will anybody give me one reason why International Women’s Day is celebrated? to me, it seems like its the day when women themselves have given the world the license to be hypocrites for a day.

why else would someone say that “its the day women get to treat men like they treat women the rest of the year.” now that’s the STUPIDEST thing i’ve ever heard!!

i wonder how microland celebrated women’s day this time. last year when i was in bangalore, they sent out “sexy” e-invites that said it was mandatory for every she-gender there to attend.

on d-day, the venue was a the canteen which was transformed to look like a kottha…white mattresses and red rose petals strewn all over them. the indya.com guys (who arranged the event) were dressed in asingle robe, like romans, and they had laurels over their head. as every unassuming girl entered the room, rose water was sprinkled on them. perhaps the ambience was meant to soothe, but it only made me more suspicious every moment. drinks were served, and of course, cigarettes too. most of them (the girls) were regular drinkers…but not that i had a problem with that. i’m not a hypocrite, and i’ve had my share of a “drag” in my time. it was what followed after the drinks that i objected to…the men.

and the by-now-high-women who followed them on the “dance floor.” one of them poured beer all over a guy and licked him clean, the other guys started unveiling what lay beneath their “exotic” single-robe roman attire. thoroughly scandalised by now, i wanted to leave, but the guy at the door wouldnt let me…the girls were screaming inside, some out of sheer ecstacy, some desparate, some drunk, and thankfully, a few who were really as horrified as me.

as i was led back into the room, i sensed that things were getting back to normal “fun”. a few kids were called in to sing and dance. or at least that was what i thought, until…

the next thing i knew, i’d pushed the guy-at-the-door out of my way and storming back to office, white with anger and shock at what i was going to be witness to…a strip show. is this the new dotcom culture that i had been hearing about? was this where venture fundists were pouring in all their money? for goodness sake, college kids stripping in office?? how much had they been paid?? my head reeled with questions, but i was unable to open my mouth. my friend eby thought i was going to have a nervous breakdown and left all his work to take me back to the guest house. nitin and nupur, who also lived in the guest house, drove in soon later, eby apparently had told them something was wrong and did not know what to do.

women’s day indeed. i guess no one noticed that there were other women in the building too. and these women were climbing the four storeys with bricks over their head, two of them had children in their arms… oh yeah, but they were not women, they were labourers, right?

today at zdnet india, women’s day is celebrated again. but in a different way. though i still don’t know who came up with a day for women, i’m thankful we are not a pampered bunch of dotcommers here.

what you give, comes back to you. and if you don’t respect what you get, you did not deserve it at all in the first place. perhaps that is what the dotcom wave was here to teach us. those who were thoroughly pampered at first, are soon beaten in the end.

and itspace was just one of them.