The Perfect Cocktail: Gender Wars & A Bottle of Whiskey.

Eavesdropping on a conversation among drunk friends in a bar in India.

(Disclaimer: Obscene content, offensive language and lots of swearing).

Ram: ‘But then I would be on the wrong side of history.’

Dhanush: ‘But that’s not how progress works. It’s messy. And no one knows which way it’s gonna go. History is the past of the future. You are mistaking it to be the future of the present.’

Aman: ‘What shit? History is future and future is present? What the fuck are even you saying? Stop reading Sapiens.’

Ayesha: ‘So what’s the talk about.’

(She took the last empty chair on the table. She was always late. No one bothered to ask though).

Aman: ‘So we are ordering the usual right? 2 RCs 180 and Peanut Masala?

(To the uninitiated, RC stands for Royal Challenge Whiskey).

Dhanush: ‘Unless one of us slept with a politician and got some hush money, we will continue drinking the same shit for a long time to come. That is a booming business though. All you need is a pussy and 500 layers of makeup.’

Aman: ‘So Ayesha, this guy says, patriarchy will be dismantled like how we got rid of slavery. And all those who supported Abraham Lincoln, were behind him not because they believed in his ideas but because they foresaw the future and thought it was wise to join him. Thats preposterous!

Dhanush: ‘I know. So vain. And dishonest. What the fuck? That’s just jumping on the most popular bandwagon.’

Ram: ‘You are not understanding me, you fuckers. Like, think about it. When was the last time an oppressed group revolted and did not get their due. I am not saying it works all the time. But here we are talking about nearly half the population on the face of the earth. It’s got to mean something. Like look at the MeToo movement. It died down after a few months. But guess what? Along the way, people realized this tolerance of sexual harassment is detrimental to their interests. Its in the public consciousness now. That’s how movements succeed. The old action-rest-action strategy.’

Aman: ‘Dude that argument of yours was a lasting memorial to human stupidity. First of all, this patriarchy bullshit exists only in the figments of feminists’ imaginations. It has no basis in reality. How many times should I tell you guys. Oppression does not cut through gender lines. But it cuts through class lines.’

Dhanush: ‘Even I think, the movement was a sort of witch hunt. Atleast it seemed like it. Wait! Let me first state, I am against rape. A rapist convicted by the court has to be given strictest sentence possible. And mind you, the operative word here being ‘convicted by court.’

Aman: ‘And fucking ‘court’ doesn’t mean Twitter fucking hashtag, trending topics and the number of retweets don’t count as arguments. Jesus!’

Ayesha: ‘Dhanush, just saying ‘I am against rape’ makes you sound like an edgy teenager. Hashtag Justsaying.’

Ram: ‘You retards do realize that, it is extremely difficult to prove rapes in courts, that took place years ago. Also, these Weinstein-types powerful men have access to the best fucking lawyers who can arm-twist facts to fit their narrative. That smug was even grinning after the first hearing.’

Aman: ‘Have you guys watched Death Note? The Japanese Anime series?’

Ayesha: ‘So you also have a Hentai fetish now, Nice.’

Aman: ‘What the fuck. Anyways, This protagonist, Light possesses a book called ‘Death Note’ in which you can write the name of a person you want to kill and he will be killed. You can also prescribe the time and place. Now, this young guy has a strong sense of justice and he can’t tolerate the corrupt courts, police, laws etc. He is like, society is fucked up and good people will never get justice —.’

Ram: ‘Can you summarize this shit ASAP?’

Aman: ‘Calm your tits. We just started drinking. We have enough time. Anyways — .’

Ram: ‘But time allotted for your misogyny-filled pseudo-intellectualism is limited.’

Aman: ‘Can I just make my point, cuck.’

Ram: ‘Cool, fuck.!’

Ayesha: ‘That rhymed.’

Aman: ‘Shut Up, Ayesha. Can I-.’

Ram: ‘How dare you, motherfucker, to tell her to shut up! Women are a god’s gift to mankind. Aren’t you tired of silencing them for the past 3000 years?’

Dhanush: ‘We weren’t alive back then. So we won’t shoulder the burden.’

Mayank: ‘Bro, in the Gita, Krishna says to Arjun, there was never a time when you and I weren’t alive. Its just you don’t remember and I do, you peasant. So you’ve been filling their mouths with your small dick rather than let them talk, for a very long time.’

Aman: ‘Of course, our dicks didn’t seem big enough when those chicks were so loose that babies were falling all around. No wonder we have 7 billion people now.’

