I am writing this article from Tuscany — yes I enjoy lavish summer holidays — and seeing how the Siennese and the Florentines can’t stand each other, I almost started missing home. Well, the girls, mostly. And it struck me then, just how the dress code for the girls of Delhi and Mumbai (I prefer Bombay still) is different.
Women dress as they wish in the latter while in the former, the lustful prying eyes of the average Delhi male make dressing a more conservative reality, an exercise in covering in order to pass inconspicuously. Better to be tacky than to be violated physically.
And everyone agrees to this sad state of things, even Delhi-ites would, if you could get them to stop gawking at girls long enough that is. But it isn’t their fault.
It’s the Delhi girls to be blamed. Let me coin an adage, “In the land of plenty, there is no greed.”
People amass and hoard in times of shortage. In Bombay there is no dearth if girls in short clothes; as a result the average attention is diverted and divided into that many specimens and no one feels singled out. In Delhi, the ratio is abysmal and the one girl who does venture forth in designer can feel more eyes on her than a very old potato! If I was born on a nude beach, naked women wouldn’t ever faze me but in my current reality, I’m scared to visit one for, shortly after arrival, I would risk being nicknamed the ‘man who always points forward’. Slut walks then are a great idea. It is the best way to condition the Delhi male.
Sure enough they will stare at first but then, over time, it would subside. And then girls would truly be safe. That is, for what it’s worth, my theory. I think it deserves being tried out; what
have we got to lose? None of the current ideas have helped curb the situation.
Delhi, time you realised why Bombay always outscores you…
(The writer is a lover of women and also a sommelier)