To be socially acceptable and well acknowledged in public gossips, you need to religiously abide by certain tags. Yeah Tags, which heavily sit back and rule our life. Decide our fate and destiny. We have accustomed tags in every way of life, may it be body structure, emotional expressions, physiological appearance, likes and dislikes etc. And anyone who restrains to follow them would be ‘hanged till death’ in every social gathering, public conversation owing to his criminal offense.
Boys can’t cry, girls should learn to cook, Drag your marriage even when there is no chance of improvement, Women can’t be ambitious, Men can’t be good at liberal arts, Intelligent minds need to be in science, Girls are not good at sports, always concerned about looks and shopping, they can’t drive well and the list goes on and on..
Well, well this is 2021 and these old school tags by our over expressive, yet too much considerate society hold us back from being the best version of ourselves. I mean why can’t boys cry? Do they lack lacrimal glands or are they adapted to some water conservation mode? (how considerate of them). Anyway jokes apart, Anyone who feels, has emotions can cry. It’s natural guys until evolution occurs.
Cooking
Is it a woman’s job to cook?
Girls should learn to cook. Ah! this reminds me of another name of concupisciently mouthwatering delicious cuisines, Chef Sanjeev Kapoor. As far as I remember he is chef and a Man(Oh god).Obviously the tikkas and the butter chicken don’t get to decide that they’ll be cooked by women in particular.
Beauty
Why does a girl needs to be beautiful?
Girls should be horribly beautiful, gaunty, delicate, soft – spoken (rather mute is better). They make the perfect bride, bahu etc. Well, guys in that case the only ones I can look so far are the prettiest plastic Barbie dolls. Trust me, exhibiting so called idealistic behavior they won’t ever be a rebel. Just keep on mingling and admiring their beauty.
Marriage
Intelligent minds are meant to be in science, who cares even if they can paint well or hold a hidden creative lava within. And yeah! who can forget the all time famous ‘Sharma ji ka Beta’ who continues to haunt and give creeps to all of us even today.
Shaadi Kara do !! (aka Get married)
6 feet, smart,6 figure salaried, 27 aged required (definition of a perfect bridegroom). This is what I read in marriage section of every newspaper. Who minds then, if he religiously commits murders every Saturday or is a dowry keen. Who cares even if he is a dumb absolutely disgusting, overgrown lunatic school boy, he fits in the tag though.
Perfect age of marriage is 25. Hell yeah! I was waiting for this. Ravleen Khorana, a software engineer in Tieto, says that no age is perfect. One should marry only when one finds oneself mature enough to handle responsibilities of a serious relationship. Then may it be 20,40 or never.
Marriage should be a choice not a social obligation. Rather why is marriage so important. Is this oxygen or the tree disdains to provide you free oxygen after 25, if you are not married. Or you should be put behind bars, threatened and seriously tortured if you step to 26 as a bachelor. No! of course not. But this is what society does. You are tortured, harassed in public gatherings and even if you are suffering from a chronic disease like cancer at last stage, the only question they’ll bang up on you is “When are you getting married man?”
Equality
Kya yahi hai apki equality !
Man is responsible to drag the financial baggage of the family. Come on, if we talk of equality at every front certainly women should share this responsibility. Rather, every household duty should be shared equally.
Rape
Rape is Rape!
“Boys can’t be raped”. Knocks! Hello society boys do get raped which is very painful both physically and emotionally. It shatters their soul with everlasting serious impact over them.
Mindset
Men need to be masculine, well built with those so called six pack abs, biceps bla bla. Then only, he’s a perfect fit. Are you serious? Are you looking for a husband or a bouncer. We’ll if that is the case your daughter must be going out with a group of soldiers with loaded riffles. Obviously not! Why don’t we focus making our daughters strong, physically, financially and emotionally.
In 2021, woman is smart enough. And before that why don’t we teach our sons to behave, control their leaching and respect women. We are seriously entangled into the cage of tags. Caring for the world, we loose ourselves.
Being a male is a matter of birth. Being a man is a matter of age. But being a gentleman is a matter of choice.
Smoking and drinking automatically reflects uncultured upbringing and specially if a girl is seen drinking we have an already prepared set of questions to nag over her upbringing. Let away the health issues. Moreover we judge her by her outfit. If she is wearing shorts she is responsible for the rapes worldwide, no matter the scorching heat or the messy rain, we want them covered from head to toe. I would suggest to buy big coffins and start sending your girls to outdoors in them. Within a week staring hungry eyes would automatically roll over to the walking coffins.
We have a cringy habit to tag everything and hide behind the veils of convention. Blue for boys, girls only pink. If you don’t believe me, walk wearing a pink shirt into your boys gang. Within 5 minutes you’ll know what I am talking about.
Sports
Girls are not good at sports?
Girls are not good at sports. Don’t tell me now that P.V. Sindhu, Sakshi Malik, Saina Nehwal now need to get their femininity checked or they are secret aliens. Jokes apart, they have emerged from the roots of India and brought laurels to the country. Anyone who is disciplined, determined and passionate could be good at sports. Why only sports? A girl could be ambitious about her career aspiring for financial, emotional independence. She could be Arundhati Bhattacharya, leading 208 year old prominent banking body, ranked amongst FP top 100 Global thinkers. Who doesn’t know popular, stunning, most profound highest paid Actress Mrs. Deepika Padukone.
Recently Miss world Priyanka Chopra in her prestigious annual lecture at ‘The Penguin’ in the capital, said that “Who can tell you who you should be? Don’t let anyone, any situation dictate you who you are and who you can be. Do not compromise. Do not settle on your dreams.”
Summary
Let’s #untag
We all have wings. We all can fly but tags, are heavy. They tie us, stop us from being the best version of ourselves. Without their weight we are all beautiful. So step out of your closet and rise above these festered sores. Take chances. Don’t Hold back, Untag yourself.
(This write-up is inspired by an Indian web series Untag)
