Behind Every Successful woman are a Dozen Men Admiring Her Behind

Helpful tips on how to deal with sexual predators at office without having to kick his balls

Image courtesy - Google images

Hello Beti,

Congrats on landing your dream job. You must be soaring in the sky like an out of control kite. Allow me to fill you with dread and some unsolicited advice. Before I begin my monologue, let’s make it very clear - relinquishing your sanskaari position at home (the silent, supporting daughter-wife-mother behind a “man”) was a BAD IDEA. What made you think could step out of the house and become successful in your own right! Must have been those silly quotes that pop up like zits every Women’s Day.

Cool that you slogged your ass off to ace all your exams, made the company reject scores of candidates to hire you and are finally who and what you want to be. You also may have convinced yourself that you are capable, smart, intelligent and determined to achieve any goal you have set for yourself. But that guy in the corner cubicle giving you that creepy smile would rather have lauki ki sabzi every day of his life than accept this fact. For him you are just a piece of meat regardless of what you do and how many obstacles you scale to reach for that glass ceiling.

Don’t blame him. He has been on a diet of sexist WhatsApp forwards themed around shaadi-is-every-man’s-barbadi for so long, he has convinced himself of his bechara status. Never mind the clean house and warm meals that await him every evening. He’s too much of a decent guy to let go of his oppressive marriage and deprive his Missus of her many back-breaking duties and a listless life. Office is his only chance of fun on the side – yet another gyaan he has got from boss-secretary jokes where the secretary’s sole duty is to pleasure her boss.

So, it’s hardly a surprise that he is a firm believer of equality and harasses all women equally.

Correction. He fancies himself as a hopeless admirer of comely charms. When he finds a woman irresistible, he makes her aware of his sincere feelings through many thoughtful gestures like pinching her butt, sharing porn clips and suggesting they do a quickie to ease the unbearable tension between his legs.

A woman confident in her own skin is the beauty industry’s biggest nightmare

Courtesy - Google images

The beauty industry capitalizes on our insecurities because we let them.

My monthly visit to the salon plays like a typical saas-bahu saga that blares on telly every evening. The pedicure guy takes one look at my feet and starts weeping. With sad strains of violin playing in the background he looks up at me with sorrowful eyes and croaks – yeh kyaa haal banaya hai? I look shamefully at my calloused feet and croak back – that’s why I have come to you, you dickhead! If I am in a mood to severely disappoint many more, I get a hair-spa and sometimes a facial. The hair-spa guy runs his fingers through my hair, shakes his head in slow motion and before he can open his mouth I say no, I will not go for the ‘schizophrenia soaked in rare oils mined from Russia and then ground to fine paste with hibiscus and tiger testicles’ package. He looks heartbroken but I keep shaking my head like an autowallah who says no before you even say ‘bhaiyya?’ A lot depends on my no. If I let the facial lady have her way, she’ll will pull off the outer layer of my facial skin to reveal baby soft bleeding skin. She looks appalled when I tell her with a smug smile, I’m perfectly happy with my tanned skin and won’t do a thing to change it. Yet she tries to change my mind, every single time.

It’s a bit of a dilemma for me. On one hand I am constantly being told by my Facebook friends who I haven’t met about my gorgeousness. Then there are Twitter majnus who insist I’m the hottest thing to have happened since global-warming. And I believe every single one of them. So, you can imagine my consternation when I am told everything about me is sub-standard.

What, are you kidding me!

I get it, it is the salon’s job to make me feel miserable about myself. But it is my right to ask them to fuck off. Especially when I’m told they only way to beauty nirvana is a treatment that costs a king’s ransom.

The beauty industry, has built its fortune equating youth with beauty, slimness with desirability and dark skin tone that banishes you to a future as hopeless as Abhishekh Bachchan’s career. We are told, ageing is the gravest crime we can commit. Though Mr Pahlaj Nihalani who is dead against ladies indulging in unlady like fantasies may disagree. Therefore we must spend hours staring at the mirror, searching for fine lines, crow’s feet, dark spots and then arrest them immediately by mummifying ourselves with anti-ageing lotions, potions and serums. It works mostly, the guilt I mean. Many of us start believing in the magical powers of fairness in a tube, eternal youth in a pretty little jar and salon perfect hair in a plastic bottle.