Save the boy child from ‘creative’ shaming

“Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt.”
-Titus Maccius Plautus

If nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt, then nothing is more disgusting than the mind of a man who uses children to hide behind his own guilt or his own need to get quick fame. I am referring to the recent video made by Keegan Pinto, Creative Head – FCB Ulka. Brilliantly sickening!  No doubt, many feminists are clapping their hands in glee, foaming at the mouth.

Welcome to the phenomenon of the human shield. And when the human shield comprises of children, it is very effective in delivering any message. Recently, there was a big hue and cry on social media when paramilitary forces allegedly used a protestor as a human shield. What Keegan Pinto and the other stakeholders have done is nothing short of using small children as human shields in a gender shaming exercise

The children in the video are shown repeating phrases like ‘Mother and father, save me from becoming a bad man when I grow up’ repeatedly replacing the phrase ‘bad man’ with ‘repeat sex offender’, ‘rapist’, ‘wife beater’, ‘molester’, ‘stalker’, ‘pervert’, ’chauvinist’, ‘misogynist’ and going on to coax their parents to teach them ‘gender equality’ and ‘correct values’. This video is an exercise in shaming men by shaming little boys. into not becoming something they may or may not become, solely by the virtue of being male. This reveals a seriously twisted mind worth condemning on so many levels. Let us examine the assumptions that we are supposed to digest. Assumption one: That all males are bound to grow up to be rapists or other types of criminals. Assumption two: That active intervention is required at a young age to stop the transformation of boys into criminals. Assumption three: That if young boys themselves send this message to parents and society to save themselves from becoming criminals, the message becomes very effective.

The only assumption worth its salt here is that the ‘creative head’ will do anything to gain the attraction and hero worship of young and impressionable women. So much for desperation! No one would have minded much if he had emasculated himself in the video. However, his attempt to social-engineer gender behavior by injecting sexual guilt, that too into little children who do not fully understand gender roles, responsibilities or crime, is downright disgusting.

Looking at the age of the children in the video, it becomes clear that none of the children actually understand the full extent of the meaning and import of the words they have been made to parrot. We must also take into account the effect of the video on young adolescent male viewers who could face serious sexual confusion and self-hate. On the other hand young adolescent female viewers would start thinking that their natural attraction to young males is somehow perverted and wrong since according to the video all males if not corrected as children are doomed to be sexual deviants and perverts.

The fact that this video has used small children to deliver a nasty, guilt-loaded, guilt-inducing message exposes the fact somewhere some guilt has actually been offloaded off somebody’s mind. Only a guilty mind would use the ‘creativity’ of delivering guilt using the essence of innocence; that which is the defining nature of childhood.

Interestingly the video makers made the young boys use a phrase like ‘save me from becoming a man who shames you, gives you a bad name’. Using small children to deliver adult messages which they don’t even understand fully is shameful in itself. Children have very fragile thought processes and whole education systems across the world grapple with the difficulty of imparting moral education. When you add gender equations to the mix, then the problem gets that much more complicated. Any attempt of this kind is bound to have far reaching negative effects on young impressionable minds.

What is even more disturbing is the fact that many people on facebook are heaping praises on Keegan Pinto for his ‘creative’ idea. Some of these people appear to be the parents or guardians of the children portrayed. All these people must take a hard look at the underlying assumption of the ‘Creative Head’ that all male children are bound to become stalkers, wife beaters, rapists, molesters and repeat sexual offenders and examine if they themselves are all or any of the above. If not, they must examine for themselves if they have reached the point of being non-criminals only on the interventionary and manipulative tactics of the likes of Keegan Pinto in their childhood.

It is shameful how some people can use their ‘creativity’ to vilify a whole gender, including young defenseless and clueless boys in order to please women. Keegan Pinto and his art appreciators must understand that his actions are nothing less than psychological manipulation of young boys.

When the Labour Ministry of the government can deliberate and decide on how many number of hours a child artiste can work, I am sure it is also worth considering and to formulate laws on how and what messages a child actor can be allowed to render and portray.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r-lkDhjfRc

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/child-artistes-can-work-only-for-5-hours-a-day/article18201739.ece

International Men’s Day 2015

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Twitter handle: #InternationalMensDay
 
International Men’s Day is a day to commemorate and reflect on the many values, contributions and accomplishments that are attributed to men. Beginning with the discovery of fire and invention of the wheel to the Mars Orbiter Mission, the journey of man has transcended both time and space, but we somehow remain in the same circle of hope, apathy & despair.
Mankind thrives on inspiration which is best symbolized in the spirit of freedom. This is the spirit that overthrows oppression and tyranny, the spirit that invents and innovates, the spirit that nourishes and cares.
International Men’s Day is the day to celebrate all the positive male values that make us human and also makes us uniquely human.
IMD is also an effort to improve gender relations and use benign gender sensitivity to understand and appreciate a long misunderstood gender because of its generally stoic nature
November 19 of each year has been celebrated as the International Men’s Day (IMD). In India, IMD was first celebrated with a car and bike rally in Mumbai in 2007, In Hyderabad it was i2009. Each year IMD celebrations grew in size and we saw IMD being endorsed by the HE range of deodorants in 2014.
Every year, IMD is celebrated with a theme. This year’s theme deals with Male Health issues..
It is well known that the average male life-expectancy is 5 years lower than the female life-expectancy. Men suffer many ailments which are usually attributed to their workaholism. But it is also true that men take on much higher stress and is linked to their non-expression of emotional issues. Research spending on male health is a fraction on what is spent on female health issues.

