Is our generation this dumb and retarded?

If you are a loyal reader you must have noticed that I have been quite inactive lately... reason? lack of an Internet connection... and to get it up and running, me and my husband had to go through a lot of trouble and i mean a LOT of trouble! anyway, the connection is restored and I am all set to type away... :)

This last month when i was not connected to the virtual world I got addicted to the telly world (don't judge me! there are only so many books i can read and so many people i can call!! :P ) in the throes of that addiction i started following MTV's 'reality show' Roadies' auditions. yeah yeah i know, it is not real, it is fake... all is scripted... blah blah etc etc...but i liked watching it... maybe because i am a little voyeuristic (i admit it! and i know most of you are too! :P) but mainly because i liked the stand that the judges took vis-a-vie women and certain issues... and i loved the way they blasted the men (and women) who acted like chauvinistic pigs!

to reach the judges' panel for a personal interview, the contestants / aspirants had to fill a form that has questions such as -

• what do you think about pre marital sex?
• what is your take on live-in relationships?
• if your parents disagree with your choice of boyfriend / girlfriend, what would you do?
• should women wear mini skirts in pubs?
• what are your views on homosexuality? should it be legalised?

the above mentioned points are just a few examples. there were many more such questions and boy, did the  judges get some varied responses on them! some of them stayed with me, especially the one given by a woman who had cleared her army entrance exam. now, when you are from a city and are educated one expects a certain level of intelligence from you but this woman showed that there is a vast difference between bookish knowledge and actual awareness. when asked should women wear short dresses to pubs she replied - yes they can wear whatever they want but they should be ready to face the consequences. this angered the judges to no end. and i was also a little dismayed. she further continued that these women who wear mini skirts need  a counselling session and then if they still insist on wearing short skimpy outfits, they should not cry if a man makes a comment or if she faces eve teasing. so basically, this 'educated young woman' believed that if another woman is wearing a short outfit and she is raped then it is her fault. the said woman called it upon herself. i was surprised and shocked to hear her justifying her views. one of the judges rightfully corrected her that a woman can wear anything, if she is a victim of eve teasing it is the fault of the men who are doing it. the problem is not in the woman wearing 'revealing' clothes but the problem is with the men who have the thought process that if she is wearing a short dress, she would be 'easy' or 'characterless'. so these men need counselling and not the women. he also added that it is women like her who lead to the downfall of other women. when she would have kids she would tell her daughter that the blame for her being eve teased lies with her and the way she dresses... and she would tell her son that if a woman wears revealing clothes she is a characterless woman. ( i am using the phrase revealing not as a negative term but as a synonym for short dresses or plunging necklines) to tell you the truth i am ashamed to admit it but i also had the similar thought process in my growing up years but thankfully my worldview has expanded... has yours?

that was just one example of the retarded thinking of most of today's youth. the barney brigade as i like to call them. they would want to be like Barney (one-night-stands, drinking, clubbing )but if a woman is a Samantha (from sex and the city) they would not hesitate in using derogatory terms like sluts for them. like there was this guy who said that his sister doesn't go to places like pubs as it is not in our culture. when asked has he been there? his reply was a sheepish yes. so why can he visit a pub but his sister can't? obviously because (a) it is not in our culture and it is only the women who have to follow the so-called Indian ethics and values and (b) she is a good girl and pubs are visited by only loose character women... obviously. (sarcasm alert!)

that was just the tip of the iceberg... there were men who said that premarital sex is okay for them but they would literally kill their sister if she decided to marry someone who was out of their caste (and gave weird senseless and baseless arguments to support this theory as well!)... who believed that premarital sex is illegal (where did that come from? :P )... who believed that people have suddenly turned homosexual and it is a fairly recent phenomenon (that one was unbelievable!)... who thought that a woman who is living-in with their partner is a prostitute (nothing negative was said about the men in the said arrangement though!). Then. there were some contestants thrown in for comic relief like a girl who said that she wanted to work with NASA but didn't know the full form of the same... one guy who agreed with the ayodhya verdict but didn't know what it was (he didn't know what ayodhya was either and had his Ramayana and Mahabharata mixed up!)... one guy who thought rajiv

I can go on and on and on listing the foolishness of the aspirants who wanted to become famous... but i will stop here. however i would love to think your views on the above mentioned 4-5 questions i have listed (in the bullet points)

i hope for the sake of our generation and the one coming after us that all of the content that they have showed till now in this reality show is as unreal as possible and is truly scripted! i want to believe that the younger generation is not as dumb as they have been made out to be on MTV... i want to believe that the coming generation is more aware about their surroundings, are more respectful of the respective opposite sexes, can think beyond bollywood and cricket, has a mind of their own... but most of all i wish that they can break the shackles of age-old convention and stereotypical thinking and are capable of embracing a more logical outlook and a broader worldview.  fingers crossed.