I was recently having lunch with one of my Indian colleagues, who has lived here for over a decade. During some conversation about India, I happened to mention the Guwahati incident to him. He had not heard about it, which I found strange because he seemed up-to-date with the Satyameva Jayate episodes. In any case, I narrated the incident to him. Once I was done this guy asked me- So what was this girl doing in a pub? This was the first reaction from a person who has lived in the UK for most part of his adult life. Can you imagine my anger when I heard his question? But he was a colleague and I did not want to appear rude, so I asked him if he visited pubs. He said, thats not the point. For a man or woman, what is the need to go to a pub.

I really do not understand this mentality of throwing the blame off the molester/ rapist or murderer. How on earth is going to a pub bad? I agree, drinking beyond limits is a bad habit. But people visit a pub for socialising, relaxing and a variety of such reasons. Yes, they also go there to meet a prospective date/ date. What the hell is wrong with that? Why do we turn an innocent act into an evil-one just so there is some justification available for the perpetrator?

If I hear the word 'Indian Culture' from someone's mouth I will lose my temper surely. Seriously, what do they mean by Indian culture? One of my college-mates, who is from a affluent,highly educated family, had posted a picture of a woman wearing a short dress in one of the malls in Chennai under the title- Shame on you and something added to that. When one of his friends has commented asking, what was wrong with the picture, this was his reply- 'This is not suitable for Chennai culture yaar. Eventually his friends commented their protests and made him remove the post, but I wonder how many of these young men/ women live in our society.  I say young, because we cannot attempt to change the mind of the elderly [though I do think we should at some point] and also these young people are the ones who are going to determine the fate of our society in near future. How does this person think he has a right to determine what clothes women in his society should wear. Even if it were his own sisters/ mother/ wife/ friends, I do not think he has any right to do this.

To tell you the truth, I recently realised that in some corner of my mind, I used to think a tad like this guy. In the sense, I used to think of a woman wearing short clothes as someone who is dumb and trying to get her work done through her looks and attire and immediately classify her as a slut. But I realised how stupid that thought is. This is something that is ingrained in our mind since childhood but definitely not something we cannot amend.

Why don't we just mind our own business and try to make the country proud in the million other ways that is possible than waste our time judging people's clothes, molesting them [eve-teasing included] and deriving sick pleasure in such things?