Democracy in the Dark Pool

In the present socio-political setup, an army of mislead unintelligent people have been created to attack all legitimate examinations of establishment with whataboutery and illogical allegations of anti-nationalism with a sole purpose of preventing the right questions from reaching the right people. If a question is intelligent or fortunate enough to walk past this army, there is a second line of defence throwing question templates like – ‘It’s easy to criticize a government but what are you doing as a citizen?’ or ‘You are pointing all the problems that are there but what solution do you offer?’. To answer those questions, as a citizen we decided to chose a mister as our leader and equipped him with all the bureaucracy, teams of experts, authority over ministries, cabinets, treasuries, and gave him access to all the required infrastructure and resources to solve all the problems that are there. But then, considering how rigorous scrutiny and accusations the questions like ‘who is answerable for the incompetency of government we manifested our trust into?’ has to go through, these lines of defences surprisingly are proving to be beneficial for the mister. I’ll however, dare to ask few questions hoping that a nationalist and citizen of higher order will either let this pass to the right people or protect the right people with right answers.

The world is facing the Coronavirus (COVID – 19) pandemic and the Government feels that they are running short of funds and hence asking people for donations. Not that donating what one has in excess is a bad idea, but let us also not forget to look beyond the emotional cloud our psyches are blinded by. Moreover, charity is a voluntary undertaking but when Government cuts dearness allowances of all tax payers in the name of ‘need of the hour’, it becomes pertinent to ask what share of hit are they taking?

What happens when you run short of funds? Do you ask for donations? No. You borrow! You borrow when you experience a liquidity crunch which essentially mean, that you are taking a hit of interest on yourself because it was your responsibility to manage your funds which somehow didn’t go according to plan. In an event of your liquidity shortfall arising out of some unforeseen circumstances, your rich brother may bail you out but that’s discretionary. You simply cannot go to a bank and withdraw money from his account. Sadly, in the current scenario, we are the rich brothers and the Government has the unencounterable power to go to a bank and withdraw funds from our accounts.

Needless to say, the second line of defence of the mister will ask what solution do I offer. To their surprise, I have a solution to offer. To their disappointment, the mister already knows it but chose not to exercise and instead, circulated invitation for donating in his Prime Minister National Relief Fund account. The PMNRF in itself leaves room for a lot of legitimate queries which I’ll come to later, but first let’s talk about the solution which if exercised, will not be getting exercised for the first time in history and I am sure the kind of teams of experts our mister is surrounded with, he knows.

The obvious way-out of the problem is, instead of asking for grants and withdrawing funds from rich brother’s accounts, borrow! This borrowing not only will help in stockpiling the required funds but if designed efficiently will ease out the stresses on the Banks.

To understand this, one must understand how a Government borrows, and how Banks are stressed due to this pandemic.

An ideal amateur understanding of Bank’s business algorithm is that it takes funds from people who have excess of it (deposits) and offers to ones who need it (loans). The interest on loans are obviously higher than the interest on deposits for a Bank to garner profit. But in reality, the equation is not that linear. Banks do not sit with funds that they have accumulated as deposits, while waiting for a borrower to show up. They hate idle money, so they invest it, just like you and me. However, while investing, the Banks are required to comply with certain restrictions imposed by Central Bank (RBI, in Indian context).

The Central Bank which monitors all the other Banks in the country, requires the Banks to be mandatorily liquid at all times. Being liquid essentially means possessing assets that are either cash or are easily convertible into cash. For example, a person owing gold worth Rs. 50,00,000 is more liquid than a person owing a BMW worth Rs.60,00,000. So, obviously a Bank will never invest in BMW cars but can invest in equity stocks or corporate bonds of BMW company which can be easily sold off at exchanges thereby making it fairly liquid. Without getting into details of financial ratios of liquidity that a Bank is required to maintain, in a reasonably simpler terms, a Bank needs to calculate the total outflows of funds that it is expecting in the next 30 days, and to meet these demands it must have liquid assets of equal amount or more as on the date of calculations. As a matter of fact, just like equities and bonds, there are various financial instruments where Banks (and other institutions) can invest depending upon their risk appetite because each of the financial instruments has a fair share of risk associated with it. The riskier an instrument is, the less liquid is its’ asset quality. Similarly, the more stable, and risk-free a company is, the more liquid their corporate bonds are considered.

