Although cricket is NOT the official national game of India, it’s more than that. Indian kids, especially boys, grow up with it, identifying it as a part of their life and associate a lot of emotions with every match they watch. Cricketers like Sachin, Dhoni. Sehwag, become their real life heroes. And now with the advent of the T-20 cricket format and the successfully running 3rd season of the DLF-IPL, Indian men, especially husbands have all the reasons to party and cheer.
As explained in Male Missing or Missing Male, the TV media and the programs therein being predominantly and over-excessively women-oriented, Indian husbands have little choice but to either tolerate the serials or stay away from the idiot-box. However, IPL gives them quite a relief as they have every reason to watch the TV 3 hrs daily for that favorite match of theirs.
It’s a 45 day bonanza for them and 135 hrs of complete relief from their nagging wives, over trained by feminist utopia thunder-showered through Ekta Kapoor and the type’s saga. Moreover, as the TV serials show only one thing – Women Crying – the Indian husband does not get any opportunity to connect with his own emotions. He is forced to see the entire world from his wife’s perspective which makes him emotionally numb and paradoxically immune to domestic abuse from his wife.
To add to the woes, there is social acceptance and political correctness around this systematic proliferation of Domestic Violence against Husbands. Even famous business houses and Corporates like the Tata’s showcase this pattern with style, pomp and grandeur. What with the Tata Sky Ad series showing husbands being abused by their wives for watching cricket matches – leading to their wives missing their favorite feminist TV serials.
For a while, let me put this question, can the ad agencies show it in the reverse fashion – the husband punishing the wife for disallowing him from watching his favorite cricket match? Would the “Feminist Brigade (read the male haters)” take it silently? So that means, a wife has all the rights – legally and socially – to abuse her husband whenever she wants but a husband cannot even think of it? Why are men not allowed to abuse their wives the same way wives are allowed?
To add to that, there are unconstitutional laws like Section 498A and the Domestic Violence Act, loathed against the husband to “protect” nagging wives and unconditional sympathy is available for “pampering” nagging wives further adding to the woes of husbands.
Most men are either not aware of the abuse they undergo, or the laws that are loathed against them. Men think the laws are put into place only when a woman is abused but what they don’t know is that the definition of abuse has been left open to a woman’s imagination, whims and fancies. That is exactly where the anti-male bias comes in. A man does not even have the right to complain against his wife’s abuse whereas a woman can easily complain against anything that she might not like about her husband. And therein comes, the unreported domestic abuse against husbands to which wives are entitled.
In an era where gender equality is the buzzword should not both the genders have equal rights? If complaints of domestic violence can be entertained from wives, then why not from husbands or else husbands should also be allowed to abuse their wives the way wives are allowed. Otherwise any talk of gender equality is just hogwash and a piggybacking carrier for male-hatred which is anti-social.
Coming back to DLF IPL, recently two new teams of Pune and Kochi were formed; they will be playing from next year onwards. Recently, Sachin Tendulkar lent his brand image for the cause of “Domestic Violence against Women”. Again in an era of gender equality, should not husbands victimized by domestic violence from their wives get one for their cause?
In fact, given the fact that Indian Husbands are die-hard fans of cricket and get a lot of respite from their domestically violent wives during DLF-IPL, a team dedicated to husbands in IPL should not be a bad idea. After all, when DLF-IPL comes to the succor of husbands, it can well position itself that way.
Any takers for the idea?