Posts by medical health professionals:We are expecting medical and psychological health professionals to contribute by posting their short synopses or online links of male health issues to be displayed on this page.
Generally speaking, there is an absence of gender-research organizations or programmes to look into male-related issues. Through this page and this commemorative date, we wish to encourage individuals, groups, corporate entities and male-oriented product brands to promote and conduct events, surveys, discussions on this topic.
Event suggestions: Rallies, Mixers-Blenders, foodie group events, seminars, art-expositions, selfie contests, twitter feeds, talk shows, stand-up comedy shows, Employee/employer appreciations, male-specific brand promotions, group health-checkups, charity work,
Call for sharing their plans for IMD
Download Resources link: 


Post your event pics and experiences: Please post your links either on to this page or send an email of thoughts, pictures, videos to share your experiences’s

My Prison Experience – Hanging on to innocence

It was mid-day and the April sun was sharp against my face. I was the last of the prisoners to enter the courtyard. It was hexagonal with a small room near the centre.  A big man in a prison uniform looked at me and told everyone to pick up a plate. When my turn came, there were no plates left. I was terrified at the thought of asking him. The inmate looked at me like I was a cockroach. Then he uttered a “$@%8#.. andar se pilate le” (“Get a plate from inside”) and pointed to a small dusty room with an open door. I went inside and found a few bent food plates with dust and dried grime on it. I picked up the least dirty one. This one looked like it was greased with tar.
I took the plate and wandered out of the hexagon into where I saw the last man disappear. It opened into a bigger courtyard with lots of trees and barracks building on the right, with a few men sitting outside and looked at me as if I was a foreign tourist. I probably had that look of a lost boy on my face.  I looked around for the least intimidating looking man and approached him with caution. I was not sure if I should talk to him first. He asked me if I had any cigarettes with me. I told him I don’t. He scowled at me as if I had a rabid infection and after a pause, gestured at my plate and told me to clean it near a cemented water tank.
Thus began the longest plate cleaning exercise of my life. In part I was relieved I had something to do. I poured some water on and used some detergent powder that I found next to the tap. It barely even cleaned the caked dust.  I picked up some sand and tried to scrub off the tar. I saw it make some progress. I wondered if they had sandpaper supply in prison. That was the engineer in me thinking. I scrubbed and scrubbed till the skin of my hands showed signs of peeling off. The final result still had some black tar in a thin layer. With sweat pouring down my face, I could see lines of metal after my engineering feat. I prepared myself mentally to eat off the plate if I was going to be here forever.
I looked up to see a thin young man looking at me intently. He looked amused at what I was doing. He said “Bhaijaan, usko pheko. Khane ka wakat, mere pilate le lo, baad me accha wala doondh ke dunga” (“Brother, leave that plate, you may use my plate during meal-time, I will find you a better one later”). Something about his gesture was reassuring, because I felt I was going to be here for a long long time. I kept imagining, no, I was sure that my family stopped trying to get me out on bail, though I did not have much understanding of that concept then.
That evening I was sitting on my own, trying to avoid ‘the hardened criminals’, imagining all sort of sordid things that might happen to me. The same boy set up a carrom board game and asked me to play with him along with two others. The second day of prison was spent like this, listening to their life stories.
The next morning I kept listening to the loudspeaker announcements that listed out names for release on bail granted or visitation ‘Rihae or Mulaqat‘. My name or number did not come up, but my new friend came back from somewhere, called me by name and asked me to report to the Superintendent’s office for release procedure and to hurry. He did not even wait for me to thank him.
I had a lot of time to reflect on that in the years to come. I do not remember his name, lost in the hardened faces I tried to remember during the three days of ‘judicial remand’. I have forgotten the names, I have forgotten the faces, but I will remember the kindness and the concern the inmates showed me those three days, something I didn’t find in all the people who pretend to uphold law, justice and fairness in the days that led up to prison and hence.
Today, I commemorate the Prison Experience Day with my thanks to the inmates, their kindness and humanity that is lost in the ‘fair and just outside world’. Today, I wish the humanity in them with my #SelfieInPrison initiative