Evaluating how stable a company is, or the amount of risk that an investor will be exposed to while investing in the company, is the responsibility of rating agencies. For simplicity, a company rated ‘A’ by a rating agency possess less risk from an investor’s point of view than a company rated ‘B’ by the same agency. Depending upon such classifications of companies based on their ratings, liquidity weightage of their corporate bonds varies too. For example, if a Bank has invested in corporate bonds of a ‘B’ rated company (because it was giving higher coupon rate), the guidelines may restrict the Bank to assign that asset a liquidity weightage of only 75%, which translates into, that on every investment of Rs.100 into those bonds, Bank will assume that in a stressed scenario, if it sells those bonds, it’ll only receive Rs.75.

Avoiding the risk of intimidating readers by financial jargons and complex calculations, here is a hypothetical case study to understand the liquidity-stress the Banks are subjected to in this pandemic, in its’ most simplified form. Suppose on a given sunny day, a Bank has calculated that in the next 30 days, the expected outflows of funds from the Bank is Rs.100, which means on the same sunny day, the Bank should have a liquid asset of Rs.100 or more. The Bank is quite conservative in its’ approach and hence has maintained a liquid asset of Rs.150 to have a safety buffer of Rs.50. But suddenly a virus arrived and scared the hell out of everybody and forced to shut down factories, manufacturing, services, and what not. The companies in which the Bank had invested into through their corporate bonds are suddenly finding themselves out of business and facing a huge loss. This offends the rating agencies and they downgrade the ratings of the companies that are facing losses, from A to B. Because the companies are now downgraded, the liquidity weightages associated with their corporate bonds go down too and hence the Bank which had a liquid asset of Rs.150 on that sunny day, is now having a liquid asset of say Rs.110. If the ratings of the companies the Bank has invested into, go one notch down further, the liquid assets of the Bank will go below Rs.100, hence making the Bank insolvent on account of its’ incapability to meet its’ obligations of outflows. The Bank, hence, at a liquid asset of Rs.110 is in a lot of stress.

Having said all, if anybody is wondering what corporate bonds (or bonds, in general) are, and how do they differ from equities, – bonds are financial instruments that are issued by companies to borrow funds. Unlike equities, the investor does not own a share of the company by investing in bonds, but only grants a loan to that company at a specified coupon rate as a return on the investment. For any institution, Government bonds are considered to be the most liquid form of investment because the risk associated with a Government bond is negligible (yes, Government too issues bonds when it needs fund). For a Government bond (also called Sovereign Bond) to fail, the country has to fail, and it is less likely for a Bank to not fail before its’ country. Hence, for a Bank, a Sovereign bond is 100% liquid.

How simple the equation looks now! Banks need high quality liquid assets for coming out of stress, and Government needs funds for fighting the pandemic. How wonderful it would have been if Government instead of pickpocketing rich brothers would have simply borrowed the funds from Banks by issuing Sovereign bonds and at the same time would have brought Banks out of stress, meanwhile keeping the donation still a voluntary undertaking! But why to borrow money which is to be repaid when you can simply access the rich brother’s account? Why not to chip in financial jargons which no one will understand, to explain why Government can’t borrow and how it will widen the deficit which no one will question as to why it is not syncing in line with the 5 trillion economy’s promise? Or in fact, why to give any explanation at all when there are two lines of defences to slaughter all the questions that examines competency of the Government?

Invite donations and cut the DA! Easy-peasy!

PMNRF is the allocated relief fund where contributions are accumulated for rendering immediate relief to families of those killed in natural calamities. But somehow, based on some logics, Government decided that the ongoing pandemic doesn’t qualify as natural calamity, and set up a new fund called PM CARES to call for donations. There were recent debates on why a new fund has been created when PMNRF was already in place to which I don’t want to comment because that would mean, one among the two is better. Which is not the case. They are dark pools!

