At a time when toxic masculinity has already reached unimaginable realms, stretching it a bit further a motorist in Hyderabad says he avoids wearing a helmet, despite having one, because he believes that ‘real’ men die without wearing a helmet.
The motorist, identified as Sadu Hari Krishna Reddy, has the ‘slogan’ ‘No Helmet, I die like real men’ inscribed on the rear mudguard of his bike.
The Hyderabad Traffic Police were understandably unimpressed.
Taking note of this wrong perception about who ‘real’ men are and who are not, the traffic police team decided to teach him a lesson by penalising him for not wearing a helmet and shared a funny post with photos of his bike and the e-challan on their Facebook page.
The post reads: “We are extremely sorry Mr. Krishna Reddy sir. We won’t let you die. We will see that you “live like real men”. Please wear helmet and ride.”
Hari Krishna Reddy is a serial traffic violator, having been caught at least seven times for riding without a helmet. He has at least three more violations – of talking on cell phone while riding, parking in wrong area and triple riding, as per the Telangana State Police Integrated E-Challan System.
A total of Rs 2,615 in fines is pending against him.
Disapproving the actions of the motorist, one user wrote, “Looks like this person feels pride in dying on the road. How strange! What’s cool about dying on the road and your body taken to a govt. morgue? I don’t get it.” (sic)
Another user mocked him saying, “Now he will die to pay the challans.” (sic)
Though several condemned the motorist for endangering himself and advocating who ‘real’ men are, several others uploaded photos of policemen riding two-wheelers without a helmet and pointed out what they called double standards of the police.
One motorist, Rocky Singh, a Sikh, lamented that the police had penalised him for not wearing a helmet. He said that he couldn’t use a helmet because he was wearing a turban.
Earlier, a leader from the Majlis Bachao Tehreek, Amjed Ullah Khan, had kickstarted a campaign by crowdsourcing photos and videos of police who were violating rules and shared the same on his social media pages by tagging the authorities. His complaints were registered and fines were imposed on the policemen who were found to be violating the rules.