It’s that fun time of the year again, which every diversity and inclusion consultant calls ‘Diwali Bonus’. Brand agencies will go purple in the face screaming to sell you every possible combination of pink and unrelated products. There will be the usual platitudes of ‘Equity vs Equality’ with that same tired image of people trying to watch a match from across a fence. Eventually, it is the one who identifies as oppressed who is elevated over everyone else, or as Indian children would call it — living in a joint family. Meanwhile my Bengali maids just informed me that Holi and Women’s Day falling on the same day is cultural appropriation of their right to communism and therefore they will take another day off on the 9th to smash the patriarchy.
As I swiped through Bumble bios that read, ‘This women’s day, let us all urge to break the bias’, I replied to one asking if alimony is finally being done away with. I have been soft banned from the platform for questioning ‘she who must not be named unless you know his/her pronouns’. On that note, Hershey’s campaign for Women’s Day with a trans woman as a brand ambassador has landed wonderfully, with women suddenly waking up to the reality that now they may have to gift men chocolates Valentine’s Day as long as they identify as trans. Because in the manufactured victimhood of PhDs from Buzzfeed and Tiktok university, trans is presently the most important oppressed category over underage lithium miners and Rakhi Sawant.
Now, Men’s Day is also celebrated but I am never able to recall the date. Mainly because most Men’s Day campaigns are designed by agencies to tell men how hard it is to be a man by virtue of being a sub-human species. And also ‘teaches’ men that all their problems are because they are not emotionally available to women. So I made myself emotionally available to my maids by sharing a photo of my hostel room, and what would happen if they took one more day off.
This year, of course, Holi and Women’s Day are on the same day, so you can re-use the pink gulal both offline as well as online to show your support for both. Just avoid tweeting about Women’s Day and a Holi fire burning in the same image. There will be many webinars and LinkedIn posts appreciating women posted by women and by men who identify as men that women want. Posts from HR would typically be along the lines of ‘We've killed all the male employees, fired anyone who does not use pronouns and filled the coffers of every D&I consultant identifying as one. But we are still a long way from achieving true equality for women in the workplace’. That’s one of the reasons I got out of corporate life, so I should be safe till they decide to start killing male comedians.
On that equitable note, I wish all my readers Happy International Trending Topics Day. Please do like, share and comment if you enjoyed this article. But if you are a woman, you can feel free to DM me as well.
The author is a Marwari investment banker turned corporate comedian. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the website.
