Sairam friends,
When I was making Corporate film at work, I observed few minor behavioural nature both in Indian Men and Women. Let’s not bother Men as of now. It’s not that I want to film girls. I can even make a film with cartoons or just with Men. I have no idea to bother these girls once again when I shoot in couple of weeks too. Some of these girls were matured and most who were married had no issues. I could clearly see girls who are too young were little odd.
Are we creating weaker and vulnerable women who are more concious about what we call as “Living for the society” and “Abiding to culture” or simply “Sterotyped” ?
Even their Mother’s would have been much broadminded than these girls. Their Mom’s would have stopped their studies early on or certainly not been educated as these girls are but they would have lived a more cherishing life than these girls.
At one end, I know girls who are too freaky. They drink and party. I don’t know if I have rights to request them not to drink. On the other end, I see girls who are too traditional though they think they aren’t.
(These are Sai devotees too. Don’t get me wrong when I say Saibaba has to manage variety of children. He never differentiates between children who are good or bad. For Sai, everyone are equally good. After all he’s a sweet heart. That’s why he’s managing me too.)
Some Indian girls are really are living in stone age. The only difference is that they have smart phone with internet which is engaging them. Do you call this as growth?
I also started thinking few other behavioural traits which you can see only in Indian girls both before and after getting married. As technology moves ahead and life style seems to drastically get better, our girls just seem to be growing but most of them are still living inside a circle they accepted to live within.
Let me give you an example
Three years back, I started in my friends Car from Saibaba temple. He suddenly saw 2 women in Bus stop and stoped the car smiling at them. They were his customers wife, had been to their home on several occasions and know their family, especially their husband well.Since it was raining, he offered to drop them in their house. They did got in. We spoke few minutes and as the car neared their home, they asked to stop the car in the main road and not near their home.
We understood they were not comfortable getting down with some men near their neighbourhood. So they felt its better to get down in the main road and walk to their home.
I never spoke anything to my friend about this incident but It made me remember my own mentality.
(I removed the article I wrote about Vidhya a week back since I felt its OK if my life is an open source software for everyone to download. She’s gonna marry someone else. So I removed it)
Once, Vidhya causally said that she has to go to corporate training center of her Airline. I called up when she said one of her colleague Krishna dropped her from railway station. I was furious and told her how can some other guy drop her when I am there for her. I did not had buddhi that she was in Mumbai and I am in Coimbatore. We fought a lot. 10 days back, when she called up, I laughed a lot reminding this incident to her. I call it “Indian Man’s mentality” and I am not proud of it.
Anyway, as of now, I just wish Vidhya marries a good guy as I always want the best for all the girls I liked in the past. Now the point is, why did I got furious with Vidhya when some other guy simply dropped her to her work place? Call it possessiveness but that’s almost poisonous. I am actually restricting her freedom.
Love must not restrict a Women’s freedom. Most Indian Men do this. Most Indian parents do this to their daughter. And we call it a cultural thing? I am not convinced
I use the word “Fraud” and “Drama” to describe myself these days because that’s what I realized most of us are in this country. We are not living for ourseleves. We are living for the society or the people whom we are supposed to convince. Its especially true to most girls.
I kept remembering this for the past 2 weeks. While screening my Corporate film, I was really angry how we are creating such an ill ecosystem for girls in this country and wanna communicate it that there’s something wrong about the way we built a stupid culture. I got really frustrated and spoke. Couple of my friends adviced me not to talk so emotionally and its better that I don’t talk at all in public. I told them, its because I never spoke for girls appearing in my film but basically I wish girls to be more goal oriented and ambitious.
I tell this to every guy and girl who are close to me that they must learn fast and grow ahead. This could be because I lost 2/3rd of my life doing nothing. What I lost must not happen to others. So I must atleast inspire others to make it big in their life.
Sheryl Sandberg – Facebook COO, Former VP of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google
Why I especially care for girls to be more expressive and focussed?
