Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Mumbai – all of India. Sometimes it’s a seven-year-old, or a 17-year-old, 27-year-old, or heck, even a 71-year-old. Almost on a daily basis we read news about someone, somewhere having been raped.
Our reaction? Turn over a new leaflet because who has the time and sympathy? Some are busy with their parties, others with some other form of engagement. Why do we read history? To avoid making the same mistakes that our ancestors did? Why do we read newspapers? To continue reading similar news everyday? Is rape the trending national genre now? Or do we read a newspaper to avoid going on the same number bus on which a brave soul’s modesty was brutally outraged?
Does your mom tell you that your room is dirty so that you can keep on piling more of your old stinking clothes? Or is it because she wants you to clean up the room? How many of us read such terrifying news every day and go about doing the same thing? How long should we continue as mindless slaves of our routine lives? Going to work, meeting with friends, discussing such incidents and the next day, laughing over some sexist jokes or rating our female colleagues, passing questionable looks at them.
How long should we continue to hate the idea of hypocrisy and yet continue being a hypocrite? It is really curious how our blood boils at hearing something questionable about our own mother, sister or daughter and yet, on the other hand, we are cool with using words like ‘motherfucker’.
Folks, it really is high time we rise up to face this menace of rape, molestation and harassment.