“I said ‘Somebody should do something about that. Then I
realized I am Somebody.” -by Lily Tomlin
And today that Somebody inside me is numb when I
happened upon the headline of a newspaper; which said “Meri bachi ko mere paas
rehne do, usey mujhse dur maat karo”. It was a very unfamiliar
voice that racked with deep anguish against Sexual Violence. Yes The Mother
blurted out at the moment when her daughter’s dead
body was taken for funeral and lost her sense.
Today she is dead. But she existed with
all her life before this brutal incident. So now closing off India, shutting
down the subway roads, protest spilling onto the street asking for death
penalty; can just put the whole nation on boil for a period. But does capital
punishment and fixing the system can ever put an end to RAPE? Does this
nationwide anger can shed the animal inside an individual? And The feminine inside me is afraid to answer as
often these kinds of heat turns up and eventually simmer down with the course
of time. Perhaps these all can just mushroom the sympathy with in us and tap the chord of discontent. But the bottom line is “SHE” was not just a
Rape Victim but a HUMAN BEING. Even the protocol says; Prostitutes are
BROKEN WOMEN though our society has tagged them as Sex Object.
When we talk about India and Indian
Culture, often it’s a fusion of Religion, Beliefs, Customs, Traditions, Values
and the way a common man leads his life. We believe in Vedas / Quran / Bible,
we believe on that Supernatural Power, we take a dip in the holy river Ganga to
wash down our Paap (Sin), we believe in those rituals, don’t we? So now it
bleeds my eyes when I pen down that the same India has maximum number of Rape,
Sexual assault, Molestation.
The word Intercourse belongs to Science,
Sex belongs to General outlook, Making Love belongs to Literature and Fuck
belongs to Slang. Now where should we keep the word Rape and those Rapist? They
never belong to anything. But they exist. So today, every single female’s deepest
fear is not Death but Sexual Violence – RAPE.
The biggest democratic country where we
are on fire for losing a Twenty three year girl; there my conscience asks, ‘is
an Infant of Three year or a senior citizen of Sixty three year safe? How many
more Centuries we Female are going to live in the shadow of Fear? Does our longing
for a better Civilization will ever become true? Keeping these Questions in my mind I am compelled to start 2013…
Few lives last short, while the memories
they hold last FOREVER…