Ayesha: ‘That’s fucking gross, Aman and pretty offensive.’

Dhanush: ‘Yeah, small dick jokes are fine but don’t say a word about these pussies. Pun intended.’

Mayank: ‘Just finish your fan theory, Aman?’

Aman: ‘Finally. So Light starts using this book and in the beginning, he only kills big mafia dons, serial killers and rapists, by writing their names in the book. These were guys who had a lot of power and were either in the trial stage or were treated like kings in jails. This double-standard repulsed him. But when he had gotten rid of all these big guys, he went after the petty criminals — like pickpockets, thieves etc, you get the drift. With this book, no one can touch him. He is practically God now. Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely. And the law enforcement is clueless as to why these criminals are dying. So they bring in another eccentric investigator called ‘L’ to track down Light. You should watch the ending though. Its intense. So what I’m trying to say is this. This ‘trial by media’ that happened on Social media, no matter how noble the intentions, it circumvented the court system. These feminists will later bored and go on fucking with normal everyday guys for the stupidest things.’

Mayank: ‘Bro, I won’t lie. What you said makes sense. But look at the conviction rate in India. It hovers only at around 30% in rape cases, if I am not wrong. That’s pretty low, man.’

Ayesha: ‘Also, feminism isn’t only about women’s issues. Its about you guys too. Do you remember, because of MeToo, Kevin Spacey, the guy from House of Cards got fired because he molested teenage boys on the set. It could have been you, Dhanush or any other guy too.’

Ram: ‘I remember sitting in a bus back in 11th grade, this creepy 40-something uncle starts caressing my thighs. It was so uncomfortable. Even if I tried to shift my position, he just wouldn’t stop. I was fucking scared. And it was more fucked up because we were sitting in the last row where no one could see. It went on for like 5 minutes. I didn’t have the balls to punch him. What could I say? That this faggot was touching me? Also, I thought if I did protest, he would call his guys and fuck me over. So I just made an excuse and just got off at the next stop. ’

Mayank: ‘Wow. I’m pretty sure this happens all the time.’

Aman: ‘I’m not saying this doesn’t happen. Or that this kind of behavior is acceptable. My problem is, what these radical feminists and leftist intellectuals say. They say, this is nothing but a normalization of sexual abuse and how people use their power to get sex. That feminist theorist, Andrea Dworkin bitch even said, sexual intercourse is an act of oppression. What the fuck dude. That was in the 1970s I guess.’

Ayesha: ‘Should we get another 180? And some fries?’

(Everyone nodded).

Aman: ‘Guys, I think this whole theory of power-differential as the cause of rape is only a partial answer. These idiots don’t realize how important sex is in a person’s life. Its not even sex that so important. I think, its the act of touch. Think about it. We can’t genuinely confirm the existence of anyone except our own selves. Fuck that, we don’t even feel our own bodies. This is the longest standing problem in philosophy. Is consciousness is different than body or they are the same. All talks, ideas, conversations that we have with other people just increases the probability of their existence and our own. But these are all abstract. Not concrete. We can’t fucking touch thoughts, can we. But, guess what, we can touch other people. Its absurd and beautiful at the same time. Touch or sex is a direct confirmation of two things. My own body and some other body apart from me. It helps me overcome the fear that, I am not alone in the Universe. Its a scary thought to be alone in the universe. I don’t know if I’m just rambling but I really think there is some truth to it.’

Ayesha: ‘Wait. That means, if what you say is true, then there is no reason to exclude gays, lesbians, transgenders etc., from affirming their own existence?’

Aman: ‘Yeah. Of course. They are humans too. My right to existence is my first right. It should not be taken away. Talking about transgenders, you guys should listen to ‘Lola’ by the Kinks. That song is an example of ‘sustained genius’ for 4 minutes. What an underrated band that is.’

Dhanush: ‘See, in India, the sex ratio is so fucked up that some guys just go crazy. These guys are poor, they do backbreaking work all day. They have a million reasons to curse their fate. Unlike middle-class and upper caste guys, they don’t even have a career or family or money to distract them. Like the cost-benefit ratio is near zero.’

Ayesha: ‘Then why not get a prostitute? Isn’t that a much better long-term solution? Because in a jail, you are always getting it backwards.’

Dhanush: ‘That was a good one, Ayesha.’

