The fall from grace

These are troubled times we are living in. We all have that moment when we wish things would revert to a more glorious era, of civility and courtship rituals, of poetry and politeness. A time when people knew better than to molest flagrantly the privacy of another individual in public, be it out of virtue of a notion of respect for others or fear of reprimand (beheading or being stoned to death). Today, it isn’t women who have adopted alien ways and shed their clothes thereby leaving themselves open to attack, it is some men, men amongst us others, who have shed the last few strands of scruples that separated us from the devil’s own. And with most issues that I bring up here I love to find a way to make light of them, to see the other even-if-somewhat-obtuse side to their serious nature, without of course intending to harm any sentiments in the process. I hope that people get the sarcasm; as for those who don’t, I normally wish that they at least get a life.

This, here, is beyond all such attempts of jibe and ridicule. It is serious. I wish it were something that could lightheartedly be pish-toshed away with a simple, “Boys will be boys” sort of disposition, one that is disapproving yet defeatist. But boys pretty much are what their parents make them. Laws of the land only work if we understand fear, the idea that mis-actions can have repercussions. The wisdom of knowing right from wrong should be common sense. Common sense remains uncommon if primary education focuses on the wrong stuff — grades instead of grace. That yields a pile of people who, even when appointed to uphold the law, don’t see serious misdemeanours as a personal invasion, and hence they don’t enforce it. For a perpetrator, this is like the gift of a cloak of invisibility. And a society which has depraved to the point that it doesn’t fear its transgressions is not a society anymore, not a civil or progressive one anyway.

The right values being inculcated at the right age would never have let things degrade to this. To dishonour a person physically should be almost as bad as killing one, except that it’s worse for, unlike with murder, the victim here has to live on and cope with the paranoia that sets in, replacing their self-confidence.

Ladies, this fortnight consider my piece, not a measly few words of support but a call to take up arms. We men and that lesser species also known as politicians and police have failed you. In our failure, humanity is failing. It is regressing in a downward spiral. We, as always, turn to the strongest entity we know to have walked the planet to save us all: you! Don’t shy away, don’t cower, or hide; if anything, step up whatever it is that supposedly purported to all ladies “asking or it”. Wear what you like, or don’t wear it, flaunt it as you wish. Raise those hems and if anybody makes you uncomfortable, raise your arms. Raise your voices, raise an alarm, and one hopes that the dormant civic conscience will also rise. It has to. On any other day, in a situation less grim, I would have left you with a joke chew on while this tides over. Today, I will leave silently, wishing that the room still wants us back when I return.

The writer is a lover of wine, song and everything fine.