It is interesting to note that PMNRF is audited by Sarc & Associates, an audit firm based in Delhi. Yes, that’s right. It is not CAG, it’s Sarc & Associates. A spokesperson of the mister said, that we wanted an independent auditor to audit PMNRF account.

Let’s do this again!

It is interesting to note that PMNRF is audited by Sarc & Associates, an audit firm based in Delhi. Yes, that’s right. It is not Deloitte, it is not KPMG, it’s Sarc & Associates.

It is interesting to note that LinkedIn page of Sarc & Associates boasts how India is going to be a 5 trillion-dollar economy by FY 2024-25. There, in fact, are a lot of interesting things to note about Sarc & Associates. Sunil Kumar Gupta, the founder of Sarc & Associates has interesting achievements to talk about. Or if I can put it this way –

Government – Hey Sunil! There is an interesting show we are starting on Zee Business, that promotes Prime Minister’s Mudra Yojna. Would you like to be part of it? Hey Sunil! Would you like to accompany Ms. Pratibha Patil in the business delegations to Seychelles and South Africa to discuss bilateral issues between the two nations? Hey Sunil! Would you like to be a part of delegation from ICA of India to Vienna? Hey Sunil! Also, can you please audit this PMNRF account and see if things are in order.

To the list of interesting things to note, PM CARES is although not assigned an auditor as of now, but Government has given a clarity that it won’t be CAG but an ”independent auditor” who can be once again presumed to be Sarc & Associates considering that along with boasting about a 5 trillion-dollar economy, its’ LinkedIn page is also encouraging citizens of India to donate in PM CARES.

I’d dearly hope, and would still like to believe that Sarc & Associates are ethical, Government’s efforts are in the right direction, their strategies might have a legitimate sagacity and rationality. I am open to all the possibilities but only until arguments are not countered with noises, questions are not silenced with whataboutism, concerns are not slaughtered with allegations, and the faith that we have vested in our Government is not shattered by arrogance.

Until then, I have reasons to believe, that everything that happens beyond public appearances and articulatory oratories, happens in the dark pool. And the lines of defences must understand which side they must face while raising fingers, because it’s about time when we’ll be losing our democracy in the dark pool.

Peeing on the grave

Despite the fact that a tiniest of error would cost him his life and Troy, the ongoing battle, King Priam, in the darkest hours of night, went to Achilles’ camp to plead for his son’s dead body which Achilles, after killing him had kept in his captivity, robbing him off of his last rituals. Achilles, although being an enemy, was moved by Priam's gesture and returned him Hector's body and promised a truce of twelve days to allow the Trojans to perform funeral rites for Hector. Priam returned to Troy with the body of his son, and it was given dignified funeral honours.

Not only in Greek mythology, but also in the community we live, ‘Shok Sabha’ is organised where we gather to offer our condolences and pay honour to the deceased for all their contributions to this world, be that in any form. Even the persons one has always lived in disagreement with, come to put an end to their differences and acknowledge the worth of the deceased in the society. Although, few argue against this practice, calling it ‘pretence’ and ‘fake’ but the notion behind paying testimonial homage and commendations is, setting a moral persona of the departing soul; untarnishing the spirit and establishing an image for us to remember the nobility of the dead.

So it was upon King Priam to decide whether Hector should be remembered as the man who was killed by Achilles, tied to his chariot and was dragged to the enemies camp or, the brave leader who he’ll be claimed to have been in farewell speeches of the people of Troy in his dignity. King Priam opted the latter and hence risked his life for procuring Hector’s dead body.

We remember Hector as the man who stood for the honour of Troy, fought for his brother and his people. We remember him as the glorified warrior who died combating the man who was known to be immortal!