Aman: ‘Because prostitutes cost money and good ones are fucking expensive. Even for guys like us. So when they find a pretty enough girl or one with least consequences, they just prey on her. And a guy just does not wake up one day and then commit rape. The idea is like a germ in his head, it develops over months, years. He watches these hot Bollywood chicks, girls wearing skirts on the road, it all excites his imagination. Listens to his friends who have gotten away with rape. Ugly guys sleeping with beautiful girls. Its an exploding colorful rainbow volcano is his head. He masturbates thinking about them. After some time, it just doesn’t cut it. Even porn doesn’t work. He wants to feel the idealized human, the image of whom he has created in head. Its fucked up, man. Hell is a bottomless pit.’

Ram: ‘I mean, I can’t decide if you are wrong or right but you sure do seem like a soft rape apologist.’

Ayesha: ‘Why are you like this? Its so difficult to refute or agree with you. You scare me sometimes. I think I know you but I also don’t know you. Its fucked up because you’re one of my best friends. Aman, why though?’

Aman: ‘I’m sorry but what do you want me to do? I look at these guys, my heart goes out to them. I think gender is really a very powerful identity marker. No, I’m not advocating for lenient laws for rapists. Rape is fucking wrong. There are no two ways about it. But I’m just describing what I think goes into their head. This is what Nabokov did for pedophiles in Lolita. He wrote that book in such a way that people sympathized with a fucking child molester. People were appalled. Governments even banned his book. Wait. I saw a trailer about a movie on Sadat Hasan Manto, one of the finest Indian writers. He wrote about prostitutes, drug dealers, partition etc. He was an alcoholic douche apparently. He says something on similar lines. Let me google it.

Mayank: ‘Can you guys fucking drink? We still have half a bottle left. We’ll order another one’

Aman: ‘Yeah. Found it. Manto says, ‘ If you cannot bear these stories then the society is unbearable. Who am I to remove the clothes of this society, which itself is naked. I don’t even try to cover it, because it is not my job, that’s the job of dressmakers.’

Ayesha: ‘Guys, let me tell you a real life incident. A few years back, my dad took us to meet his bhuva (his dad’s blood sister, so my grandfather’s sister) in a remote village in Rajasthan. You couldn’t locate it on the Google Maps. Anyways, we enter this small-hut, size of a normal kitchen. She was a small,stout, frail woman. When she saw my dad, her face lit up so bright. Even Juliet did not have such a face when she met Romeo. She touched all our hands, feeling them as if they weren’t real. I doubt if her relatives in Rajasthan ever visited her. I was surprised when she took out a box of almonds and gave some to us. She was so fucking happy doing this. All this while, my dad was just making some small talk with her. It was surreal because my dad told me in the car that, she was widowed six months into her marriage when she was 15. And she fucking never married again. She did not have children. She was living all alone, without her relatives, in the middle of nowhere for 50 years. She was in her 60s when I visited her. I never saw again though. I heard that, she passed away two years ago.’

Aman: ‘I feel for her but here’s another story. This guy, Machal Lalang was jailed in his early 20s in 1954. He was poor, not mentally stable and couldn’t afford a good lawyer. So he rotted in jail as an undertrial. No court or judge had sentenced him but he languished in Indian jails for around 50 years until the National Human Rights Commission rescued him. God only knows what he went through in those jails even though he was never convicted for anything. This case was a sensation when it came out in 2004. His story is just an example of the thousands of young guys who are picked up by the police and no one gives a shit about them. Mind you, The number of guys in jails is disproportionately higher than women.’

Ayesha: ‘Yeah. Poor men end up in jails. Poor women in brothels. We get your point.’

Dhanush: ‘Fuck MeToo, the largest women empowerment movement is the Ujjwala Yojana launched by the Indian Government. By providing free LPG gas connections to poor women in villages, it is helping them escape indoor air pollution. Now, they don’t have to go to far-away forests to get firewood.’

Ayesha: ‘Also, don’t forget the Bharat Swachh Abhiyaan. Now, these women won’t have to get worried about being stalked or raped when they are taking a shit because they have a toilet.’

Aman: ‘But these liberal newspapers will piss on these schemes like they drank 5 barrels of alcohol last night. They can’t be seen endorsing a right-wing government right? Otherwise, they will be called Sanghi, pracharak etc. You know what? Fuck the politicians dude. They are all the same. Its these government officers and NGO people who are making a difference on the ground.’

Ram: ‘Fuck! Sanghi, that word just sounds wrong. Its worse than being called a rascist. or a Neo-nazi. That hurts.’

Aman: ‘This is nothing but a war of language. These feminists sit around a table and shit new terms to fit their propaganda. First, misogyny, then toxic-masculinity, then homophobe, transphobe, heteronormativity — the words sound more and more looks like the linguistic version of a Human Centipede. Joining things that shouldn’t be joined. Even the online spell checks don’t recognize these terms. They have that red line on them. I think these guys have a circle for their family tree. Incest and time travel.’

