As I reflect, it strikes me that to tell a man what it takes to be a man comes across as somewhat of a contradiction, yet if this commentary serves as a reality check for all those who pin physique as the prime determining factor for manhood, it would have hit bull’s eye...
Another feature of our modern world is that it is fraught with temptation. At every step of the way, men especially, face snares that one by one, take them further and further from the epitome of goodness, saintliness.

What’s that you say? Sainthood is a strict no-no?

If that be so, then it is both fitting and sufficient for men to aim at a practical, even if limited morality that is based on man and is for man. Men must take recourse to what they are known to do best – fight adversity. Yes, that’s right, apply their innate ability to fight evil, not to reveal an inner insecurity and thus fight to preserve male supremacy!

It may sound ironical, but the two are intertwined, by recognizing and fighting evil, men prove that they are a worthy contributor to society, not supreme, but partakers of.

Evil in whatever form, disguised or undisguised. Remember the movie Monsoon Wedding? The pivotal father-uncle character played by Naseeruddin Shah had to fight the evil in the form of a perverted elderly male relative who preyed on select young ones in the family.

The obstacles were first ignorance, as he realized the truth, what was transpiring only when the next generation was growing up, and then his own struggle to speak out and side with the innocent, to put the fight against evil above everything else, in his case being maintaining family relations.
I say it takes a man sufficiently comfortable with and secure in his manhood to adopt the right attitude. Asides the few saints in our world who we assume are above it all, our society is marked by offenders and the offended. For the sake of literary example, let me recall Albert Camus’ postulate from The Plague , “I can only say that there are on this earth pestilences and victims, and I must, as much as is possible, refuse to be on the side of the pestilence.”

At a human level, Camus called for men to identify themselves as victims rather than victimizers. In this acceptance of being a victim (say of social conditions), a true man will fight the evil he recognizes in his daily life. He will preoccupy himself with helping to further rather than being a hindrance to progressive society. In this process, he reveals his arts of manliness.

Mere man is not less rather it is what we need, in all its glory and awareness. To feign ignorance – knowingly or unknowingly – to turn a blind eye to or to see wrong-doing without so much as a whimper, is against all that manhood stands for.
Constant vigilance of what man stands for, man-kind, and subsequently choosing his actions based on this consciousness, is what makes a man stand out from the fools who think they are judges or saints or worse, gods.

Granted there is no singular code describing manhood, yet you can come close to a human perfection by knowing what you are expected to do and being attentive to it.

Charu Bahri is a freelance writer from India (Punjabi, but residing since 8 years in the west Indian state of Rajasthan). Her early childhood was spent overseas, Hong Kong, Italy, Chile and UK. Qualified as a cost accountant and software developer, Charu now works part-time for a not-for-profit hospital - writing and designing the hospital promotional literature and regular newsletters (English), writing website content ( www.ghrc-abu.com ), writing up fund-raising proposals for the hospitals’ community projects and looking after the hospitals’ MIS (software) requirements.
Since 2004 and the magazine’s launch, she writes a column (regular) and occasional feature articles for the quarterly health magazine HealthWorlds Magazine, the official publication of the HealthWorlds Asia Congress, a publication and event promoted by the Swiss JanKossen Group.

*Albert Camus, La Peste, Gallimard, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1947, p. 7 (translated by J. Johnson)