And some days, How I wish, I was a man..!

I love being a woman. Most of the time. Other times, I feel frustrated, angry and very helpless. Because I am a woman.

Not a single day I walk on the road, not feeling unsafe or threatened by someone. I’m not going to write about all the bad things that happened to me on the road, but my very first experiences on the road years back, not to mention that I got stabbed on the road Twice (I know you 'll be shocked to know  but you heard it right). I was lucky i dint die or it dint give me much pain physically for others to notice since i wanted to keep it as a secret, the reason I'll mention at the end of this.

A few years ago, I got free from work so thought will call my friends and asked them to meet me for a coffee and decided to take a walk alone to a decent eating place. I learnt a long time ago that trying to make friends at office is futile – and anyway, that’s not what I am there for. So there I was, all alone, happy at the thought of digging into a plateful of lasagna. I was speeding off to my place of choice. At the first red light, A car stopped a little away from me – black tinted glasses, blaring music – the vulgar signs of money, brazenness and danger in a city like Male’. I didn’t pay much attention to it, till the guy in the passenger seat opened the door and signaled at me. The door shut when I averted my face. I glanced back. This time the guy in the rear seat had opened the door and was jeering at me. I ignored, because in that situation it was the best I could do. And prayed the light would turn green and the monster would zip away and not chase me.

And that’s what happened – they drove away, after rolling down the windows, staring some more at me from their moving cars and laughing, as if it had been some kind of cruel joke. Those guys in the car, perverts obviously, were probably just enjoying the stricken look on my face when they opened and shut their car doors menacingly. They probably were getting their kick by just scaring a girl. And I’m supposed to thank my lucky stars they didn’t intend any worse than that!

A little way ahead, about half way, a cycle slowed down next to me. There was no one but this one guy. By the looks of him, you’d call him decent, almost suave. But he peered at me several times, giving away the truth behind that face. Unlike the men in the car, who seemed physically threatening, this guy was just checking me out. Not just checking out the way a guy would harmlessly check out a girl, but probably, trying his luck. You know, if I would give him the cue to stop the cycle, smile at him and ask for a ride (or maybe not). And he probably thought he could think that because I was alone in the road walking, around, 11.30 pm? I’ve never been looked at like that. And some part of me felt shamed for having given such notions to a man. Some part of me felt absolutely disgusted. And all of me felt miserable.

There’s no justification for a man to treat a woman like that, to make her feel so vulnerable, so frighteningly unsafe, so helpless in just a glance and a gesture. I felt stupid thinking I had plans of enjoying a meal! I felt stupid for being a woman! And I felt frightened at the thought of coming back to home – yes, that’s all the distance there was between my office and the café.

I wept. Scared to call up anyone, because either they would scold me for venturing out alone or they’d be too scared for me – as women, even though we can’t shield ourselves, we always try to shield the people around us. And that minute, I hated being a woman, hated being so powerless to defend myself. What precaution could I have taken to make myself invulnerable to those men on the street? On a crowded street where everyone’s too busy with their lives to stop and stand up for you? On busy road in the Capital city of the country? Is safety really a luxury for women?

Socio-Cultural Dynamics of Eating Out Alone or just Eyesha's Rant..?

I’m talking about Maldives today.. Eating out alone in some countries is not a big deal, indeed it is a culturally acceptable norm. It is perfectly okay to sit and eat alone at some place- in fact; it is expected in some of the café/bakery sort of places, where one can sit, eat, ruminate, read, write or Internet surf endlessly and nobody will blink an eyelid.

As I was having my brunch today- alone, mind you- I recalled an incident that had occurred a year ago. Obviously, it still rankles, since that is one memory that I have never forgotten. There was this one place near my office that we often visit. Once, I was craving for that particular place, food and taste so badly that I just could not stop myself and decided to go there without further delay. Most of my friends were out of town, and my sisters were busy and I usually don’t hang out with my office mates so I went alone.

I sat there and ate the most wonderfully unhealthy hot-and-sour soup. I suddenly heard a really snarky voice at my adjacent table say loudly “I don’t understand how people can eat out alone, especially girls!” Spoken out loudly enough to make sure I heard. I still remember the disdain in that voice.

