A letter to Nirbhaya

Nirbhaya,

You may not be aware of who I am. But I, just like the rest of my fellow Indians, know who you are, and what you have stood for.

As I pen down these words, and stare onto the laptop screen intermittently, the December 16 episode flashes in my mind. I have only read about it, and heard about it. And that alone is pretty much sufficient to conceive within my mind, the vicious thoughts of the phases of torture, agony and unimaginable trauma you had undergone on that nightmarish night.

Post that incident, the nation erupted with rage. The common man's heart shredded with empathy and a seemingly unquenchable thirst for justice. But today, the nine-month quest for justice has finally ended. The beasts have been sentenced to death. I heart-fully wish there were a punishment beyond death; as for those barbaric monsters, and the extent of pain and humiliation they had caused to you and the entire strata of womenfolk, even death would be a compromise in justice. But unfortunately, we don't have anything beyond it.

Your demise has not gone in vain. It has brought the hidden and buried concern for women's safety into the nation's front-yard. People actually began to understand the reality; the harsh reality that women in India today are seen through the spectacles of cheap entertainment and disrespect. Your last breath shook the nation and our constitution; new laws came into place, and people started comprehending that 'Rape' is not an easy word. We have understood the enormity of shame and disgrace the heinous act holds, and we also have realised that giving women the respect they deserve is a duty, which has dignity in itself.

But, there are thousands of other women who are awaiting justice. Some have been waiting for it all their lives, unsure of getting it; while there are others, who are hopeful for it. And you have given them that hope. A hope for justice, which, very sadly, seemed to be dying in this country.

The government has just announced death to the four rapists. But how long will it take for those four to be hanged? How long will it take to get justice done to the rest of the victims? Will the government dust its hands off now? Will the people forget about the other victims of viciousness? Will the common man now lay back and rest assured that the 'woman of India' will be safe from now on? Just for you alone, it took a 'fast-track' judicial system nine months to arrive on the doorsteps of justice. What about the innumerable other innocent women, whose spirit of life had been put off by the rough winds of sexual terrorism? When will they get a taste of it? Was this act of justice justifiable enough to invoke fear in the minds of wannabe rapists? Has the day arrived when the common 'woman' of this country will be able to tread the roads of this land fearlessly, and with freedom? Has the Mahatma's symbolic comparison of real freedom with a woman's intrepid walk on a lonely night finally come true? Will guilt pounce upon the juvenile rapist and make him take his own life? Our government failed to give you complete justice; so will time take the responsibility?

I put these questions, not to you, but to myself. You don't have to answer anymore, for you have already given an answer to the flickering flame of womanhood.

Justice to you is done; but justice to womankind still awaits.

Yours Empathetically
A hopeful Indian

The Disaster that brought Greed

When a monstrous amalgamation of tsunami and earthquake struck Japan in March 2011, there were speculations if the island country would be erased from the world map. Such was the magnitude of the devastation.

Tens and thousands of people were reported dead, injured and missing. An unthinkable amount of buildings collapsed, breaking the infrastructural impulse of the country. Roads got destroyed, railway lines got uprooted and fires got spread at frightening scales. Millions of households were rendered without electricity and water. It was nationally and officially stated that the disaster was the most catastrophic since World War II.

Well, let me now arrive at something; something that reflects the attitude of the nation and its people on the face of adversity.

There was dignity that the people held despite losing everything. Proper queues were maintained for water and groceries. And there was not a single exchange of a rough word or gesture. People had grace. They only purchased what they wanted at present, so that everybody could get something. Despite such times of turmoil, they did not allow greed to invade their minds. People chose to be orderly. No looting in shops; no honking or overtaking on roads. It was understanding alone that drove people.

Not just the victims, but even the other side of the populace displayed benevolence and tenderness. Restaurants cut prices and unguarded ATMs were left alone. It was the time when the strong felt responsible and cared for the weak.

Coming to June 2013, where the state of Uttarakhand is being shattered and getting detrimental with the mammoth amount of floods, I would like to draw a stark comparison between the post-disaster scenario of Japan and India.

