The 'Pub Culture': why people want to stop us having fun...

I'm a fan of Raghu Ram (Roadies' Executive Producer). I was going through a list of communities on a social networking site recently when I spotted what promised to be an interesting community on him. I can't say it disappointed. Amongst a number of pictures (including those with his wife and brother. And with hair. Yeah, he looks better without it.), debates, miscellaneous information etc., I found the following You Tube link to his debate-interview on Headlines Todaywith a couple of cultural hardliners owing their allegiances to the BJP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=IN&hl=en-GB&v=oHwLWU9fXRk
This debate was held shortly after the Mangalore incident where the members of the Sri Ram Sene beat up young girls at a pub for corrupting their 'culture'.
Also, I found a group named 'Money, sex and politics' on the same site. On further investigation, I found the most recent topic of discussion to be 'Why are women assaulted?', which set the feminist in me thinking.
Though I wouldn't react like Mr. Ram did - he loses his cool way too soon - I agree with him. The fact that women alone were physically assaulted in the Mangalore incident, reveals one of the hidden aspects of our culture.
The conviction that if women are to be 'protected' from the eyes of men (or, as of recently, rape), they must take the necessary precautions themselves by covering themselves from head-to-toe and refraining from doing anything that may make them appear desirable, including partying, and now for some strange reason, drinking.
Men brought up with this particular ideology seem to believe that if a woman indulges in either of the above activities, she is asking to be raped or molested, and hence indulge her. Women alone must be in control of themselves (and men), and what a man does or sees is entirely inconsequential for he can't control himself. Lets admit it: that is our culture.
Or so the hardliners, most of whom are politicians, would like us to believe.
I'm not going to quote the hundreds of places in Hindu mythology where women have been appreciated sexually, or sex itself has been accepted as a part of life - even sexual experimentation.
Lord Shiva was a bit of an outcast among Gods, according to a recent report in the Sunday Mid-Day. He mixed with the 'evil', hung around in cemetries, often was naked, wore skulls, his symbol was mysteriously sexual (the lingam. Look it up.), danced destruction.... Sound familiar? He was by far the most experimentative God, the one who tried everything the others didn't, and yet managed to be pure of intention. Some other Gods are said to have treated him with a mixture of mocking and fear.
The way I see it, this generation is the Shiva of India. We experiment, but don't mean harm. At least, most of us. And the other generations, who can't see the change postively, attempt to hold us back. True, alchoholism is dangerous. But did it just pop into the scene as a result of the 'pub culture'? Weren't men alchoholic as a result of the 'desi daru' joints too?
If anything, the freedom to party and work and express themselves creatively - even small freedoms like dressing as you want to encourage you to express your opinions - have made women take a stand against domestic violence and oppression of any kind.
Women are definitely more in control of themselves; but it doesn't validate a man not being in control of himself. People who endorse our 'culture' need to start looking in terms of people, and not men and women. For those who differentiate on that basis always tend to look for female reasons for male misdeeds. (Think, the sena)
It makes me look back to the quote in 'A thousand splendid suns' by Khalid Hooseini :
"Where there is a finger to point, there will always be a woman to point it at"
The line was written with reference to Islamic culture (or rather, Taliban culture), but I see definite parallels with the politician's version of Indian culture, which people all over are accepting, as you will find on reading the comments on the video mentioned before.
A priest's interview from Ayodhya, I thought agreed with this particular view. He mentioned not tolerance, but an natural acceptance of eachother's religions by Hindus and Muslims in Ayodhya, before the politically affiliated hardliners destroyed Babri masjid. True religion, I have come to believe, is a personal faith in a God/Gods that is affected not by the things that others around you believe, but what you do.
To those who support the politically spouted version of Indian culture: try to define what the culture is. I love India too, but if our culture can dictate that a woman throw herself into her husband's funeral pyre, then I have come to accept that it can endorse a number of other as yet unrealized evils.
When you wave those evils away, what remains is love and acceptance; and funnily, that has nothing to do with the existence or absence of pubs.