some new sad news. Sadly, the truth remains that only and only a victim can feel or relate to this dreadful pain. Others can just pray that this doesn’t happen to them or their loved ones. And I can wish for all our prayers to be answered by the almighty.

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It’s the eternal wish of every human being to be respected by others, but how many of us actually feel respected? Every time I walk through the roads of my very own city, I find myself struggling in the middle of some filthy look, or a lewd comment, or a nasty joke, a mere piece of entertainment.

I know it’s impossible to have a society full of clean sober people. But, the least we can do is, stop entertaining the lewd jokes passed on via the social networking sites, teach the men as well as women in our family to avoid using objectionable foul language addressed to anyone, confront people who are used to passing on these lewd comments, stand up for ourselves, our womanhood.

Let’s hope for a world where a Chamatkar stops all the Balatkars. If you respect us as your mothers, sisters, wives and daughters, then stop finding mere entertainment from objectifying us.

Image source: YouTube

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