Friday 2 January 2009

Would you be my hero?????

Before I put across my argument about being a hero, let me talk about two incidents in which I was involved.

Incident 1:

It’s a cold 2006 New Year’s Eve, time is 1 AM after partying for a good 4 hours and good amount of alcohol in our system we decide to go home and drink some more.Shanbhag and I decide to get the car from where it is parked, we ask Nivas to keep women company at the club.

Shanbhag and I are now on our way to the car, walking in front of us is a couple and walking behind them is a huge mob (must have been 10 – 12 drunk guys) passing lame comments at the girl. I am sure the boyfriend was really mad at the mob and would have been desperate to save his girl from being humiliated, however he decided not do anything about the comments.

That is when things took a bad turn and one of the members from the mob starts throwing pebbles at the girl. The boyfriend looks back and seems ready to take on the mob, Shanbhag and I might have jumped in to help him. But, the boyfriend maintains his composure and quietly walks till his car and leaves with his grilfriend.

Incident 2:

I am on vacation in Delhi and I am walking with two guy friends and three women friends towards a club around 10 PM. A white car slows down close to us (there must have been a good 4-5 guys in the car) and the driver rolls down his window and passes a comment to the girl walking next to me – ‘humari gaadi main beth jaao madam’ (sit it my car madam).

I was infuriated and wanted to do something about it, but decided to ignore the comment (so did my other guy friends). However, the women friend of mine abuses the driver – ‘nikal yahan se madarch**d’ (get out of here motherfu**er). She then puts her arm on my shoulder and almost sarcastically says – Deepak don’t worry I am here to save you. All I could say (jokingly) was - thanks, I don’t know what I would do without you.

I for one can’t stop wondering what would have happened with the girl if her boyfriend in incident 1 had picked up a fight with the mob, and got overpowered.

What if I had picked up a fight with the guys in that car, I had no clue how many they were in the car and in a place like Delhi wouldn’t be surprised if they were carrying any weapons.

Incidents like the one in Mumbai where a mob of people misbehaved with women on streets of Mumbai on New Years Eve come to your mind.

Some of you may be thinking the guys were cowards and should have put up a fight, but the way I look at it the only thing on the mind of these guys was the safety of their friends.

If I have to let go of my huge male ego and be called a coward, I am ok with that, it’s a really small price to pay for the safety of my friends.

What would you do if you were faced with such a situation….would you be rationale or rather be a hero?

Live today to fight another day!!


This is a story about a survivour of the recent Mumbai terror attacks which touches on the same topic; I would strongly suggest you read it:

https://thelink.thomsonreuters.com/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_219503_886177_0_0_18/HTML_103149_11_17_2008_8_9_42.html

8 comments:

  1. Arre.. Deepak has a blog.. mind blasting :)
    Keep em coming bro.. yeh dilli vaala incident kab tha be?

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  2. Well quite frankly, its hard to say what I personally would do.. I guess it depends on when and where and state of mind... On one day i might react with "hero giri" on another i might be rational... In most cases i would probably be rational (I Hope)

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  3. Dimbo(can i say darling because I'm kind of used to it) nice to know that you have a blog now ... you are not such a bad writer like your mail said ... Good post I must say

    My take: Im on the other side of the story, not new to harassment infact very prone to it (I'm sure you know this). I agree with what AJ has to say, you ought to rational. I Dont expect a guy to be a hero to fight with 10 people but based on the situation I would definitely expect the guy to speak up. Most often than not these guys behaving cheap dont say/do anything much (unless they are psycho)beacuse they know they are wrong.
    Being rational is not being coward but you can't always tell youself "Live today to fight another day!!" - YOU WILL HAVE TO FIGHT IT SOMEDAY
    By the way, I was with you on that new year (2006) and that guy in near FUGA (if I'm not wrong)could have definitely got his car (like what you and Shanbhag did) and not asked his girlfriend to walk to the car with him

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  4. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  5. Welcome to the world of blogging :)

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  6. well well well. we have another man among us then... i agree with you on the points mentioned above and that being rational makes a lot of sense, but i don't know how bad i will feel about myself after this if i choose to do nothing. having said that i'd still probably not do anything about it myself if it were 1 to 10, but i would feel extreamly small and my ego will be battered after

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  7. aha, social issue n al....u really seem to have not gotten over that new yrs thing! grin.. but i gues in a way its good for society, u really feel for the cause n all :) btw, i had read that article wen it came out on the link, n i for one cannot identify at all wit the bloke coz somehow thats different than dealing wit ass*** on the street...it's like dealing wit a mugger (u might not take him on), but u'll pretty much jump into a river to save ur friend...isnt it?? almost like, these street guys are too petty to risk ourselves- it's prudent to move on, but like a bomb attack is huge - n esp if u see someone who's wit u injured, ur def NOT gonna leave him behind right....so, like that...anyways, pretty good effort for ur 1st blog!!!!!!

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  8. personally, it's not about taking the ppl on and teaching them a lesson. It's abt letting ppl knw that they cannot get away with eve teasing all the time. The escapist attitude does not work in this context. But as always, rationality should previal

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