It’s time to get back to all those traditional definitions of manliness, and to all those tales of valour and wisdom of the men of the years gone by. For actual manliness is all in the head!
Now that the hype gets over from the Women’s Day, one wants to know what’s been happening on the men’s scenario. Where are the men? The real men, that is!
Today we seem to be getting it all wrong: After all, manliness is not about the physical. It has a lot to do with emotions and the connected takeoffs …a combination of trust and convictions and of those promises to be kept at any given cost!
Where are such men? Maybe the smog swallowed them? Maybe they still do exist but sitting somewhere like recluses. Upset and angry with the changing times. Uncomfortable and unsure of today’s settings where nothing seems going along the sane pattern.
Today new lopsided definitions of manliness have crept in. On the big and small screens, with pelvic thrusting creatures calling themselves men! Really! To me they come across as circus creatures….caged in there for a certain purpose to be used and misused not just by commercial lobbies at work but also by the political and social mafia at play!
The mafia is playing havoc with lives. And when situations go overboard, with limbs going towards the ‘out-of- control’ limits, no apprehensions are sounded. ‘Experts’ pronounce nothing really much is required to be done than host television discussions on why there is rise in rape and molestation cases in the country. That’s about it! Those discussions are said to be adequate to halt any further intrusive moves of any of the limbs around!
It’s time to get back all those traditional definitions of manliness and to all those tales of valour and wisdom of the men of the years gone by. For actual manliness is all in the head!
Look around you and there seems a dearth, if not a famine of real men. Today aren’t we drought-hit on every possible front, including on the real men front! Call it modern day bankruptcy! For today, which man risks his life-livelihood to protect a damsel in distress or raises his voice loud enough to be heard against the upheavals in the making or even fights cum crusades for a cause without keeping in mind the political benefits?
Looking back, we were better off in those earlier decades, for there did exist our men in dhotis and achkans who’d fought the battle for independence. With no other motive but to free this land from foreign occupation, they had continued putting up a remarkable resistance against the firangis right till the very end. Going far beyond the parameters of caste and creed, religion or region, these men went marching ahead with stark selflessness, trying their best to pave way for better times. Sadly, somewhere in the following years much more than dilutions have trickled in. And in all possible spheres.
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One of the real men..
Nostalgia tightening its hold, I recall around the autumn of 2016, as soon as news had reached of the passing away of the Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, what hit me was the fact that we’d lost a real man! No, not that I knew him or had ever met him. Yes, I’d been reading about his rebellious defiance. Not once sounding unsure or dilly dallying. Nor succumbing to all possible political threats, he built a communist state ‘on the very doorstep’ of the so-called super power of the world – the United States of America. Not just that but he’d continued to defy US dictates for five long decades. His determination came through not just in every word he’d uttered but it seemed spread out all across his expressive face. That bravado rebel look had remained clung on to him right till the very end. Yes, he looked like a tough leader who could lead his people with that undying spirit to him… so heroic that at times he came across as one of those magical characters tucked in the pages of a fairy tale if not a dreamy romantic read.
What mattered to him was to stand by his convictions. I do realize that many would argue with that typical one liner –“Fidel Castro was nothing but a top ranking dictator!” But which ruler isn’t a dictator? Some rule with democratic camouflages on, whilst others without those facades! I’d rather have a man proclaiming loud and clear that he’s a dictator, than any of those who coo something but indulge in something quite the opposite. Do not overlook the underlying basic fact that even in the so-called democratic setups, rulers make sure that the rivals are side-lined if not silenced all too completely.
I wonder why we don’t get to see or meet real men? Where are the real men with such remarkable personalities, whom one can adore and admire? Why isn’t the Creator making them anymore? Have all possible pollutants wrecked hell on this front too – no more making of genuine two-legged creatures called real men. No, don’t get me amiss. Don’t mean ‘Alexander The Great’ type conquerors of empires but of hearts and souls. After all, if hearts and souls can be won over what more is required to be conquered! Nothing more!