The act of remembering someone isn’t just an algorithm for sustaining the structure of a society, but your entire identity, foundation and school of thought depends on how you are remembering the people you are remembering. For example, in July, 2016, ‘Hindustan Times’, published a story where it reported that actor Naseeruddin Shah believes that late actor Rajesh Khanna’s entry in Bollywood changed the way films were made, but not for good. According to the report, he also said that Rajesh Khanna was a poor actor and his era of acting was an era of mediocrity of Bollywood. The credibility Naseeruddin Shah holds as an actor, changed the way his fans used to remember Rajesh Khanna. The memories of same Rajesh Khanna which were filled with ‘Anand’, ‘Kati Patang’, ’Amar Prem’, and as a pictorial representation of the evergreen voice of Kishore Kumar, was adulterated with doubts of him even being a good actor. In Rajesh Khanna’s defence, Twinkle Khanna, his daughter, replied to Naseeruddin Shah through a tweet saying, ‘Sir, if you can’t respect the living, respect the dead. Mediocrity is attacking a man who can’t respond’.

Naseeruddin Shah, as per democracy, is rightfully entitled to have an opinion but was it required to dishonour a man’s entire life and an institute’s entire era by calling it an era of mediocrity which was generally known to be a golden era of Bollywood? Was there no other way to put his opinion than to discredit a man’s entire work, who must, on his deathbed, be lying satisfied thinking about the fact that he did justice to his institute by giving 15 consecutive solo hit films?

Declarations like these not only change the way people look at somebody, but also fabricate the history of an institute; Bollywood in this case. Because as Twinkle said, the man is no more to undo the damage that has been done to the memories of his existence. The man has probably lost the co-ordinates he earned for himself in the mapping of history and sadly, he didn’t have the opportunity to fix it!

It’s 2019. We have grown almost 3 years older since this incident but, did we really grow up? Because in 2016 it was Rajesh Khanna and in 2019, it is Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Bhagat Singh, Subhash Chandra Bose and many more. A certain section of the society is practising this idea of demeaning historic leaders of opposition to earn some political benefit in the coming Lok Sabha election. The humungous circulations of questions, being raised to justify the credibility of our leaders of the past, on social media under the banner of election campaign, is not just adulterating our memories of these great leaders but is also tarnishing the history of our country. The same leaders who lost their lives fighting for country’s independence are being charged with having alliances with the people they were fighting with. And sadly, just like Rajesh Khanna, they are no more to answer to those questions.

How unfortunate is this, that the people who believed that their martyrdom will be paid off with honour, that their contribution in the freedom struggle will be paid off with respect, that their death will be paid off with immortality, are being accused of treason!

And all this just for winning an election! The campaigns for the elections are being designed in a way which could hit our psyche and change the way we remember our history and historical figures. To win a Parliament for 5 years, the campaign has been designed to destroy decades of our narratives forever.

It’s time for us to understand that no matter what outcome the election will bring to the political party of our choice, no matter who wins or loses, the glory of our leaders should remain intact, the sanctity of our history must remain intact, the decency of our ‘Shok Sabha’ must remain intact. It is for us to understand that the polarisation on the basis of our political opinions, is blinding us too much to hold on humanity. It is for us to understand that unlike King Priam, we are digging our warriors from their graves and dragging their bodies in the battlefield.

The greatness of our Hectors must remain intact!

Jai Hind!

Youth-anasia

When one of my dearest friend texted that he feels that life after college is being deteriorated with every passing day, I ran a poll on Twitter that resulted in 70% of the voters admitting that their life after college is actually being degenerating. Post-graduate depression is not a newly introduced phenomena but yesterday when an apparently happy-go-lucky kind of guy tweeted publicly that he is going to commit suicide, it occurred to me that millennials are required to be reminded that they need to update their system’s software.

Do you remember your parents and relatives convincing you how your next academic year after 10^th grade will become easy and negotiating to make you more attentive towards your board exams? And do you remember your academic graph falling like the Sensex of 2007 in your 11^th grade? Of course you don’t want to remember that but the fact is, a major syllabus transition required you to redesign your learning strategies which you couldn’t realise on time and hence the index fall of 2007.

Life after college is no different. The idea that your interests and hobbies are the key ingredients of the personality you posses needs to be rethought. If a student’s college experiences are mostly positive, college provides a cocoon of sorts: a community of friends, teachers and mentors who are mostly readily available to offer support or advice. Graduating symbolizes a leap into ‘adult’ life, leaving back all the ecstatic existence you created back in college, which is a huge transition and if not tackled on time generally leads to an abnormally negative perspective, decreased motivation to get out of bed, a general sense of hopelessness and, occasionally, substance abuse.

