According to several people who have studied this deeply - Indians are extremely gender biased. Without question, there are several examples of gender bias. Take scrotum scratching for instance, a uniquely male preserve. You don't see female Indians scratching their ovaries when they are waiting for the cashier at Big Bazaar to ring up the bill. But what gets my gonads, as it were, is that this argument is extended to swear words. Several intellectuals argue that our swear words reek of gender bias. For instance, the most popular North Indian swear words are BC and MC (if you don’t know what BC/MC means, you should probably check with your mother if you can read this blog post) refer to sisters and mothers and are hence gender biased. I heard someone recently go on to say - in the West, for instance there is a gender neutral swear word like a*hole. And there is d*head which levels the playing field by referring to a male appendage with reproductive capabilities.
While I am completely in agreement that Indians are deeply gender biased, I am quite upset that people are using swear words as an illustration of this gender bias. I am not comfortable with people with little expertise in the science and art of swearing using their ignorance as the basis for an argument. As someone who can speak two Indian languages fluently but can swear very well in six I am speaking with some degree of expertise in the subject. So here is an explanation of why there are no gender biases in Indian swear words.
Where the BC and MC is concerned, as most people would have realized, it accuses the male of being so depraved and desperate that he may descend to indulging in a forbidden relationship. So it is an accusation about the male, not about the female. It is only incidental that the female is referred to in the swear word. By the same token there is a Bengali swear word - which also goes BC - which can, among other things, mean having an intimate relationship with a goat. So would you say that this Bengali swear word is biased against goats. It obviously is not. It is referring to a person who is accused of descending to spending an intimate evening with a goat. And if you feel a*hole levels the playing field and you are disappointed that there is no Indian equivalent you have obviously not heard of the good old g*ndu. And where d*head is concerned, haven’t you heard of the famed acronym - LKB - especially famous in the Hyderabad region. So while I agree that India is a hugely gender biased society, please leave the swear words alone. We are quite unbiased there.
While we are on the topic, I am often reminded of the Australia - India cricket match involving a Mr. Harbajan Singh and a Mr. Symonds. Please excuse me if I am not sensitive to race on this - the intention is not to hurt any race. But just to wonder about the cultural complexity of the world. As an Indian, having lived in India all my life, it hard to digest that there are parts of this world where Ma Ki is acceptable but monkey is no-no. One lives and learns. And when you are at it, spare a thought for poor Sachin Tendulkar. Imagine this - you are India's most loved super-achiever and a super-celebrity. You are in a place that looks like a court room in a foreign country. You look up to a person who looks like the "mi-lord" of Bollywood movies. And you put up a straight face and explain solemnly and patiently to the Judge that 'Ma Ki ...' is a swear word that is common in India and refers to 'Mother's ...'. It only sounds like monkey. The Judge listens patiently and then says - if Sachin says it is Ma Ki, it is Ma Ki then. As long as it was not monkey , it was quite alright.
As an aside, here is a little story that I have been meaning to write about. But since it seems to obliquely connect to what we are talking about here goes. It is a tale that tells you how far we have progressed as a civilization. This is a true story with some embellishment. In the early years of the last century, there was teenager who lived in a small village. He had turned sixteen a few months ago. The testosterone was coursing through his arteries. His neighbor had just got married. The newlywed couple were to spend their first night on the second floor of the neighbor’s house. Our teenage friend wanted to find out what happens on the first night. So after sundown, he decided to climb up to the second floor window and sit close to the window and wait till the action started. Unfortunately for him, he missed his footing, fell down and had to stay in a cast for a couple of months to let the fractures heal. So each time you go to www.timesofindia.com and see all those titillating photographs, spare a thought for the pioneers - the ones who had to climb a precarious roof just to peek at a bit of ankle. They risked broken bones; the worst we can get is RSI.
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