Ever since the girl was barbarously raped and thrown out of a moving bus by her inhuman perpetrators on the ominous night of December 16, I have been thinking of ways to vent my anger and get my voice across to the (deaf and) silent spectator - the Indian government.
Before I sat down to write this piece, I wondered how hypocritical our society has become. There are women who are revered as Goddesses every morning in our homes and temples and then there are women who are used and thrown away on the roads at night by men overcome by their bestial thoughts. We are the ones who blame the West for their culture but surprise, surprise – Indians are the ones who beat up the women, rape them, disrespect them, kill them in the womb and give them unequal rights and opportunities!
After living in this country all these years, I realized one thing – it is a sin to be born as a woman in India, unless, of course, you are born with a silver spoon in your mouth or in a politically well-connected household. That way you can drive around safely in the city and stay far from being molested and out of the radar of potential rapists. And let me add this too – that it is worse for a woman if she fares well in the good-looks’ department because alas, who knows, when those killer looks may send the male beasts’ monstrous desires into an overdrive.
When it comes to punishing the guilty, I am sick and tired of the lame excuses given by the government and the administration who shrug their share of responsibility. On the other hand the rapists often get away with the crime because of many factors, one of them being the lack of enough evidence in court. Sometimes the perpetrators accuse ‘chowmein’ for their unchecked sexual craving and sometimes it is the girl who is responsible for ‘seducing’ them by wearing short skirts/jeans during her ‘adventurous’ night out. But the ‘holy’ accused was at fault. Mind you, never! Many-a-times I have walked on the road alone in broad daylight and that too fully clad, read: no western clothes at all, but there has not been a day that I have NOT dealt with the gluttonous eye of dirty men out on the roads. I can’t count the number of times I have felt like gunning down all those men who take immense pleasure in caressing their hands over a woman’s breast or her derrière.
But all these woes of womankind have fallen on the deaf ears of the government. Perhaps for them FDI is far more important than nullifying the archaic laws written in the constitution. It is a task which I guess has not even made it to their to-do list. No wonder why they call this time Kalyug or the Dark Age.
But I must say that it is a pleasant surprise for me when these days I see men taking to the streets in hordes demanding justice for the fairer sex. And I see hope when I listen to the men I know discussing and planning their course of action to change the current state of affairs. But as the saying goes, charity begins at home; likewise, the change that we are yearning for decades, must also begin at the ground level. Men need to give women what they well deserve – respect – in every sense of the word. And women must drill this into their heads that neither would they tolerate injustice nor in any uncertain terms would they allow their male offspring to grow up with any trait of being a potential molester/woman beater/rapist/etcetera. Parents need to learn and teach their sons that women are independent beings made by God and not objects of lascivious desires of the male human species who can be picked off the streets anytime.
And last but not the least, India is in dire need of responsible LEADERS as we are done with the shameless political parties that are only concerned with looting the citizens’ wealth. So in the next elections let us take a pledge – to exercise our votes very carefully.
The last couple of difficult days that the country witnessed will always be remembered for only one thing - that a girl had to get killed mercilessly before we could see the tour de force in India like never before. Fingers crossed, this revolution is here is stay till we see a change, because rape is the worst crime in the books of humanity. Period.