Day 3: Rest in Peace, Chivalry.

It was a chilly night and the locals were cozying up in their homes. Outside the castle, there was an old woman looking up at the gates, trembling with cold. She was waiting for someone to open the door of kindness and let her stay under their roof. She came to the king only to beg for a rugged shawl to save her from the winter that could take her life.

From far away, she could hear the footsteps of a soldier. He was the knight in shining armor who walked towards the lady and gave her a warm quilt to comfort her. That's where chivalry came from, it was a trait of the knights. The valor and bravery that was possessed by the entire army. Today, we limit chivalry to pulling the chair or opening the door.

When I happened to ask some of my friends what chivalry meant to them, the majority responded with this answer. But can we limit courtesy and chivalry merely to these actions? Chivalry was inculcated in men, as to show that women are special and need to be treated that way. But with the changing culture and the society trying to portray women as equals, people tend to consider it sexist.

A man would open the door for his girlfriend or wife but will he continue to do that for the fellow strangers behind him while he's coming out of a store? A beautiful woman might attract the attention of people while she meets with an accident but will a middle-aged woman be treated the same way at the same place? Why do we associate chivalry with men, that too a romantic connotation?

A gentleman needs to protect a woman, treat her with care instead of taking advantage of her. It could be to help her with her bags, courting her or to protect her from the evils of the society. With the constant increase in rapes and violence against women, we can see chivalry die ahead of us. The overpowering men could easily take our advantage and that's where, we fear men when they try to act courteous. We don't wish to feel weak compared to men and that's why, we try to protect ourselves from those pleasing acts.

If a drunk woman is going home, a gentleman would drop her safely instead of taking advantage of her body. With the advertisements like 'Boys don't cry to Boys don't make someone cry', we can see the blurred image of how our society has tarnished the act of chivalry. The ugly cinema has portrayed that women fall for a guy who acts cheesy and creeps her out. Eve teasing, cheesy one-liners and objectifying women was never a turn on.

The fault lies in the upbringing, in the books he didn't read or the women he didn't respect. The fault lies in the parents who made him hide his emotions and that overpowering masculinity turned him to an outrageous beast. The fault lies in the friends who turned him from a decent guy to a creepy hooligan. We can't see the society going back from civilized to barbaric times.

We would just want to go back to the era of Titanic, where men were ready to sacrifice their lives so that women and children could be saved. We would want to go back to the times where we would again feel safe to go to a place in a cab than constantly fearing the man driving. We would only ask for the men to go back and learn the traits of a knight in the shining armor so that we could stay as equals, without the fear of being crushed by our own counterparts.

P.S: Chivalry does exist. So do gentlemen.