Devil’s Advocate: Serving you a cocktail of wit, humour and sarcasm
I eagerly look forward to Raksha Bandhan every year. On that day, I get treated to a three-course dinner at a fancy French restaurant and presented with a bottle of triple malt whiskey by Xena, my feminist acquaintance.
For those of you who are not aware of Raksha Bandhan, it is a centuries old Indian/Hindu festival. On this day, a sister ties a rakhi (an amulet) around the wrist of her brother and prays for his prosperity, health, and well-being. The brother in return offers gifts to the sister and promises to be her guardian angel and to protect her from any harm, under every circumstance.
But Xena, true to her feminist colours, is enraged that this practice is sexist, patriarchal, misogynist and oppressive towards women.
Xena is a typical third-wave born feminist. She came into this world screaming and hasn’t stopped doing it ever since. She is the type who would get severely offended if a man opened a door for her to pass through. The third-wave feminists are a special breed of feminists who are highly educated, privileged, vocal and use the social media to the hilt. Even though they have not faced a day of patriarchy in their lives, they have taken up the cudgels for the wellbeing of the broader sisterhood, who are still being subjugated by misogynistic men
Xena is well aware that women now have the voting rights, but she doesn’t care nor has the time to exercise her right because she is so busy campaigning for unisex toilets to be installed everywhere to bring about gender equality in everyday life.
Says Xena, “In this age of women empowerment and gender equality, Raksha Bandhan is a despicable custom. Why do women need to be protected by men? Do men think women are so weak that they can’t look after themselves? Indian women are winning weightlifting, boxing, wrestling, shooting, judo & karate medals in international sports meet. Women can simply ring 000, if required, to get any help. So, why is there a need for men to be involved?”
In protest, she performs the “reverse” Raksha Bhandhan, in which she ties the rakhi on a man’s wrist, promising to be his protector or knight in shining armour. She has picked me to be her rakhi brother. I confess that I play along with it for the Raksha Bhandan perks, namely fancy dinner, and whiskey. For being her rakhi brother, she is just a phone call away if I needed to get any chores done for me such as washing, cleaning, laundry, cooking, assembling Ikea furniture etc. She really comes into her elements and looks after me when I’m down with the man flu. The arrangement is working very well.
This year, as usual, I got the Raksha Bandhan dinner invite from Xena. We met at Loulou, Lavender Bay. During our chitchat, my toxic masculinity could not help itself but rear its ugly head to ask Xena, “Do men really need protection from women?”
She let out a chuckle, winked and said, “In these times of false MeToo allegations, Johnny Depp-Amber Heard type of situations, false dowry & false domestic violence cases, sextortion etc men need all the protection and help they can get”
After dinner, we walked back to our cars in the parking lot with me cuddling my gift whiskey bottle. It was past midnight, and the car park was quite empty. As we approached Xena’s car, she cried, “Oh no!” Her car had two flat tyres.
I looked at my watch, turned to Xena and said, “Sis! I’ve got to catch the red eye flight this morning. I better go now so that I may catch some sleep.” With that I jumped in my car and drove off leaving Xena staring blankly at her flattened car tyres.
I’m so proud of Xena, my rakhi sister, who is smashing down the wall of patriarchy, brick by brick.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
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