So there was I walking under the hotttttt Aizawl sun when I passed this old man enjoying the slight breeze on his verandah. He smiled at me and told me that I was looking very fresh and pretty and I thought, "Wow, what a nice old man, woo, tiny ego boost". Then he suddenly grabbed my arm and leered at me, saying, "I bet its as fresh down under, eh? Hehehe. Can we see?"
So I gave him the shin kick which I reserve for all crossing-the-line eve teasers. To which he responded by clutching his shin and wailing, "You stupid girl, have you no sense of humour? How dare you kick an old man?", and then his middle-aged daughter came running out, screaming, "What did you do to my father?" And I'm left there looking like the villain while I actually am the victim; or am I?
When I was younger-ish, one of our male Sunday School teachers had this habit of giving us hugs, stroking, tickling and pinching us. And though the other girls never seemed to mind, I used to get really uncomfortable. So I told my mom who had a word with him. Then the next Sunday he came up to me and told me angrily that I and my mother had really filthy minds, and that he had only been affectionate, and that the fact that I was uncomfortable with his show of affection only showed that I was un-Mizo, un-Christian and that my whole family had depraved minds. For a long while afterwards, I felt really awkward around the male sex because I was unable to distinguish between what is often deemed as the Mizo way of teasing, and what is improper.
Later, I came to realise that there is a certain Mizo brand of 'eve-teasing', if it could be called that, which is not thaaat bad. On those days that your mirror tells you that you look ugly as sin, when a random stranger on the road whistles or tells you that you look nice, then it goes a certain way towards soothing your bruised ego. But when the comments are lewd or when touching is involved (which is when I bring out my shin-kick), then it gets really offensive.
What's worse is, those comments and actions make you feel like your'e in the wrong somehow. You start asking yourself- Am I dressed too provocatively? Do I give off whorish vibes? Do I look cheap? And then you start to feel cheap and dirty, despite all the literature out there that says that its not the woman's fault.
So today, I was again faced with that conundrum- did I over-react to a little teasing, albeit a crude one? Or was that old man out of bounds? As the old man wailed and his daughter screamed at me, and curious passers-by gawked, I thought, "Hell, I'm almost 30. It's time I decide what I think is harmless teasing, and what is improper". So, despite that little seed of doubt which niggled, chiding me for being overly sensitive, I managed to tell the old man's daughter calmly what had transpired and how it had offended me. Luckily, she accepted my explanation and turned instead on her father, calling him a dirty old man, and telling him he that he deserved a broken ankle.
And I silently walked away, feeling vindicated, and yet...
OMG, that old man must've been almost 80. I hope I didn't really break his ankle bone. But he deserved it. Or did he? Oh hell.
So I gave him the shin kick which I reserve for all crossing-the-line eve teasers. To which he responded by clutching his shin and wailing, "You stupid girl, have you no sense of humour? How dare you kick an old man?", and then his middle-aged daughter came running out, screaming, "What did you do to my father?" And I'm left there looking like the villain while I actually am the victim; or am I?
When I was younger-ish, one of our male Sunday School teachers had this habit of giving us hugs, stroking, tickling and pinching us. And though the other girls never seemed to mind, I used to get really uncomfortable. So I told my mom who had a word with him. Then the next Sunday he came up to me and told me angrily that I and my mother had really filthy minds, and that he had only been affectionate, and that the fact that I was uncomfortable with his show of affection only showed that I was un-Mizo, un-Christian and that my whole family had depraved minds. For a long while afterwards, I felt really awkward around the male sex because I was unable to distinguish between what is often deemed as the Mizo way of teasing, and what is improper.
Later, I came to realise that there is a certain Mizo brand of 'eve-teasing', if it could be called that, which is not thaaat bad. On those days that your mirror tells you that you look ugly as sin, when a random stranger on the road whistles or tells you that you look nice, then it goes a certain way towards soothing your bruised ego. But when the comments are lewd or when touching is involved (which is when I bring out my shin-kick), then it gets really offensive.
What's worse is, those comments and actions make you feel like your'e in the wrong somehow. You start asking yourself- Am I dressed too provocatively? Do I give off whorish vibes? Do I look cheap? And then you start to feel cheap and dirty, despite all the literature out there that says that its not the woman's fault.
