The Untitled Story of Masculinity
By me
Often I have been posed with very surprising questions. It scares me to admit that they are thought provoking because they don’t sound a tad bit intellectual or enriching to me. So I decided to do something about it. Through my work I decided to break certain illogical streotypes.. that are synonymous to irrational superstitions in my head.
Of course if I run feministaa, I ought to hate men. No! I don’t only not hate men but also, love having men around as colleagues friends or lovers (mutually exclusive for me)
So here’s the story behind this. I met the founder of Macho on a flight to mumbai. Most of my time (peaceful time) is on a plane. When I am working, making personal notes and brainstorming in my own head. The man sitting next to me noticed what I was doing and out of curiosity asked me about what I do. Knowing fully well that even one more reader for my platform is one more view, I cohesively took out my visiting card, company bookmark etc and began giving my speech on my vision. As we landed, he argues to a certain extent about why and how he felt that men are not as nasty as they are portrayed to be. However I explain vividly that I am not an anti anything human being (barring drugs and discrimination of course!) and soon he is very keen to see our videos! (www.feministaa.com)
On arriving, while leaving, he says bye to me and says that he is the founder of Macho. And I was like “oh you mean underwears?!” And he laughed and said yes!
Six months later he sends me a video link on whatsapp saying Medha give me your reviews. I see the ad… and I watch Tiger Shroff flipping and swaying with beautiful french music playing in the background. I laugh and reply saying; greta ad.. great cinematography but he’s still impressing the girl with flip flops. And it takes a lot more to impress the woman of today!
He laughs again! And he says, whatever ideas you have, show me in a presentation I am in mumbai on so and so date. You’ll have one hour.
Knowing myself, whenever I smell opportunity even remotely, I jump at it just like my baby darling puppy jumps at my new shoes to chew them off. The next thing I know I was balancing three days, five artists, three flights, an amateur team (Doesn’t mean they’re not good by the way! they pulled it off with their CEO in a different time zone!).
As I left for New York on my exploring and learning trip, I find my team dedicatedly working like never before. Staying for late nights, having deep discussions with me. And I find myself, not exhausted even during jet lag, I am explaining to them… men are sensitive.. empathetic… and have come in a position to explain themselves.. unfortunately because of the rise of women empowerment some men have found themselves in a position to explain themselves unnecessarily. Because of the rise of the number of #metoo cases, women have lost faith on genuine masculinity.
So here’s proving a couple of things. This is just the start. And the beginning of an era of realism.
Here’s to the good men. May we find them and keep them!
