Archive for November 2010
Culture Shock
Yes, so much for writing everyday! Is there any point giving an excuse? No. So I’ll just get on with the business.
My father is a simple man. Although he is well-educated, very sharp, very aware he still isn’t a man of the world. His honesty, integrity and desire for a perfect world has often caused him and us (my family) a lot of heartache over the years. It’s funny how most of your life you feel protected by your parents and then there comes a stage in life, when you feel like protecting them from the mean mean place this world has become.
Yesterday my father was driving back home from somewhere when two young girls in a car hit his. Instead of apologizing for what was their mistake they launched a full-fledged verbal attack on my dad. Even though my parents didn’t tell me the exact details but I can so clearly visualize what would have transpired at that time. This exchange itself would have been a shock for my father but what followed was unexpected even to me. One of the girls at that point leaned forward and tore off the pocket of my father’s shirt. And it was only later that my father realized that she had stolen his 3-day old Blackberry! Only when the whole world has witnessed this incident and they has managed to get hold of an item with a perceived value equal to that of their damaged car, did the girls finally let go. Other than the fact that my father was too appalled, he also didn’t say much to the girls because he knew that if it comes to it the law will side with them. And of course, being the simple man he is didn’t even take down their license plate number for future action.
My blood boiled when my mother told me about this incident and all I have wanted to do since yesterday is to get hold of those two girls. I am hardly an aggressive person but god knows, had I been present in the car with my father yesterday, those bitches wouldn’t have known what hit them.
Nobody knows better than me that it wasn’t even the loss of the mobile that hurt him, it was humiliation of it all. The loss of face that he had to suffer at the hands of two young punks who probably haven’t learnt any other way to deal with things. I mean seriously, what kind of world do we live in where aggression is seen as the answer to all problems? Has anyone taught them that even if it is not your fault, you don’t talk shit to an almost 60-years-old man? That nothing gives you the right to attack him and steal his phone? And most importantly, using your gender as a tool to mistreat someone is taking five steps back for women’s rights and not the other way around?
What say?