Mayank: ‘Fuck! that was insane. The last line was a work of pure comic genius. I’m pretty sure you didn’t come up with that line.’

Ram: ‘Human Centipede movie is fucking gross. Watch it at your discretion.’

Aman: ‘No shit. Some stand-up guy said it. I don’t remember who though.’

Ayesha: ‘About the words, its not like the other side doesn’t do this. They say shit like cuck, libtard. They are as bad.’

Mayank: ‘I think if there is one writer who is most relevant to the 21st century, no one else but George Orwell. His masterpiece, ‘1984’ is all about this. He shows how the human experience changes with changes in language.’

Aman: ‘This is why the ‘Big Brother’ in the book wants to reduce the number of words in the dictionary. The aim is to have only one word to express all the fucking emotions. And when everyone is using the same word to express different emotions, there is no difference between being happy or sad or agitated or satisfied or horny or frustrated or joyful. If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking. And if no one is thinking, you have successfully learnt to control people. Then how you have the world’s greatest dictator. This is what the liberals and conservatives are trying to do. But liberals are the ones ahead in this dangerous game.’

Ram: ‘Many Liberals are good people who understand that, people should not be discriminated on accidents of birth. Because they have first-hand experience of being passed over for something they had no control over. In that sense, even you are fucking liberal.’

Aman: ‘You are partly right. And partly wrong. Yes, I am a liberal in areas of life in which I have no inherent unfair advantage and I am a conservative in which I have a marginally unfair advantage.’

Ayesha: ‘Because for those who are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.’

(For the first time, they realized the crowd had swelled and almost all the tables had people engaged in animated conversations. They all stared into fuzzy lights, the world seemed like the Buddhist’s four notions — the world existed, the world not existed, the world both existed and not existed, the world neither existed nor not existed).

(It felt like there was no retort to what she had said. It was a truism. It neither needed any explanation nor could it be be refuted by an stretch of imagination).

Mayank: ‘So where do we go from here? Should we not encourage women to acquire positions of power? Should they always be relegated to making sandwiches?’

Aman: ‘I don’t know about that. But if a few women do get to the top, it will have the ‘trickle down effect’ on other women.’

Dhanush: ‘Isn’t that the whole point of Reservation in our country?’

Ayesha: ‘Care to elaborate?’

Aman: ‘Basically by putting a couple of people from an oppressed minority into positions of power, in some time, other people in that community will be encouraged also. Like how state govts in India try to attract big companies in their states. When a big plant is established, hundreds of other small factories come up to support it.’

Ram: ‘Fuck dude, I never thought of it that way.’

Mayank: ‘Because you are as bright as a fucking black hole. Good Lord!’

Dhanush: ‘You can’t call it a black hole. Its offensive. That’s a White Man’s attempt to establish cultural hegemony over celestial bodies.’

Ayesha: ‘Guys, can we get the bill? I’m guessing we’re all pretty drunk here.’

Ram: ‘Yeah.’

Aman: ‘Anyways, you guys use the past way too much to justify present contradictions. And you always look at history from your own preconceived notions. Basically selection bias. And construct elaborate theories on shaky foundations.’

Dhanush: ‘But the past is never past. Its always in the present.’

Ram: ‘What shit! Why the fuck are you obsessed with past, present and future? You said stupid shit in the beginning too. How drunk are you?’

Dhanush: ‘I’m as sober as a judge.’

Mayank: ‘Speaking of judges, I think Indian judges should snort coke on a daily basis and work 15 hours, 6 days a week. That’s the only foolproof way to deal with the huge backlog.’

Aman: And for every 50 cases, one handjob from some hot whore. For 250, blowjob. For 1000, sex. For 3,000, anal.

Ayesha: ‘Not everyone wants that much sex. Sex is not the only answer. Jeez.’

Dhanush: ‘It is. Because everything is about sex. Except sex. Sex is about power. But absolute power is about being powerless.’

Ayesha: ‘Fuck off Dhanush. And Oscar Wilde’s word is not Bible. So chill.’

Ram: ‘Anyways, we should create a fund called ‘Give me bitches, I’ll give you Justice’ Fund.’

Aman: ‘Sounds so erotic in Hindi. Tum Mujhe randi do, mein tumhe nyaya doonga.’

Ram: ‘Phir Randi ko nyaya kaun dega?’

Ayesha: ‘Feminists.’