Pee openly in the public, expose your dangling bits, spit on the walls, fight in the middle of the street but DO NOT and I mean DO NOT try to express love in public. Because before you know it, the guardians of public morality will smite you. Sadly, we live in a world where using obscene language in public, zero civic sense, and eve-teasing are “normal” but holding hands or hugging your boyfriend/girlfriend in public is frowned upon. Starting from the nosy aunties to the creepy uncles, ‘guardians of Indian culture’ have sprouted up everywhere. Strangely, the policing is nearly always just restricted to do’s and dont’s for women.
One such guardian is a website called Hindichutkule.com. The website is supposed to share jokes but like most jokes, it’s content boils down to blatant misogyny and sexism. Coming straight to the point, the website has gone on to share a video of a couple getting cozy inside Delhi Metro on their Facebook page. Not only did they deem it okay to violate privacy, they captioned the video: “Ye hain Delhi Metro. Sharm aati hain aise logon pe jo apni beti ko thodi sharm bhi nahi sikha sakte aur kehte hain ki ladkiyan Delhi mai surakshit nahi hain. Agar aisa he hota raha toh vakai Delhi ai ladkiyan surakshit nahi rahengi”
Translation: This is Delhi Metro. Shame on those people who could not teach their daughters how to behave and they claim that girls are not safe in our country. If this continues, girls will indeed not be safe In Delhi.
So not only did they go ahead and invade someone’s privacy without consent or even basic censoring to protect the woman’s identity, they went ahead to ‘comment’ on her behaviour. Here’s a quick definition of consent since so many seem confused: it is “permission granted for an act or agreement to do something.” Not too difficult, is it? That means, a woman willfully gets intimate with a man. But that doesn’t mean that she is available for other men or that she is inviting “rape”.
Coming to the caption, what is this culture you’re going on about HindiChutkule? We brag about Kamasutra, have erotic art on temples, but it is a crime of the century for two consenting adults to be intimate in public? And why just object to the woman’s behaviour? It’s okay for a man to indulge in PDA? In their Facebook post the website does not even once mentions the guy nor is the video taken with him in focus. Whoever took the video focused on the girl, and whoever captioned the video did so too.
Sadly, the post has been liked by over 26,0000 people, shared over 20,000 times, and has over 5 million views. As a society, where are we heading? Here’s a glimpse of what people commented on the post.
The people running the website should know that it is never okay to take pictures or videos of women on the sly and upload them on social media just for the kicks. Your high moral ground is misplaced when you violate someone like that. For now, go report this Facebook page everyone. Stop liking their posts, report abuse. Because if this didn’t make your blood boil, we don’t know what will.
Here’s the link to the page.
https://m.facebook.com/99Chutkule/
Report it, get it taken down.
