The Girl on the Pavement
I am not much of a night wanderer (not that I don’t like it, but my responsibilities don't allow me to be that adventurous) so when I get a chance, I like to take full advantage of it. So, one Friday, at around one o’clock at night, in search of some liquid bliss, me and my friends were looking for the shops which may oblige us to continue our much needed break.
Driving past (yes, drunk driving!!) otherwise busy by lanes in the heart of the city and listening to “चढ़ता सूरज धीरे धीरे ढलता है ढल जाएगा” by Jani Babu, we noticed a girl in an inebriated state sitting on pavement. She wasn’t able to support herself properly and a man was standing behind, supporting her. There was a group of decent looking men standing not very far from them, maintaining respectful distance.
My first thought was that the lady in question is a commercial sex worker, but her dressing and manners were like a simple middle class girl. Moreover, no commercial sex worker would afford to waste her time and opportunity to earn some money in a city by lane by being drunk sitting on a pavement supported by her customer. She was completely on her own blabbering away, laughing and talking to the man standing next to her.
A thought, however, occurred to me.
‘When will we witness a time when a girl can completely afford to be herself, whether by being drunk, roam around at night, without bothering about being kidnapped and raped or follow her dreams in career and getting married and raise a family?’
I silently appreciated the man who was not imposing on her in any way. He just stood there, talking and supporting and letting the lady be herself. What if she was drunk!
Now, whether a person should get so drunk to lose control on the pavement or a girl should drink or not or blah blah is an issue I leave for my moralist friends to discuss and decide. But, I silently cheered for the couple and wished good to them, as the relationship clearly was of two equal human beings at that particular moment, the man was supporting the lady by being with her and the lady was just being herself by being drunk! There were no sick societal norms on display.
Why can’t all men be like this? Is it really so difficult? Or the flawed thinking and conditioning makes life miserable for the people involved! Why can’t all men let their ladies just be themselves, if not all the time, at least a couple of times? Men and women both have their limitations and frustrations, and I don’t know whether men are from Mars or women are from Venus or not, but they certainly come from a womb which is human. Probably the concept of romantic love has ruined it all. The conditioning, the society, the cinema, the literature all have played a role by creating the divide so huge that men and women both are strangled in the flawed concept of relationship and love forever!
The couple, however, was still standing there with their group of friends, as we drove further and the music system in the car played another number — “वो सुबह कभी तो आएगी!”
