Oh Delhi boy, I don't care how many whores you've slept with
Delhi boys. They're miserable. There's really no other way to frame it. Cue the hatred, the #NotAllMen. Yes, yes, I know #NotAllMen, dumbo.
But an overwhelming number, with a staggering portion coming from the north of the nation.
"It's those UP bhaiyyas, Biharis and Haryanvi fu*kers from Neoda (Noida) and (erstwhile) Gurgaon," my South Delhi friends tell me huffily, when I collapse into a booth at Beeryani to complain about the number of times I felt a man's eyes boring into me as if he could make me strip down to my underwear by sheer force of will.
"There, there, you just had a bad day," some others murmur placatingly, terrified that the Bombay-waali will let loose a rage-filled epistle about the depravity of the average north-Indian male and they'll be called on to defend their brethren once again.
They eye my outfit from the corner of their eyes, trying to decide if there's a scapegoat to be found in the depth of my neckline or the length of my hemline.
They're disappointed.
Like most working women in the country, I have shit to get done, places to be, a wilting love life to attend to. I've stopped fooling myself that I have the freedom to dress the way I want in large chunks of my country, mostly because I simply don't have the energy left to fight the good fight.
On most days, I quietly toe the line; cover up when I'm advised to, drink only as much as is "safe" and go home when things start getting rough. I carry thick scarves and tights in my handbag, in much the same manner that Delhi boys carry baseball bats and hockey sticks in the boots of their obscenely large and impractical cars.
The logic is analogous: you don't want to be caught in a situation or a place where you have to use them, but you don't want to be unprepared either, if you have to.
I'm dressed in clothes I have come to label "Delhi-approved" in my closet; and yet, the Delhi boy manages to unnerve me enough to make me look over my shoulder as vigilantly as I looked ahead.
Is this stud-boy going to come crashing into my boobs while I'm looking behind? Is that dude-bro going to suddenly claw my ass as I walk ahead? There's really no way to tell.
The Delhi boy has an inspired repository of unwelcome, unsolicited accidentally-on-purpose touches that can make you feel dirty about those parts of your anatomy you never imagined would require protection from predators.
They've gotten smarter in the last few years, one must give them that. They paid attention when Manu Joseph wrote this scathing commentary on the many absurdities that plague the Delhi boy's pitiful existence and when The Real Madrasan complained in an open letter, not nearly as eloquently.
#NotAllMen wear necklines that could make Pamela Anderson blush. Some of them even manage to resist the urge to peer down your shirt if you happen to trip in their direction.
The Delhi Boy of the waxed chest hair fame is now the Delhi Man, who comes in beards and moustaches of all shapes and sizes, a la Ranveer Singh. They'll say things like "Good evening, sir" to the uncle downstairs while leaving your house, making you pump your fist in the air. "Yes, yes, yes, he's finally a normal-functioning adult," your heart will sing.
He'll mumble a touching story about his dead mother and all the 500 lessons she taught him about respecting women, and despite all the warnings you've been given, you'll feel your heart melting for the Delhi Man. He'll even have read a few books over the years, making conversations with him (at least the initial ones) a surprisingly pleasant undertaking.
When I was younger and dumber, the rules were simpler. The bad boys looked like bad boys and the good guys moved out of Delhi and met wonderful girls from other parts of the country, overcame the girls' reservations about their Delhi origins, fell in love and lived happily ever after. You went to Delhi to become a journalist or something such, not with silly ideas of love floating in your still largely empty head.
But things have changed now, and the waters are all very murky. The bad boys and the good guys all look the same, earn the same, hang out at the same shiny bars in Cyber Hub and Hauz Khas and call themselves sapiosexuals and bibliophiles on Tinder. A veneer of sophistication lines the stoutness of their thoughts, momentarily fooling you. It's a jungle out there, and it's not restricted to "Neoda" and "Gudgaon".
But then one day, out of the blue, the facade comes tumbling down, as is wont to happen. He'll show himself in an unguarded moment. Like when he talks about a "whore" ex to a friend. Or when he uses MC, BC, bho*ad pappu, randi (for a comprehensive list, refer to all the words CBFC has asked the makers of Udta Punjab to mute) etc as punctuation during an easily avoidable bar/road fight, his dead mother's lessons conveniently forgotten.
He could be the son of a cravat-wearing diplomat or the sperm of a Haryanvi landowner who suddenly found himself sitting on a huge mound of cash, thanks to an overnight jump in his land's price, it doesn't matter.
There is something about Delhi that will enable him to reduce you to tits-and-ass for his viewing/touching pleasure, from a living, breathing person. No amount of foreign education can stamp that out of the Delhi man-boy.
Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr once wrote that the more things change, the more they stay the same. That's Delhi's men/boys for you. They don't change.
PS: If you ever find yourself in a car with a Delhi boy, check for guns in the glove box. Just do it.
Editor's Note:
The Editor would like to clarify that two images carried with the piece (later deleted) were screenshots drawn from a Being Indian video (featuring Mr Paras Khurana) and, neither DailyO nor the author bears any malicious intent in using the photos.
We apologise to Mr Khurana for carrying the screenshots without captions indicating they were purely representational, and taken from the video Every Delhi Guy in World that satirises obnoxious habits of Delhi men.