Truth Be Told

Women have it tough in our world. With all the odds against them, they have put up a great fight and shown the level of strength that can put anyone to shame. All this leads to the oft repeated statements like ‘the world would be a better place if women ruled it’.  This statement is quite an ego booster and at times the closing comment of many arguments. The reality is quite different and bitter, as our daily encounters tell us.

One such recent brush with reality happened in the audio visual departments of one of the top medical colleges of the country. The schematics there are such that the women are in majority, including the head of the department. Among the male employees, there is a deaf and dumb individual, who has a MFA (Masters of Fine Arts) from Punjab University and is appointed on pure merit bases.

The expectation here would be that that his colleagues have a combination of admiration and soft spot for him, given his efforts to support his family with a lot going against him (A year ago he was diagnosed with kidney failure & went through transplantation). 

This employee’s life has been made hell at his work place in every possible manner. He is being cornered all the time, while the rest of the department goes about their work. Isolating him is not where this ends. When a third party intervened trying to solve the unseen problem, the head had a long list of complaints and they are quite interesting in their content. The high lights include:

• He sits in the same room, the women are in majority and they feel uncomfortable in his presences as they can’t talk among themselves with much ease.
• He takes a few minutes’ walk (something he has to do because otherwise his legs swell) after every hour on campus, which in her opinion makes the students uncomfortable. The students have never made any such complain. 
• Then she had a lot to say about his sister who at times picks and drops him.
• His presence is the source of overcrowding the ‘just four’ spacious offices that she has under her command.
• She can’t attend a senior doctor in the rooms due to his presence.

The list is a long one and has a lot of other similar serious allegations, none of which have anything to do with the quality of his work or anything that is somehow related to the workplace.

Handing over the world to women is not going to make things different. Power in whatever shape has a strange effect on people and women have fallen in the general line as well, except for few exceptions. Many a time a woman is suffering at the hands of another woman only. All these morons that are out there have not materialized from outer space, a major responsibility is on parenting and a lot of hypocrisy is going on in that department that calls for some serious attention.