<img style="float: left;" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2023/sep/Rahul-op_e.jpg" alt="Rahul Da Cunha" width="200" height="69" />Natasha aka Nats, my <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/best-of-burden-23310674" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">Gen Z neighbour</a>, was smoulderingly introspective, a far cry from her usual snapping indignation, as she strode through my door.
&ldquo;Why so quiet, Nats?&rdquo; I enquired.
Little did I know what was to transpire in a few minutes.
&ldquo;You forgot my birthday. I turned 20, I&rsquo;m no more a teenager&hellip; I&rsquo;m an adult, Rahul bruh,&rdquo; she announced.
&ldquo;So you&rsquo;re pissed off that I forgot to call you?&rdquo; I asked hesitatingly.
(Eye roll)
&ldquo;You think I&rsquo;m so immature that I would hold it against you, no no! (pause on her part, relief on mine) Last week we had &lsquo;Daughter&rsquo;s Day&rsquo;.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Ah a day of celebration, no doubt&hellip; Natasha, &lsquo;<a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/what-happens-next-23309456" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">Daughter&rsquo;s Day</a>&rsquo;!&rdquo;
&ldquo;Rahul bruh, I have kinda mixed feelings towards the concept of &lsquo;Daughter&rsquo;s Day&rsquo;. It&rsquo;s still significant but losing cache, dude. By the way, my dad reached out to me after five long years!&rdquo;
&ldquo;Oh wow, did he call to wish you Happy Daughter&rsquo;s Day?&rdquo;
&ldquo;No he called to tell me to come home to Hoshiarpur&hellip; he&rsquo;s feeling guilty that we had such a bad farewell, you know we haven&rsquo;t spoken to each other, till that phone call?&rdquo; she revealed.&nbsp;
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s sweet of him&hellip; is he seeking a reconciliation?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Nonsense, he wants me to return home to look after him, suck me back into a system of repression and misogyny, plus chauvinism, press his feet and other such nonsense.&rdquo;
She went silent, her face turned a darker shade of purple with a tinge of scarlet; I could sense a rising rage.
&ldquo;Plus, there&rsquo;s other shit pissing me off, bruh.&rdquo;
Oh boy, I said to myself, here we go.
&ldquo;Like?&rdquo; I asked with some trepidation.
&ldquo;Many things, let&rsquo;s begin with this 33 &nbsp;per cent Women&rsquo;s Reservation Bill. Smoke screen man, hogwash man, hogwash.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Oh come on Nats, stop being so cynical.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not being cynical, but dude, why are we so happy with crumbs&hellip; this 33 per cent bill only kicks in by 2028. In this man&rsquo;s world, we women are treated like second class citizens, and when you men deem it fit to hand us some alms&hellip; you guys are always controlling the narrative.&rdquo;
Now Natasha&rsquo;s introspection had morphed into indignation, smoke had begun to come out of her ears, fire out of her eyes.
&ldquo;And that man&hellip; that, uhm&hellip; guy&hellip; that wrestling chief who groped, molested, felt up all those women wrestlers, still hanging about. Not arrested, yet he was present in Parliament, how bruh how&hellip; how is it possible&hellip; he was hanging around, prancing and preening, as the Bill was passed. &nbsp;Are you kidding me?&rdquo;
And then Nats&rsquo; eyes welled up, a sight I&rsquo;d never seen before, she began to tremble, she looked at me with a stare that combined stark vulnerability and a sharp venom&mdash;
&ldquo;She was 12, Rahul&hellip; 12, not even a teenager yet, raped at the tender age of 12 in a autorickshaw. She was injured, humiliated&hellip; she staggered 8 km, &nbsp;going door-to-door, begging, bleeding, she&rsquo;s booed away, shooed away. Crude men, doors slammed in her face&hellip; can you imagine this, dude? She&rsquo;s a kid! How can we face ourselves as a country, she collapses in a pool of blood, it&rsquo;s almost like rape has become commonplace, but our cruelty to not take her in, protect her, shelter her in Ujjain&mdash;how are we so, callous, so cruel?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Nari Shakti, Beti Bachao, these are meaningless slogans (tears well up).&rdquo;
&ldquo;You know bruh&hellip; the sheer contrast of our victorious Asian Games girls&hellip; serious success&hellip; man, dinghy racing, dressage, discus. The difference between the glamour and glitter of our women&rsquo;s athletes, with the gore of child prostitution in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan! How are we treating our women, of all ages&hellip; you know what I pray for, you know what I&rsquo;d like to do?&rdquo;
I feared the worst. &ldquo;What would you like to do?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Our girls at Hangzhou, the shooters, who won gold and silver for the 10m and 25m air pistol&mdash;they need to aim their guns at some of these &lsquo;criminals&rsquo;&mdash;scare the hell out of them, enough is enough dude. I don&rsquo;t want a &lsquo;Daughter&rsquo;s Day&rsquo; anymore, because it&rsquo;s a farce, a bad joke, a mockery. I want a &lsquo;You Don&rsquo;t Deserve Us Daughter&rsquo;s Day&rsquo;. I want a &lsquo;Sons Get Your Shit Together Day&rsquo;. Give me those, dude give me those,&rdquo; as Nats stomped out of my home.
Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com
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“So you’re pissed off that I forgot to call you?” I asked hesitatingly.

Nats and ‘Daughter’s Day’

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Nats and ‘Daughter’s Day’

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