A student of TISS was gang raped by six men…nothing new…nothing sensational…just another regular occurrence down the road…going by the statistics…it might be happening somewhere right now!
And what can I do about it?
Or can ANYONE do anything about it!
She will always be the victim, the rapist is never the one blamed!
She must have done something, she must be wearing a too-much-revealing dress, she might have gestured in a suggestive way, she might have smiled, talked or passed a glance in an inviting manner!
She wanted it…she had it coming to her!
How can wearing a dress, smiling around or maybe even flirting be same as saying 'Come and rape me!'
What kind of a mind functions behind such inferences?!
And if that's not enough, she is now…IMPURE!
That's all that is about her, everyone wants to be the first and the only one and now that it is no longer preserved, she is no longer considered to have anything human left in her.
She is a news, to sensationalize the gossips, to liven up the newspapers!
The more of it, the better.
Nothing would be more exciting than the minutest details of the ordeal(for her).
Her identity would be the icing on the cake.
This mentality is what the Mumbai Mirror cashed upon. Publishing her FIR, giving out every detail about her baring her name, staying just in limits lawfully yet exploiting every moral obligation.
There have been protestations, blogs(this one included), people voicing their fierce disapproval but that's about it!
The harm is done. If the original wound wasn't bad enough, it has now been scratched upon more than once, grossly, thoughtlessly, inhumanly, perhaps never to be healed.
I wonder if in all this hue and cry, she lies somewhere, forgotten.
People are speculating upon limits of freedom of press and their moral duties.
She, as a individual, will stop mattering before long.
Everyone will move on when her life has been brought to a standing halt.
Whom can she turn for comfort, an assurance of her being as pristine as she was before when she has most probably been shunned by her own kith and kin…
It's the press that is being blamed but what led to it?
What kind of upbringing ingrains in the minds that it is supposed to be this way.
That this is the ultimate way out for everything, to give a vent to the frustration of a 'no', a let out for the anger at their being futile, a means of exercising control, something to assure them of their 'virility' to gain back their pride, a punishment to her for talking too much, showing too much, for trying to be a independent human, for being there when they happened to be in a mood for fun!
What was it that made this a universal phenomenon?
Happening in every street, mentioned in every journal, reported on every channel, encompassing in its clutches everyone from a six month child to a eighty years old lady!
And how to undo it?
How to redefine and restructure something that has been handed down since generations!
Something that lives in every mind, perhaps hidden in its deep crevasses, unrecognized, unacknowledged, bursting forth in unguarded moments, as a subtle threat, as the ultimate way of retribution, something to make her regret through her life, something to make her accept her subordinate status, her fragility, something that will stamp that authority on her for ever and prove them the true symbol of manhood! Restore back their pride…
How to initiate the process of sensitizing?
How to make them understand the gravity, the trauma of it when all who don't do it, laugh about it?
And it's not just them, there are them of her kind for whom it’s a matter of mirth…the 'molestation thingy'…because this is all a feministic issue really!
Something they themselves and the ones in their know, the ones for whom they care are somehow excluded!
And what can she do to protect herself?
Or what can anyone do for that matter?
What could the father of that 15 year old do when she was dragged out of the train and raped on gun point by 4 men…
This reminds me of all the travels I have taken alone or with my friends…what can anyone do in the face of it…all of us are living counting on pure luck…that it won't happen to us…
I am afraid, suddenly reluctant to go anywhere, to trust anyone…it is short lived I know, life doesn't and can't stop. I will resort to my reckless self once again, I don't want to miss out more on my life, I can't stop being me and this is not trying to be foolishly brave( a notion frequently voiced…), I can't be a miserably dependant creature…I guess that's what the price they paid for this…yet, I can't see anything that I can, or anyone, can do about it…we all are just moving on…oblivious yet even more aware with every passing moment, of the ubiquitous peril…
I wish I could figure it all out.
I wish I could understand why.
I wish I could tell her she is still herself.
I wish I could kill them all.
I wish I could end this.
I wish I could do something….