Some of my friends said I am biased that I made a video for girls. I told one of my friend that it has always surprised me when I see girls behaving too formal. My Sister left India 15 years back. I could not remember a day when She obyed anyone. Not my parents, myself or others. She does what she wants to do. Did she loose anything by living that way? She has only gained. She was focussed in what she wanna achieve in her life. So it really surprises me when I see girls today continue to behave too odd. I can’t tell what I actually observed. There are few stuff I can’t express openly.
But it hurt me to core.
Fortunately, some girls were normal. But the younger the girl the more sterotyped they are. Is it because we come from a tier 2 city in India like Coimbatore? I am not sure how girls in metro cities are but I have Sai friends in Delhi and Mumbai. They do share their problems to me and ask for advice. I do find they also face similar problems.
I am angry with the way most girls are restricting their freedom for reasons I can’t justify
Previously, I thought its only the girls in my organization behaving like this. Later, I thought over it curiously. Its something happening across India as long as a women lives in India and even if she works in a metro city. I don’t gain anything but asking these girls to think differently but I thought there really is a problem and they must fix it. The society as a whole must fix it.
Its pathetic that we are not creating a good ecosystem for women in this country.
I just don’t know if anyone would ever understand how painful it is for me to digest when I see a girl “Acting” and not “Living”.
I observed few behavioral traits which we have named as “Culture”
Its OK if I spoke badly because the society as a whole is bad.
And public speaking is something I will keep doing because I know I am not good at it. So I experiment myself when ever I can. The place I work is just for me to experiment all my weakness. I am enjoying it. These days, I realized I have nothing to loose anymore. I have already lost all that I possess due to my behaviour. So its OK if I loose the rest of my reputation. Most of them thought that I am annoyed as girls were not comfortable while shooting. That was quite natural as even guys did that. What bothered me was some other behaviour with the girls I actually shot and can’t openly express it. That was when I realized we are living in such a backward society.
All that I care is if someday we will create an ecosystem in this country that will let girls live the way they really would?
Why I am like this?
I myself ask why I get so angry and frustrated when some girls who are nobody to me are having such narrow minded traits. I can just ignore them. The problem is only women who face problems and difficulties write to me. Most girls who are married are leading a happy or atleast a normal life. Few who face difficulties are the one’s I care about.
Even in the U.S, there are single Mother’s and Father’s. When it comes to Single Mother, if they have a strong career and will, they can manage their life but those who are too vulnerable cannot even survive in their career if their personal life fails.
I love this speech by Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg in UC Berkerley Commencement Keynote speech
“The easy days ahead of you will be easy. It is the hard days. The days that challege you to your core that will determine who you are.
You will be defined not by what you achieve but how you survive”
In 2015, Sheryl’s husband passed away suddenly leaving behind her 2 beautiful children. It was hard for her to move on with her life. Described as one of the top 100 influential women in the world, how could she come out of this adversity.
If you have time, please watch this video as Sheryl shares her story of what she learnt from her husband’s death. The most powerful women in Silicon Valley with assets worth over 1 Billion dollars had to face the pain she could not imagine. She did that and her survival taught me so much about life.
Do you know how many mails I get in a month from girls who tell that they are pained as they can’t marry the guy they loved? I wrote so many articles on how to be strong internally and move on in life.
If our girls are sterotyped and vulnerable, they can’t manage the adversities in life.
Exactly 10 days after her husband passed away, Sheryl turned to work to run Facebook. She made her kids go to school on the same day.
How many Indian women can do it?
There are single Mother’s in India too and they struggle to bring up their children.
Many have done this but if you are not strong enough to face adversities in life, you better make yourself be.
For Gods sake, Live for yourself.
Don’t live for your Mom.
Don’t live for your Dad
Don’t live for your Boyfriend
Don’t live for your husband
You just have to live for your children if you have one and then it is just “Yourself” whom you should care about.
Live for yourself and be yourself.
Venkat
I never speak or write anything without personally experiencing and under going pain.
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