Getting out of college actually is the most vulnerable time when a person experiences things like goal-lessness, job with no mental satisfaction, relationship failure, sudden burdening of responsibilities, symptoms of sinking health, and realization of not being the ‘special one’. So, when someone tries negotiating or convincing you by claiming that it’s a wonder ride after your pedagogical life, just know that it’s a trick. But until our colleges and universities that value the mental health of their students, come out with a plan of offering some sort of transition course making them aware of the struggles that may await when the utopian world vanishes the day after graduation, it is for you to understand that you have entered an altogether different phase of life that is susceptible to a decline in magnitude greater than the index fall of 2007.

However trivial it may sound, but it is not unchallenging to admit that one is hit by depression or is confronting a degrading personality because it won’t just sync with the charismatic and dynamic persona one has in his paradisal days of graduation. So, the guy admitting that he is depressed and couldn’t take these changes anymore and wanted to commit suicide, is actually at a head start than those who have hallucinated themselves postponing the inevitable introspection they are going to get hit by.

You know that things aren’t going the way you fancied them to be. All you need to do is, not quit.

Why to not have a Facebook Account

The not so technical and the not so ‘giving a damn’ about data leaks people can relax as this article is not about Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal of collecting personally identifiable information but is more towards how your ‘I hate politics’ opinion in the ‘Political views’ column of Facebook’s purportedly know-your-client section, is gradually changing into something that can be metaphorically described as ill-knead, naively rolled and half-baked Chapati, getting puffed towards taking shape of a country which, unfortunately, is India.

Considering the psychology of humans of hating or being indifferent towards things they don’t know about, ‘I hate politics’ opinion can be deducible to safely assume that ‘I don’t know much about our country’s political atmosphere’. It’s probably this data of number of people who hate politics (which I reckon to be in lacs), is something that must have encouraged political parties to set up their own information technology cell to shoulder the responsibility of kneading your raw brain and shaping it into a political party’s symbol. Please don’t ask how political parties know that you hate politics because for that I’ll have to go into the scandal that I promised not to.

You’ll, I suppose, will appreciate the fact that the efficiency, these IT cells work with, is directly proportional to your hatred towards politics, your lack of political knowledge, your inability to differentiate between an authentic and a fake news, and in some cases your dependency on bizarre political memes as your life support system. Needless to say that the number of people hating politics is so large that it provided a dream platform for the employees of these IT cells to cash-in brownie points for their annual appraisal. Soon, political discussions began to trend, unauthentic news and fake information took over, and people with ‘I hate politics’ opinion felt left out and deemed tagging themselves with a political party as an absolute exigency.

Not that I don’t advocate having a political opinion but this, unfortunately, instead of making people logically aware of their country’s management, created a lot of adamant, non-compromisingly opined, and close minded nincompoops. It was to my surprise when I met a guy who didn’t know the Indian State where Godhra is geographically located (Yes! Such people exist), was into a textual altercation with a person supporting a different political party than him. To add to this trauma, instead of questioning their elected representative, they have voluntarily taken a self-imposed obligation of defending the political symbol their brain has transformed into.

The IT cells have redeemed so much out of your half-witted debates and baseless political discussions of defending your choice of election that if I say that the current era of political power can be summarized as manufacturing controversies to polarize voters, it won’t be completely inaccurate.

The problem with having skyscrapers of political opinions on foundations hit by an acute attack of shallowness, is allowing the unscrupulous political parties to thrive for eras one after the another, distancing our nation yet again from an unimpeachable management and virtuous representatives for a generation or two. Now that our country again is in election mode, and these IT cells again will be into the fully fledged business of shaping your unscholarly political mind to their advantage, deactivating your social account, the timeline of which is suffering from an unopposed encroachment and making way for yourself to scroll down the timeline of independent India will account for a major contribution on your part for a better tomorrow.

PS: I have not yet touched the ‘3-seconds-share’ thing. That’s altogether a different issue.

Making FOE, a foe!