The Uttarakhand flood, though not as ruining as the Japanese tsunami, still has colossal destruction to its credit. Several people are dead, and thousands have gone missing. Structures, irrespective of their age and strength, had surrendered to crumples to the force of water. The lurking disaster had been yanking the strings of peoples' minds, and is continuing to do so. People who were gone, are gone. And people who had fortunately escaped alive, seem to detest the fact that they are alive, for the businessmen and shopkeepers around seem to take the best advantage of the disadvantaged.

Biscuit packets and water bottles, which don't cost more than twenty bucks anywhere in the country, suddenly had started costing ten times more. If one wanted a full meal for a family of four, he would have to give away with a minimum of five-thousand rupees. And those who cannot afford the luxury of lodges or boarding points, have nothing left but to sleep on dead-bodies.

How disheartening, cruel and inhumane.

What has this disaster brought us? Awareness? Awakening? Or the very bitter fact that we Indians are just beings of corrupt flesh and greedy blood enclosing a heart as hard as stone and as cold as ice?

From 'Mother' India to 'Murdered' India?

I am scared. I am pained. I am angered.

Why am I writing this article? Why can't I just ignore what is happening across the country and mind my own business? Women are being molested, harassed, raped and gang-raped in some corner of the country everyday; some such instances become news bulletins, and some get buried unnoticed. Why can't I just feel 'It is okay' like most of our leaders and a majority of our population, and focus only on my life? I can't. I just can't be that way, and that is one reason I feel I am eligible enough to talk. It is not okay for me when a woman was gang-raped in a moving bus on that nightmarish night; it is not okay for me when a school girl was raped multiple times in an auto; it is not okay for me when young girls are forcefully sold to brothels where they undergo systematic rape and torture everyday; it is not okay for me when little girls are raped in the toilets of their schools, it is not okay when a foreign lady had to jump out of her hotel balcony to escape rape, neither it is okay for me when toddlers are ravished even before they are beginning to grow up; and it is NOT okay for me when the victims mentioned above, and also thousands and thousands of others are still awaiting justice from the so called government of ours'.

Is the idea of freedom being wrongly interpreted? There are a number of freedoms listed in our constitution. Are our leaders trying to include even the 'freedom to rape' and continue to stay blind, deaf and dumb to the ongoing sexual terrorism in our country? A girl inside the mother's womb undergoes the idea of getting killed. And if the female child escapes this act of female foeticide, then there is the monstrous fear of rape waiting to pounce upon her once she is out of the womb. What type of government are we letting to rule us, which doesn't have the heart and sense to protect the country's female beings? And what type of citizens are we in the first place, for whom India losing a cricket match or a famous star's movie flopping are much more painful than an ordinary girl brutally and inhumanely getting ravaged in the hands of sex-crazy devils?

Each day, I am scared to read the news if there would be another agonizing report of a girl being raped. It is pathetic that we are in a situation where women are bound to live in constant fear, and it is scary to imagine if their would come a day when a girl returning home un-raped would become a news. It is extremely disturbing to see the daughters of this country drowning in pools of blood, and it brings tears to my eyes when I realize that several such daughters are still waiting for justice from a government which has forgotten the very meaning of it. I want justice to be done to them. By saying 'justice', I don't mean justice that comes after ten or fifteen years, but justice that is instant. Justice that is real and meaningful.  I want those bastard rapists to be hanged as brutally and mercilessly as they had invaded the freedom of innocent women.

Who am I? I am not a human rights activist. I am not a big man with a bunch of influential people within my hold. I am not a powerful person with stacks of money under my nose. I am not the President, nor the Prime Minister. I am neither a bureaucrat nor a politician. I am not even someone who has the capacity to earn a living. Then, what gives me the very right to write and wrong the spite? Well, I am after all a 19 year old erupting with rage and pain, and I guess that is more than sufficient to think of doing something.

 Will a day arrive when we would have to face the misfortune of reading about women only in books as 'extinct' species; when our country would be considered by the world as the rapist hub; when India would be seen as a nation sans women; when the entire world which once addressed our country as 'Mother India', would start addressing as 'Murdered India'?

I am scared. I am pained. I am angered.