Monday, December 31, 2012

The Indian Rape Victim

About sex, the Complete and Total Loser concluded, Indian men were like unsupervised twelve-year-old boys in a tree house with a new stash of pornography.
This was in 1989-90, when he spent two months traveling in the country.
The Loser had arrived just two days before New Year's Eve, and on that eve he and two American women got restless and left the New Delhi guest house they were in to walk a few blocks to a nearby gathering place. They'd seen many Indians head that way and they wanted to see how the natives celebrated.
It got ugly fast. At first it seemed to be just people gathering and enjoying the warm evening in each others' company. Then one of the three, the Loser forgets whether it was he or one of his female companions, remarked that all of the hundreds of people in the public square were men. In moments men encircled the three, and sly hands were touching the women inappropriately. 
Foolishly, but naturally, the women reacted with fear. This incited the men further. 
The Loser told the women to walk calmly with him back to the guest house and they started to do so. The touching continued and the women broke into a slow run, even though there were hundreds of men between them and safety.
The story had a happy ending. Four other western men from the guest house had come to the rescue after hearing of the trip the three made. With five men around them, the women got back without more fondling and greeted the beginning of the 90s with resumed calm.
Clearly things haven't changed for the better in India.
The Loser noticed the relative absence of women everywhere he went in India. It seems they stayed indoors all day and night. In Varanasi, the nation's spiritual capital and its oldest city, making it one of the oldest cities on earth, the Loser stayed in a guest house that had access to a roof. He found that the women of the city spent much of their days on their rooftops, weather permitting, doing household tasks. 
The few times the Loser met Indian women were at gatherings like crowded restaurants, and they were with boyfriends or husbands. They were intelligent and interesting. The Loser has no idea why anyone would do anything unkind to them, drunk or not.
The Loser lived overseas for half a decade in the 80s and over a solid year of that was spent traveling extensively. Of the wonders of the world, the only one he saw which lived up to the adjective was the Taj Mahal. Yes, it's rightly regarded as a monument to slavery, but is nonetheless such a stunning building the Loser felt silly taking a snapshot of it. 
How can a country whose ancestors made something of such beauty be so focused on debasing the essence of human beauty?

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