I think it gained momentum with Twitter, if not started, which provided a platform for common people to connect with celebrities. Generally, celebrities have oodles of fans who are devotedly self employed at applauding, admiring, congratulating and singing songs of glory for their icons. So adding another song to it wouldn’t have paid a penny hence few decided to try their hands on talking objectionable about them. Using degenerating language for celebrities and demeaning them in the face not only made those few noticeable but also pleased their ego like the cat that’s got the cream. This began to trend.

Soon, controversial remarks and unprincipled stunts began to evolve as a rapid route to publicity and few opportunists like Poonam Pandey, cashed it remarkably. The trend further levelled up and a group of people deduced that our country is now ready to host a contentious show like AIB where celebrities are subjected under humiliation and embarrassment; a concept that is widely popular in western countries.

What they do in the Indian version of the show, AIB, is cross the already drawn socially acceptable lines of cracking jokes to crack jokes. Their argument in support is “Thousands of criminals and rapists are roaming free and you are outraging over a joke cracked by us comedians” but sorry to say that “Thousands of criminals and rapists are roaming free” was supposed to be a worry, not an excuse. That it’s not illegal what you do is grantable but can the law institute such set of rules to which you can comply with while cracking jokes? No, because jokes thrive on your sentiments, experiences, personality and many such idiosyncratic events and profiting on Government’s helplessness to technically frame a set of guidelines for it, makes you a person who flourishes on democracy’s loopholes suggesting, you technically didn’t break it but contravened the intent of the law.

That is where social norms come into effect. Social norms can make rules where the law technically fails. Although most of their rules are arguable and can be discarded without having much of consequences to face but certainly not this because in a subsequent time if a guy smacks a joke on your face about your mother diminishing her to an ill-repute, all in good humour, you can’t do a trifle because he is well within the boundaries of law and if at all you’ll react in a fashion similar to how you are expected of, that will be illegal. So what we can do from here is keep advocating their sense of humour in the name of freedom of expression or think of drawing a line.

Free from any preconceived notion about him and his show and conserving all my even-handedness, last night I watched the Tanmay Bhat’s controversial video of Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar’s roast and found it to be very shoddy and extremely unintelligent. The least a viewer expects of your jokes is to be funny and sadly that wasn’t. Not only it was ill-scripted and disgracefully presented, it was also not comic which safely proposes that the video was just a tawdry stunt for seeking attention.

Few people campaigned for Tanmay Bhat asking why is he being targeted when there are thousands of twitter handles doing the same. Well, to them I would say, thousands of people are raping girls which don’t give me a license to rape one. Moreover, Tanmay Bhat is a public figure whom people take as a pattern making him socially more responsible and careful. Also it’s needless to say that the message is for all.

I am not antagonistic towards all of Tanmay’s work. In fact, I subscribed to few of them. I even didn’t lodge much protest to what they did at Worli on December’14 because the roasted artists had their consent for the show. But assembling mindless jokes on the foundations of vulgarity gives you an undeserved regards and uncalled messages which need to be confronted one of these days if not today.

The whole indignation can be summarised as, someone made a joke about somebody which few people didn’t like and hence are requesting him to stop. As simple as that! If at all it is requisite to use derogatory words, use it to make your point, don’t make a point to use it needlessly. The lesson for Tanmay to learn is that comedy is, cracking a joke without cracking a soul. Moreover with a built like his’, he don’t need to do third-rate tricks, he’ll effortlessly stand out in the crowd (all in good humour).

Heroic sacrifice of sacrificing heroism

Dear dad!

              How are you? I am doing fine. Dad, you might get angry at the first sight of this letter but please be patient to read it till the end. I made a consequential mistake but before things could go worse, I fixed it. I fixed it all up.

                I fell in love with a girl. I am sorry dad. I am sorry that I failed you. You always implied to stay at distance from ‘Love’. I know that Love marriages are evil but I couldn’t resist falling in love with her. Believe me dad, I always did my utmost to maintain a stretch with girls especially those of other religions but somehow she managed to break my vows. I think ‘Love’ is a strong feeling dad. It overcame, despite all the resistances I offered.

                I swear that I avoided her for long but I dissolved eventually. She cared for me like mom does. She had this magical ability to explore all the sorrows I tried to hide. She braced me like brother and abided by me like you, dad. She used to make me feel so distinctive and remarkable that I flunked to follow the lessons you gave me.