So today, I was again faced with that conundrum- did I over-react to a little teasing, albeit a crude one? Or was that old man out of bounds? As the old man wailed and his daughter screamed at me, and curious passers-by gawked, I thought, "Hell, I'm almost 30. It's time I decide what I think is harmless teasing, and what is improper". So, despite that little seed of doubt which niggled, chiding me for being overly sensitive, I managed to tell the old man's daughter calmly what had transpired and how it had offended me. Luckily, she accepted my explanation and turned instead on her father, calling him a dirty old man, and telling him he that he deserved a broken ankle.
And I silently walked away, feeling vindicated, and yet...
OMG, that old man must've been almost 80. I hope I didn't really break his ankle bone. But he deserved it. Or did he? Oh hell.
11 comments:
You did the right thing, he totally deserved it. It's weird but very old geezers can get really lewd - like the ones who keep trying to chat you up on the bus. One reason I hate going anywhere by bus or sharing a cab with people I don't know - fending off over-talkative strangers' chit chat. I do share your dilemma about how to cope with Mizo-style Eve-teasing - though one good thing about getting older is you don't get subjected to all that abuse as much as in your younger days. And while some people are touchy-feely by nature, I don't think your Sunday School teacher had any business doing all that in Sunday School of all places. Closet perv maybe? :D
hahah, probably a closet perv. Do you know whats insulting though? A remark casually thrown at me, "Chhelo, mahse a senior tawh em mai" :D Damned with faint praise, arrgh
Agreed. I am always a little surprised at the good humor with which the Mizo teasing is taken by most women.
haha you should have roundhouse kicked him... doesn't matter if he is old... what if he does that again, and the victim happens to my nieces? Grrrr.... at least he will now think twice about doing that to the next hot girl he sees ;)
And about the touching and hugging at sunday's school... seriously? I always feel awkward when I come home to Mizoram because over here at "phai", if I'm drinking with my Mizo friends and we're about to go home, we hug each other... likewise if I meet my Mizo friends after a long time here, we hug each other. But I tried that hugging thingie in Mizoram and nobody does it and it felt very awkward, because over there people just shake each other's hands. That was my observation. I always assumed hugging is not very popular in Mizoram.
@daniel: Good humour and sometimes, the fear of being thought of as lacking a sense of humour.
@mizohican: hmm, now that you mention it, my girlfriends here would recoil in horror were I to give them a hug. Was recently hugged, that too in public by another friend who had spent most of her life outside Mizoram, and I remember feeling very very awkward too :D Maybe this hugging thing is applicable only to opposite sexes over here? Whoa!
The title reminds me of a rather violent game we used to play in school, where 2 kids would face and hold each others' shoulders at arm's length, then proceed to shin-kick till the loser gives up... those were the days! Naughty Boy shoes were an added advantage.
And if you're looking for affirmation, you got mine. The old man deserved it, but that's probably not going to change his, what, 70+ years of attitude towards something he had always deemed acceptable. But way to go to rid the city of old perverts, one Shin at a time. Watch out y'all, here comes the Shinster Spinster! :P (NOI)
Tha ve
Extremely relevant:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/weirdnewsvideo/9311330/Ben-Fogle-enters-the-World-Shin-Kicking-Championship.html
@blackestinlineforashinkickforthatshinsterspinsterremark: yup, says it all :D
@h.vangchhia: thankhiuh!
darn it, that dirty old man sure deserve that shin kick of yours, lucky for him u didn't knee him between the legs... :)
yelp, it's in our culture to give a casual remark ..even to complete strangers, but it should be well within the limit, crossing the line in any way cannot be condoned.
I thil rawn ziah hi a thra khawp mai, Kuku. Hetiang deuh hi niminah ka lo ngaihtuah melh melh a, mizo (abikin mipa te) "mi nel" chin tawk an hre lo ka ti thin. An nula nel deuh te han kuah deuh chuk chuk leh khawih neuh neuh an ching tlat te, nula te nen thla han lak dawn a kuah ngei ngei an tum tlat te hi a mak hi ka tia. Han khak ila, an thinrim lawi a. A mak khawp mai tih bak ka sawi thiam lo lol.
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