Two days before, in the evening (passed
seven ‘O’ clock), I was sitting in our sit out area and viewing sky and the
following things happened. It was nearly full dark in the sky and there were
some clouds grouping here and there. There was no electricity at my area at
that time, due to our usual timing of 45 minutes power regulations. The only
emergency light in the house was with my mom in kitchen and I was happy to be
alone in the semi dark environment in the front area of our house and I was
enjoying the cool breeze flowing. Let me give a brief idea about the whole
area, my house is very near to the road, only 2 meter away, both house and road
are parallel, but house is almost half meter above the road level, so the sit
out area is open to the road we can see the whole passing vehicles clearly
albeit the presence of a gate. But due to lack of light I couldn’t identify
people then.
At 7.20, a two wheeler came from the east
side, so that was coming by the side of my house, I could hear mobile ringing
from the vehicle, and the moped was stopped by the driver at the roadside. I
could not see clearly, but the passengers were two girls (in teens or early
twenties), I got that from there talk. And I assumed they were coming back from
the temple. I could hear them clearly, but they never seen my presence there. One
of the girls, whom I think the elder one said, let her take the call this time.
From that I again assumed that the phone belonged to the other one and more
importantly, that was not the first time they are getting a call from the same
number. Girls were not at all interested in that call. The elder girl took the
call with a harsh tone.
“Who is this?”
Obviously I couldn’t hear the reply,
but whatever it was, it was not satisfactory.
“Why are you calling?” The girl asked.
Of course, it was not a good reply this
time too from the other side. I think the caller got the notion that the call
wasn’t taken by the owner of the phone.
“You called to this
number and asking who am I? Are you mad?” Girl just wanted to get rid of him
then (of course it was a male on the other side).
The guy was not in a mood to give up, he
continued his nonsense’s. Girl cut the call and both the girls were about to
restart their journey, Mobile rang again along with the ignition of the bike.
Then the younger one who was little intimidated by the unknown caller earlier
collected all her courage and assured the elder one that she was ready to take
the call and end this up once and for all.
So the conversation started again.
Now the younger one “What do you want?”
Some reply followed, but not a long one, as
the girl retorted in a second.
“Want to hear my sweet voice, huh?” She then said “Let’s have a sweet talk”
Then
for the next one minute the girl never gave that idiot a chance to talk.
I can’t write
down the ‘sweet talk’ as I don’t know the English translation of most of the
phrases used by the girl. After one minute mobile was handed over to the other
girl and she carried on from where the younger girl left.
The call ended like this.
“If you call back, you are going to regret for
that, filthy swine”
Then Girls continued
with their journey.
I don’t really support the usage of abusive
languages, but that time I was enjoying that a lot. People do not respect others
time and privacy does not deserve any sort of respect. Whatever the girls were
saying was not enough as a punishment for that idiot. But, when they realized,
tolerating all that disturbances and go on with that was not the solution, they
reacted as they could.
The situation reminded me of
several incidents that I heard about and I myself witness about; the anonymous
calls, missed calls and messages, more importantly, the annoying calls from
persons known to you (or you think you know them until the calls arrive).
Well, I can’t say all girls own a
mobile faced such a situation, but a lot of them faced things like that. But
how such incidents affect people is differ with people. Some brush aside such
matter easily, some think over such matter and get confuse themselves. And a
few become frantic by such things. I don’t think one can say that girls should
restrain their emotions and neglect such things and ‘let them disturb you’. But
in our society (Hey, I’m in Kerala), it is like that.
If anonymous calls/messages come to
your mobile, the elders ask ‘how they get your number?’ You are already
confused with that, and here you become the culprit. Or you are instructed to
avoid such calls. And you can expect the cliche dialogue ‘this is the result of
mobile in the hands of a girl’. So all the abusive texts and calls to girls,
all are because girls own a mobile, which they shouldn’t. I don’t want to say
something about crimes against women (such as rapes, ill-treat, physical
abuses) here (but I really think irritating girls by calls and messages are
also crimes against women done by male chauvinist morons). But all these are
because of the male dominant society that prevails here. All are raised with
this mentality. Girls used to get instructions like tolerate everything, never
react and all and they are assured that they can never have a life without the
support of men, obey them and most of these by the elder women of the family.
Boys at the same time nurtured with the idea that they are superior to women.
They are not aware of the rights of women, their freedom. They don’t expect a ‘NO’
from women, more than that they can’t tolerate a ‘NO’. So, they do make maximum
nuisance for the girls who resist. Given acid attacks is clear evidence for
this.
So when a boy makes a call he wants the
girl react to him positively, answer everything. If the girl avoids the call as
unknown, he deliberately calls to annoy her, just to make her day a hell. So
the purpose is to play with her. These egotists think all are like them, have
nothing to do, just sitting idle. They don’t understand the value of time for
other people because their time got no value. Another group of men (said group
because they play as groups) call from a number first, then if girl shows no
interest or avoid the number call from others mobiles and continue the pranks.
