Dancing Damsels

Well… It’s time again for penning down something… It wasn’t like; there was nothing to write about last week… rather there were too many things to write about… My haircut that went haywire… My calls that finally got converted… My purse that was happily stolen… My sleeping hours that were drastically cut short… My meal that was finally returning to normal! Lolz… However, barring the ‘my’ life happenings, one substantial thing that happened which had large stakeholders was… the re-opening of all dance bars!! The adjoining caricature is drawn by one of my good friends and was published in Loksatta last week… It is significant not just because it is done by one of my buddies… It is so because; I’m always awed by the fact that, how a tint of humour in social satire can be the most visible and widely disseminative form of general awareness.

Last Sunday I was watching The Big fight on NDTV, wherein prominent personalities were debating on the pros and cons of this decision about unbolting the doors of the dance bars here. What caught my attention was how easily people get away with lame reasons… One of the gentle men out there even went up to suggesting that, men go to these dance bars, because their wives can’t entertain them… So, it is indeed the onus upon the ladies at home, to don garish ghagras, put up gaudy make-up and entertain their Gods! It couldn’t get more ridiculous than this!! (I could barely imagine myself doing that!! Holy crap!)

First of all, I don’t understand why in the first place is there such a hue and cry over this issue? In a country like ours, we’ve got many problems to take care of… The amount of money spent on such endless debates could be better utilized for other purposes. Dance bars are no new things… Our rich culture exhibits the existence of mujra-mahals and rangashaalas since time immemorial. So, all of a sudden pointing fingers at people doesn’t make sense. Just as you see in the cartoon, alcohol has become the man’s lame-stick… he’s not even bothered about his growing handicap… All he can see is the entry to Heaven’s door viz, the Dance Bar! Men, who though aren’t physically blind, but have mental blocks, would get drawn to such falsity. So, it’s basically all up to the person to realize what is good or bad for him. Let him decide for himself. Let’s not play agony uncles and aunts. After all, we have much better things to do!!

-Ships.