Daily Times

She is at the butcher’s with her father. The two are there to get their sacrificial Eid meat minced. When it is time to go, the father picks up two plastic bags stuffed with ground meat and climbs onto his motorbike. Surprisingly, he adjusts himself to the rear of the seat and lets the 10 or 12-year-old daughter start it up. It is a rare scene. You usually get to see boys do the driving, especially when it comes to motorbikes. She seems to be a spirited youth and enjoys every bit of it. The old shopkeeper nearby is not impressed: “Today he lets her drive; tomorrow she will be driving all over town by herself!”

One way to read a culture is to observe it manifest itself in routine activities in public places. By listening to what people normally talk about — and conversely what they normally do not talk about — we get snippets of public discourse. The girl’s age and the obvious fact that she could not have possessed a valid driver’s license, did not trouble the elderly vendor. Not being too critical of the gentleman, you could guess he would not have had a problem had a 10 or 12-year-old boy jumped onto his father’s bike because bikes, generally in Pakistan, are for boys. But why is it that we condone underage boys driving recklessly all over town?

It can be argued that the motorbike has become a symbol of attaining manhood in many middle class families. Relatedly, it would make an interesting study to explore how reckless driving has become an avenue for asserting masculinity among teenagers. Riding pillion, single wheeling on busy thoroughfares with deafening exhaust pipes and going fast and loose, all seem to be taken as activities that express masculine bravado. Many motorcyclists replace the factory-fitted accessories on their bikes often with custom made exhaust pipes that are much heavier and louder than the original ones. The nuisance created with these is smothered over by the ‘loud is proud’ motto. It is brokered by society because it is another avenue of self-assertion by young men.

Boys from the middle classes have the motorbikes; those from the well to do have cars. You can always spot them on the roads. While the boys with bikes are dismissive of traffic regulations as they maneuver their way, the boys with cars often bring a ‘we own the road’ attitude to the equation. They will share their choice of music courtesy high bass woofers, poke surrounding traffic, switch lanes, and honk and screech with impunity. Not indicating their intention to turn, they assume you will instinctively know which way they are going to go and clear the road for them in abject submission.

Some of the boys have amusing stickers on their cars. They range from interesting adjectives appended to family names like zidi Khokar (the stubborn Khokar) and Khan Jee to phrases like ‘Danger — keep distance’, to the Batman insignia. All the emblems you get to see on automobiles are invariably male. While rickshaws and trucks occasionally have cutout stickers of a woman’s eyes or hands, these are mostly symbolic of masculine aesthetics of beauty. In other words, if there is a woman’s face on a rickshaw, it is there to amuse the driver. It can be argued that such emblems serve to reinforce masculine ownership of vehicles, traffic, roads and public space in general.

The elderly vendor’s rage at the biker girl can now be understood in context. Teenage motorcycling and road rage are masculine preserves, kind of male coming-of-age rituals. The girl had entered male territory. She had temporarily subverted gender norms. To his mind, the act constituted a breach of patriarchal trust.

So, this is what we read from the little episode. Ours is a culture that seems to facilitate one segment of its population — boys — in gratifying its caprices in whatever ways they deem fit, while denying the same latitude to the other segment. But why fuss over boys and bikes when we have so many other problems you might ask. And you will probably be right. But many of the problems we have stem from the way we treat gender and promote stereotypes. If society is generally tolerant towards misdemeanours involving boys, how does that influence the boys when they become men? Do they think they can get away with bigger things? Maybe it is stretching it too far but can the freedom they enjoy on the roads as teenagers morph into a dangerous sense of immunity from the law when they grow up? Could this be taken as one possible cause for acts of violence, especially those committed against women?

There is more to read in boys and bikes than meets the eye.

The writer is a lecturer in English at the Government College University, Lahore