I stopped laughing, to take a breath

A lot of funny things happened last week, but I was busy laughing for different reasons. Those reasons suddenly stopped being around, and I’m reading old newspapers for a good laugh that I badly need. You can always trust newspapers, more than the people. News seldom disappoints you.

One highly ambitious, yet very socially responsible, organisation decided to protest against harassment of women. It’s not a new thing, and they knew no stupid old ways of protest could solve the issue. Innovation is the only way that appeals the ambitious these days. And brains must have been racked a lot to bring up this one. Wear what you wish you could, but you wouldn’t – was that idea to protest. An idea that almost stands equal to that of Gandhi’s non-cooperation. For some reason beyond mankind’s understanding, women almost always had the belief that they are imprisoned in their clothes. I can’t think of any other rational hidden under the thought of burning underclothes on their way to freedom.

Men turn to invertebrates when they come before women. And they find pleasure in almost every ill-meant insult directed to them. I know of one person who sincerely expressed his gratitude when was insulted with a ‘you!’ preceded by the beautiful f-word. The particular protest, staged after midnight on the streets of Delhi, too was one such occasion. There were only fifteen delhities to take that daring challenge to wear what they wish they could, but wouldn’t. And they turned up wearing what they could, but wish wouldn’t. As per the newspaper report, they marched past the ogling men on both sides of the road armed with slogans written on placards. They didn’t know, men don’t even read the slogan’s on their t-shirts, but just pretend to.

While this dramatic protest by a few powerless women ended on an unwanted anti-climax in the capital Delhi, things were ready for a cinematic turn of events in the state capital of Thiruvanathapuram down south. There lives this powerful woman, who’s a movie-buff. She’s powerful, not because she’s a movie-buff, but also is a minister in the ruling government. She never misses to watch a movie on its releasing date. The power of separate, shorter queues for women, or the power of power is of no help to this lady. Kerala, still, is a very democratic state. Ministers can’t reserve the whole theatre to watch a movie even if they want to. The only privilege they can have there is getting a ticket without standing in the queue. But that doesn’t solve the problem for the minister. The crowd won’t give way for anyone, even if that one is just happened to be a minister. When the power becomes powerless, it’s intelligence that really can show the power. The not-so-well-armed police force in Kerala is very intelligent lot. A few of them land at the theatre and give a hoax bomb call. The crowd vanishes. The minister enters. The movie starts. End.

It’s not ideology, or political position, or intelligence, but money that has real power, says the author of the most read blog in the country. He describes the story appeared in Reuters about a ruling by one Finnish judge. This guardian of law had ruled that a total of € 25,500 is too high for a women to charge for letting a 74 year old man suffering from dementia to ‘enjoy’ her breasts on10 occasions. This popular blogger used to be one harmless guy who ends each post at the first occurrence of a funny line. May be because of influence by some tricky astrological pattern at the time of writing, he went on writing a huge piece (huge by his own standards), even after warning many blogger greenhorns against the temptation to write long posts. The outcome was an interesting, and silly, theory of economics that states increasing prices help the society to fight individual greed. I can’t resist liking a paradox. The only trouble I was facing was, this theory is only acceptable to people who can afford to be greedy, not the ones who are just needy. But then, it’s only them who read blogs.

If you are a person, who has ever laughed long enough, you know how it feels once the laughter is died down. There comes a moment in which you wonder why you were laughing. You feel a little lost, and awkward at that tiny fraction of time. And in one such moment, I was thinking, since when had sense and nonsense become synonymous.