                But be proud of myself dad. Although I discovered that there isn’t actually a control over this feeling called love, there are ways to avoid love marriages. Before my first mistake could turn into something more evil, I backed off. I left her into tears and backed off from letting things to worsen. She was heartbroken of course but she needs to understand that I sacrificed her for a greater cause.

                I am sorry dad that I made a mess but I fixed everything up. I felt awful when she cried but it’s fine. I’ll be fine and she’ll be fine too in due course. Nobody needs to know anything. But dad, shouldn’t I be feeling heroic after this? Why I am having this villainous stir inside me? May be it is just a matter of time. Rest all is well dad. Hope you’ll forgive me.

Love  

Your son

Femi-naive-ism

She is my friend who is fond of wearing the shortest possible pants exposing the majority of her body which I never understood why! So I asked one day, “Do you always prefer this attire and is your family comfortable with it?” She replied, “You are talking to a strong feminist and you can get the hell out of business regarding what I wear and what I don’t!”

Now, there were two things I felt uneasy about. One, she acted rude and second, she had altogether taken the wrong turn while walking on the path of feminism. Although I get the hell out of that business but I had to respond.

I am not a man who is an anti-feminist. In fact I strongly favour the equality between all the genders regarding rights and opportunities. But I won’t advocate letting a person go being rude without being paid a healthy response. And I don’t patronize ‘short pants’ being a symbol of feminism.

To be equal you need to capitalize the opportunities you get and to capitalize the opportunities, you need to be strong and capable. Now, there is no absolute theory or enough experimental instances proving a direct proportionate relation between being strong and being rude. May be you don’t realize but you can doubtlessly stay calm, composed and gentle while going strong.

Anyways, suppose a situation where you are in a metro train and a man is sitting on the reserved seat for the ladies. You are left with two choices. You can let the man sit proving your equality of strength and decide to remain unseated making your point. Or, you can ask the man to vacate it demanding your rightful seat. The point is you can take any of the decision with or without the short pants. Your actions will measure the level of your feminism not the apparel. I mean, wear the short pants if you want to but don’t claim yourself to be a feminist on the basis of that. It is more like cashing in your personal desires of fashion under the umbrella of feminism.

I do get aware of the rapes victimizing women, through newspapers and television and it occurred to me that may be wearing short pants is a way of expressing anger challenging all such inhumane behaviour. I understand the outrage but still I would suggest not doing so because if somebody someday will accept your challenge one on one, you’ll be less likely to win unless you are well trained in some kind of defensive technique or art. It is actually an undeniable fact that you lack the equivalency in physical strength when compared to that of a man.

Before you could make judgements about myself, claiming my unbiased state to the topic I would proceed further voicing that mere the feeling of exploration of rather hidden part of the body itself is capable of giving arousals to humans. And it should! I mean, it’s preposterous to see a juicy thigh and not to get aroused. But we, the gentlemen, suppress all our stimulations and present ourselves being very casual and easy. We do so, because we have a reputation to protect, obligations to take care of and responsibilities to carry. But we mustn’t forget how full our country is with people who don’t have any of these. In fact, there even are incidents when the devil of few reputed personalities too overcame their power of staying gentle.

I have seen this picture of a girl, below which it was quoted “Even if I walk naked, I have not given you the right to rape.” True. I agree that you haven’t but neither has anyone else. Not even our constitution! But still there is body governing the law and order because the constitution makers felt that there’ll be elements in the society who won’t pay much heed to what rights belong to them and what not.

Do you sleep in your house every night with the doors and windows open? No, because it would make your house vulnerable to the thieves who are outside there. It’s equally unwise to make yourself vulnerable when there are people outside there who don’t think twice before materializing their internal stimulations. I am not asking you to abolish your fashion desires but please do chose the occasion, company and environment wisely before executing such yearns.

If you’ll take a step on the path of constructive feminism, I’ll push you to take one more. But walking naively without understanding the real meaning of it will make you something I wouldn’t recommend you to become.

P.S: I don’t like rude people.