{"id":122,"date":"2016-06-12T03:44:36","date_gmt":"2016-06-12T03:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=122"},"modified":"2016-06-12T03:44:36","modified_gmt":"2016-06-12T03:44:36","slug":"men-are-from-mars-women-are-from-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=122","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Hell\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span class=\"dropcap\">T<\/span>he barrack smelled of shit. Chandan Samant could not see the source of the stench; some 200 men were in the way. They were all undertrials and this was the holding cell of Mumbai\u2019s Arthur Road Jail. He was given a piece of cloth to sleep on, two metal containers to eat in, and was pushed back to the end of the room. Now, he finally saw where the deep funk emanated from:\u00a0It was an open toilet used by all the inmates.\n\nHis head reeled with fear and disgust. He was surrounded by professional criminals \u2013 rapists, murderers \u2013 and he asked himself, \u201cWhat did I do to get here?\u201d\n\nThe answer was clear to him; he had married the wrong person. He had filed for divorce from his wife a few months ago and he was now implicated in multiple court cases. There was one which alleged dowry harassment, one which accused him of domestic violence, and another which claimed that he had committed caste atrocities against his now estranged wife.\n\nHe was arrested on a Friday evening, appeared before a judge on Saturday and was remanded to custody. His parents could not visit; they too were named as perpetrators and were in hiding. He was granted bail on Wednesday. On the\u00a0Sunday of that week, Chandan went to his first men\u2019s rights activist meeting.\n<\/p><p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\nIt is a hot Sunday afternoon but the sun has failed to keep the crowds away from Veer Savarkar Udyan, a rare patch of green in Mumbai\u2019s suburbia. The kids are kicking about a ball in a tiled pit, which was once a large fountain, a fighting couple has monopolised the swings, and in the shaded stands a man is preaching about the many injustices faced by his gender.\n\nThere are some 20 of them, all wearing the grey and orange tees bearing the logo of their organisation, Vaastav Foundation. \u201cMen\u2019s Rights Are Human Rights\u201d, the shirt announces and they are here to spread the word. Two young men, mere onlookers just a few minutes ago, are now being eagerly recruited: Why is there only a \u201cBeti Padhao\u201d scheme? Why do parents spend their life savings on a daughter\u2019s wedding? Why do women get away with false rape accusations? Why is there not a ministry dedicated to the welfare of men? The answer is clear to them. It is a woman\u2019s world out there and men are the victims of this biased system.\n\nThey are doctors, engineers, IT professionals, these weekend warriors who are out to protect their kind. The organisation\u2019s website offers a rather anodyne\u00a0agenda: \u201cTo create a social structure, for preserving and protecting men\u2019s rights, so as to foster a stress-free society.\u201d\n\nBut their blog posts are more telling. There\u2019s one which claims that modern women are modelling themselves on porn stars and using the legal system to destroy the Indian family. Another post takes a stand against the criminalisation of marital rape. And then there was the stunt which made it to the papers \u2013 members dressed up as ATMs screamed slogans against \u201cmoney vultures and fake case specialists\u201d when the city congregated for a charitable marathon.\n\nTheir flock, this Sunday, is made up of many \u201cvictims\u201d. There is the young man embroiled in a domestic violence case who has brought his mother along to hold his hand, the man facing prison time for allegedly raping his partner, the man set\u00a0to oust his wife in an ongoing divorce. All of them are looking for advice and the most sought after counsel is one: Chandan Samant.\n\nThere is nothing in the stature or demeanour of the civil engineer that commands attention but when Chandan speaks, the group listens. The 36-year-old has paid his dues and is now a man on a mission. He has spent the past six years in a\u00a0continuing\u00a0battle against an estranged wife. He has multiple cases pending against him in various courts and he claims to have spent over \u20b915 lakh in the legal battle against his former wife.\n<blockquote class=\"quote--center\">It is a woman\u2019s world out there and men are the victims of this biased system.<\/blockquote>\nSince that Sunday in 2010 when Chandan joined the group after his four-day stint in prison, he has never looked back. He has since become a counsellor for the foundation\u2019s helpline and a spokesman for the group. And at this meeting, he is telling a rapt audience how to gather proof against their accusers, how to avoid arrests, and the best lawyer to get you anticipatory bail.\n\nThe conversation is interrupted when a member starts handing out toffee and cake to the gathering. It was Chandan\u2019s birthday yesterday and this group is now like family.\n\n\u201cI started going to the meetings every Sunday because it was the one place where I could talk and there were people who were going through the same thing as me. These were people who had lost everything like me. I lost my job, my house, my family\u2019s honour, just because I married the wrong person,\u201d he says.\n\nThe wrong person was a fitness trainer he met at a gym near his house in Andheri. They started talking over the water cooler and just five months later, the two tied the knot. Chandan claims that the honeymoon period ended immediately and after two years, he decided to file for divorce.\n\nSix years later, his estranged wife is still a part of his life. She lives in the house he once shared with his family while he has moved into a smaller apartment in the building across the road. He is still her Facebook friend and keeps a tab on her WhatsApp updates. He is just collecting proof, he explains. The arm around her shoulder in that Facebook post could mean that she is getting remarried and thus cannot claim maintenance from him anymore and he can get a peek at the place which was once home.\n\n\u201cI think she posts pictures to taunt me. Look at this, your cupboard is mine now,\u201d he says, his voice still staccato and emotionless, as he speaks of the woman he blames for everything that went wrong. She filed multiple cases against him after he filed for divorce.\n\nIndian Penal Code\u2019s Section 498 A, Protection of Women Against Domestic Violence Act, and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, all were pressed into action. Chandan lost his job, as his employer did not take kindly to the days he skipped work to respond to court subpoenas. The matter is still sub judice and Chandan is careful when detailing the events which lead up to the moment here: this park bench where he sits every Sunday, talking about the ways women are out to manipulate the legal system to rob men off their money, livelihood, and self-respect.\n\n\u201cMy parents or I did nothing wrong. She even implicated my 80-year-old grandmother in the dowry harassment case. How can a woman that old assault a fit thirty-something woman who is a kick-boxing trainer,\u201d he says, his calm voice gathering an angry edge.\n\nHe then reels off the statistics. At the National Crime Records Bureau, a total number of 16,351, 4,204, and 531 cases have been registered under the Protection of Women Against Domestic Violence Act, 2005 in 2012, 2013, and 2014 respectively. Out of the 90,000 to one lakh cases investigated every year, nearly 10,000 complaints of dowry harassment turn out to be false. The figure makes the Protection of Women Against Domestic Violence Act (498A) one of the most abused laws in the country.\n\nBut there is another statistic too. A more real and pressing one which says that more than 8,000 women lose their life every year to dowry-related crimes. Both numbers are truths in their own worlds, both perhaps valid in their own positions. One gender statistic does not cancel out another. The people at the end of these numbers have real stories, even though Chandan may have a tougher time convincing the world of the validity of this fight.\n\nChandan does not concern himself with looking deeply silly as a fighter for men\u2019s rights in a world where gender crimes are strongly skewed towards women. He knows that women have their stories of violence, but Chandan has his. The evening is approaching and the park is filling up. The group is heading out together for a snack before they go their separate ways. They will meet here again next Sunday and the battle will continue.\n\n\u00a0\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Men\u2019s rights? Yes, it\u2019s a thing. Ask these angry young men from Mumbai. Their grouse \u2013 they are used as ATMs, and often falsely charged with rape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gender"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u2018Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Hell\u2019<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Men\u2019s rights? Yes, it\u2019s a thing. Ask these angry young men from Mumbai. 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