International Day of Families Speech

We all need a witness to our lives. ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness’ – Movie “Shall we dance”
And if a husband-wife relationship is about having a witness to our lives, then children and their children are the evidences. And we can trace this evidence from the start of the human life till ourselves..you and me.
Only the bonds of family makes all these witnesses and evidences and survival itself meaningful. Only the bonds of family makes us different from rocks and trees. It is not just the family members that make a family, it is the bond that makes a family.
A marriage and family is a framework of these bonds. People change, people die, but these ties remain. We cannot live in isolation. This is the legacy and the blueprint for the survival of the human race.
Today, this very bond, these feelings of trust and love, this is what is being attacked viciously.
For a false and temporary sense of freedom & individuality, the concept of isolation is being propogated with a sense of rabid righteousness. A new regime of laws and politics are being developed. So the question is..
How will the concept of family survive if one gender is shown as genetically and socially superior to the other?
It will not.
Let us observe the bonds themselves. These are built on the values of trust, love and sacrifice.
Today, the whole concept of marriage and family has been brought under the purview of a contract, a mere business of convenience and a framework of transaction.
But trust cannot be enforced by law, love cannot be enforced by state machinery, care cannot be ensured by punishment. Infact, none of these values can be brought under the purview of the State. Which is to say that Government may do anything to support a family system, but may not interfere or try to legalize the family structure. For in the very attempt to ‘legalize’ marriage, the inference is that anything in a marriage that is not seen as official or under the prying eyes of the State is illegal.
On the contrary, any social experimentation, especially by the government, on family obligations is counter-productive. The results of these experimentations have become spectacularly clear today. Today, we are witnessing the systematic breakdown of the family structures that gave the identity of the human race. In the name of women’s empowerment, male hatred is being preached as being fashionable. It is like cutting off one hand to make the other hand look longer. And it does not stop there. The State with the active help of feminist organisations are saying that this is actually good for the human body.

There already exists laws to combat crime and human greed. By categorising crime specific to family situations is an attempt to break down the family structures itself and not the crime.
Let me give you an example. We all have heard of the cases of disproportionate assets by judges and also about corrupt judges. Why is there no special law called the Corrupt Judges Act? The reasons are obvious. They will say that there is already a Prevention of Corruption Act. Dowry harassment is the same as extortion. Then why do we have a Dowry Act when there is already a law against extortion? Why have a domenstic violence act when there is already a law against violence? It is only to feed the egos of a few maniacs in power. These are the people who cannot see a family structure to which they do not themselves belong.

It is a fact that every bond is subject to wear, tear and breakage and it could be for any reason. In a situation where the differences are irreconciliable, the husband or the wife should be allowed to walk away cleanly. But our legal system has biased itself to such an extent that it gives two different verdicts to husbands and wives given the same set of petitioning circumstances. If a man asks for divorce he is automatically labelled irresponsible and if a woman asks she is said to be a victim of circumstances.

It is an irony that the very system of laws like IPC 498A, DV Act & Maintenance Laws which have been created as the champion against the Indian husband’s mythical greed and imaginatively systemized violent nature are tools of extortion themselves. A tool of extortion to combat extortion. This is the result of State interference into family life.

If this is not stopped today, very soon, we will witness the destruction of the fabric of family life and the very identity of India will be on the verge of extinction.

I demand the following:

  • Scrap IPC 498A since appeals to amend the section were ignored.
  • Scrap DV Act since appeals to amend the Act were ignored.
  • Progressively ensure that laws do not infringe and intrude into family issues.
  • Ensure that Government is made to pay damages/compensation to families who had to suffer the trauma inflicted by the creation and execution of these family specific biased laws.

Protector and Provider

“YES I am a PROTECTOR and PROVIDER of my Mother and Sister as I do that out of love and affection and THEY have done a lot and NOW at this time of CRISIS caused by a sick 498A WIFE they are with me. SO I AM NOT AGAINST THEM AT ALL. I am not against WOMAN but against those PERSONS who are misusing the
laws.” – X

Dear X. Your sentiment is well respected by most males in our forum.

1). BUT, this is exactly the same sentiment that our 498A wives’ fathers and brothers are using to attack husbands. Because they feel they are the protectors of their women they want to take control of each minute of their daughter’s/sister’ s life.

2). As for “I am a PROTECTOR and PROVIDER of my Mother and Sister”, let us assume that the Protector and Provider dies today. So what is to become of the mother and sister in this ‘big, bad male dominated society”. Should they perish and die since they dont have a P&P? Should they commit suicide? Should we expect them not to survive at all? Are women(mother and sister)such incompetents that they cant survive at all?

So you see, it is exactly this kind of thinking(based on fear) that led to this current state of affairs. Nobody is asking anyone to hate women, but let us not dont consider them so weak that they cant survive on their own. The fear is in our minds. Let us not allow fear to drive our thinking. It leads to laws like 498A etc.,