I’ve never forgotten that incident. Almost every time I eat out alone (not that very often I go alone now), I recall this. I wonder what was going on in that person’s mind as he said this. I wish I had said something. I wish I had not been hurt. I wish I could meet him again and give him a resounding slap! I was just satisfying a primal urge- to eat some delicious food that I was craving. I wish I had not felt bad about doing this one thing I wanted to do for myself.

Eating out alone- especially for a girl, ye heavens! - was overstepping certain circumscribed societal norms. It isn’t accepted, it isn’t common, and hence it was worth commenting upon. Our cultural norms are defined, created and delineated to keep women in their place, inside or safeguarded. The outside is seen as the site of potential breach, be it of norms, principles or people. We women, as the moral and physical upholders of our culture, are not allowed to breach anything. Be it norms, principles or boundaries. Be they physical, socio-cultural or psychological.

I can only hope and “Wish” things are different now. From what I hear about the new trends and beliefs, I sure hope and “Wish” that women can go and eat out alone as, when and where they want, all the kind of food that they want to eat, without the world judging them in anyway. Next time this happens to me, I’ll make sure I dump the bowl of soup on the speaker’s head.
No matter how delicious it is.

Quitters Don't Always Lose

There will be a time when life treats you like crap. All your finely laid plans fail one-by-one and you're standing around wondering just what the hell you are going to do next, because nothing you do seems to work out. At such times, you will find that those that matter will stand by you - friends in need, indeed. And be grateful those friends - family or otherwise - because without them you'd have it much, much worse.

But a lot of them will tell you "Everything that happens, happens for the best"

This, is bullshit.

Remember this one little thing. God / Life / Nature / the flying spaghetti monster are under no obligation whatsoever to follow up something bad with something good. There is no fixed quota of "good" and "bad" things to happen to anyone from which you can deduct the number of times bad things have happened and mathematically believe that you have a greater chance of something good happening.

You will have only three choices to pick from: you either try whatever you were doing once more; you try to find a new way of doing it or you give up and find something else to do.

The last option there seems like anathema to most of us - we've all been brought up on the legend of King Bruce and the Spider. You remember it? The one where the king hides in a cave after losing a battle, and watches a spider repeatedly trying to climb a wall and failing a number of times before it reaches the ceiling. The moral of the story ostensibly is "If at first you don't succeed, try and try and try again."

King Bruce was an idiot. Oh sure, it is all right when you're a spider climbing a cave. Spiders don't have much more to do in life than weave webs. And it is all fine if you're a king, when you have enough men under you to throw at an enemy over and over and over till your enemy runs out of soldiers and you don't. But it doesn't always work. Sometimes you may have an obvious flaw that needs fixing and things will turn around for you; but quite often there are things you cannot see and people you cannot control that are permanent obstacles in your path.

Cutting your losses and moving to a different objective in life is no shame, never mind what certain orthodox-minded people believe. Our society place too much faith in rigid and single yardsticks to define "success" and "failure". 10th std exams, 12th std, doing IT / Medicine / CIMA and then landing a job in a company that everyone has heard of. Anything else is greeted with a disinterested "oh". And god forbid, if you don't do well in the mainstream courses, or decide to do something different, they look at you as if you've lost your mind.

Well, tell that to N, who was treated like crap by his profs in college - so much so that he quit. Don't ask him how much he makes now though, you'd need to have a  Masters degree to match his pay. Or R, who hated engineering so much that he did not attend college, and wasn't allowed to sit for his exams. And now is doing rather well, in a different field altogether. Or A, who flunked his tenth AND twelfth board exams four years ago - and now has won an ad design competition for amateurs across Europe, the prize for which has paid his tuition fees in his Master's course. Or the two guys in the band, who gave up their jobs to work with music.

All of them figured out when to say "Enough" to whatever it was that was causing them pain. There is so much stigma attached to "dropping out" that we seem to have missed one thing: quite often staying the course is far worse than finding something different to do. It also is a lesson that just because society thinks something is the norm, it doesn't mean it is good for you.

The Gambler in the song did say "Know when to hold on, know when to fold up, know when to walk away, know when to run." If you come across something that is stopping you from enjoying yourself, find another way to do it or find something else. Life's too short to be spent banging your head against concrete walls.