Interesting fact is, not only the men mistakenly call to a girl’s number is
become the pranksters (by mistake they get a girl to harass) but the known ones
can be the same. That is, all such calls are not anonymous. Sometimes a person
who befriended a girl can cause menace later. These sorts of guys enjoy with
their ‘male’ friends by teasing girls, for fun. They don’t understand either others
privacy or meaning of friendship. I really would like to exclude the mistakenly
dialed calls for a single time or once in a year April fool’s fun by friends
and relatives from the nuisance category. Both are humane, can happen to boy or
girl by girl or boy. We enjoy fun, but should be for both sides. If somebody
thinks above mentioned deliberately making pesters should be taken lightly,
then they are really not aware about the value of space, privacy, and time of
people. Girls do have the right to choose who talk to them, if they don’t want to
they should be spared.
Pranks not only limited to
calls, there are cases of obscene messages send by lunatics to girls. They act
like they never heard about the word ‘decency’. Such continuous attacks could
demoralize anybody. When such calls or
messages came from people you think you know well shock you the most. The question
‘How could he do this to me?’ haunts you. You exclaim you never knew the
person.
Well, the whole time I mentioned
boy, men, male etc as culprits. It is true that I never came across a lady who
taunts boy or a boy complain about such attacks by a girl like the above
mentioned ways, that is by calls and messages. I don’t think such things never
happened. But the rate of men taunts girls through the medium of mobile is high.
By all these I just wanted to state the attitude of our society. The patriarchy
system that prevails in our society think girls should be suppressed. The ‘phoning
programs’ are just an example of this attitude. Men think they do have a right
to do so. They think they can have fun this way. The system we follow is the
real culprit. Who’s going to make everybody understand that men and women are
equal in all ways, both possess equal rights and one is not for the entertainment
for other?
By stating ‘men’ I
just generalize that, I know. But only people who do such crimes are included
in that category. Of course there are decent people, I meant ‘men’ out there. The
girls of that evening were frustrated by that call. They scolded that jerk to
avoid further calls. I don’t know whether they were succeeded or not as, if
some decency was left in that man he wouldn’t call many times before. Now let
me tell something from my personal experience. Almost 4 years back when I was
doing my post graduation I confronted with such a situation. I was a hostler and
it was the start of my second year. And I had only 1.5 years acquaintance with
my mobile and in technological world I was never a smart one. Actually there
was never an encroachment into my life; I was playing safe always, unaware of
risks through mobile. So one night, nearly past 10, I was getting ready for bed
had a call to my cell. It was an unknown number. I took it; the man on the
other side introduced to me himself. I knew him (that was I thought). Actually
I had met him at a bank branch a week before that. I was with my father and to
open a bank account. This man looking forty years was there with his wife and
kid. Father talked to them and then got the knowledge that we all belong to
same village. To open a new account I had to be introduced to the bank by an
account holder. Unfortunately my father didn’t have an account there, so this
man introduced me and I filled his account number in the prescribed column.
Exactly this was happened and nothing else. So he was the caller and I inquired
about his wife and kid. I was not at all comfortable as time passes as there were
no specific answers for my certain questions like how he got my number etc. I
knew there was no chance he could have my number, all I had to do was to fill
his account number in my form. He said there was a call from bank and he got
the number from them. I couldn’t believe bank guys told my number to him.
Somehow I ended the talk. I am doubter; I don’t need big things to think a lot.
I was really confused. After 10.30 I went to bed, and then a message came to my
phone. It was from his number. It was just a start, and then came message flood
to my phone which I didn’t find as decent. I couldn’t believe it, a man I
almost called as an uncle sending such messages to me. I lost my sleep; I
started to delete all messages. It was almost 12 at midnight, I was still
getting messages. I became frantic. I didn’t know how my father would handle
that if I would call him and more than that it could cause a panic attack to my
mom. So I called my brother who is younger to me. Well, he was not asleep as
his IIT life taught him to stay awake at night. I described everything, send
him the number of that guy; he said not to delete any message and go to sleep,
he would manage it. Well, that comforted me a little and I tried to sleep. There
were some messages in the inbox when I woke up. But there was nothing in the
morning. Brother called me to ensure that there were no more problems. When my
brother called the guy he told some excuses like he lost his SIM and somebody
called from that etc. He couldn’t explain it well and my brother warned him. There
was no follow up for that incident. And it ended like that. The only way he
could get my number was when I filled my form he could peep into it and noted my
number down. He might do that.
So after that incident I was
always taken care to deal with my number carefully when I mentioned that outside.
And one thing I’m sure that if I would not make my brother to involve in that
case I would have to tolerate that lunatic for a very long time. The girls’
incident showed me that the world doesn’t change much in four years. Men will
be Men, Right??
