Random thoughts,musings and microfiction.

Yet another story about rape but we go on about our jobs without batting an eyelid. Yes. Rapes have become so common place today that what had once always been notorious enough to make it to the front pages is now spread all over the newspaper- national, international, regional; even sports and entertainment pages.

Rape is not a novelty in our nation- we have been defeated in the resistance against many foreign invasions and it was a common practice to use sexual violence to humiliate the enemy.

But it is sad, in fact pathetic, when we claim to live in a democratic country and our women would rather not step out after nightfall for the fear of getting raped. More disturbingly, we live in a society which raises eyebrows at  premarital sex but plays dumb to marital rape. And our authorities seem to be more concerned about protecting the gomata than their own mothers and sisters, about protecting a fictional queen when women are raped and burnt alive on the streets.

“Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.”                                                                                   ~Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Many of our leaders have publicly said things like “Sugar attracts ants. Ants don’t need an invitation to feast upon sugar, do they?” and “Boys make mistakes. Why can’t we excuse them?” - is it just me or does everybody see the logic fail in these statements? And the rape culture does no better- it blames the victim for tainting the honour of the family and even goes on to state that rape is consensual.               Consensual rape: that must be the most fantastic oxymoron of all time

How long are we simply going to go on ranting about rape? Are measures even being taken?                                                                     We can hang our heads in shame realising the fact that it was we who vested the leaders with power to rule the country. But we better run for our lives if we are still not educating at least the generations in line about rape.

Above everything else, we need platforms to talk openly about rape - to see that people don’t get incredulous ideas like rape can be consensual. It needs to be made clear that rape is a heinous crime- that there is no such thing as a consensual rape, that her skirt is never too short, her jeans never too tight and that she is never asking for it in the first place- nobody ‘deserves’ to be raped.

It is paramount that both our young boys and girls know that a word called consent exists and that both have the sole right to their own bodies and their own bodies only. For a generation that grew up learning how women got voting rights, we would be happy if at least the next generation could read about how women fought to assert that a word called consent had a place in the dictionary. It should be made clear that marriage is not a license to force themselves upon their wives- men’s liberty to swing their penises ends where our vagina begins.

Before talking about rape, children should first be given proper sex education ( Elementary, my dear Watson) preferably in the presence of the opposite gender lest that they don’t grow up having insatiable curiosity about bodies.

At least places like women’s compartment on the trains needs to be safe. We can do away with all the existing laws and make new ones where rapists are not spared. Again- this may not undo a rape already committed but can serve as a nightmare to those who even think of perpetrating such a terrible act.

So the next time we look around us and ask “Why do many rapes happen?”, remember that the answer is staring at us in the face.

Standing on tiptoes, she was peering through the iron grills of the gate. With tousled hair and sporting dirty fingernails that asserted their presence up to a good amount of centimeters above the cuticle, she had been standing there for God knows how many seconds.

I was sitting cross-legged on the swing in the front yard and nonchalantly texting ‘Same to you’ in reply to the messages that had flooded my inbox, when a feeling that I was being watched tugged at my senses. And true to it, there she was- my silent observer- clad in a faded green frock that fell down to her knees, gazing intently at me. I returned the gaze. As our eyes met, her plain features suddenly lit up and arranged themselves into a sunny,toothy smile reminding me of Sree. She must be a couple of years younger than Sree, I thought. Sree, my sister, who was standing on the threshold of her teenage and a good ten years younger than me.

Just then a young woman trudged up behind her and put a frail hand on the girl’s shoulder. The girl wiped the smile off her face and looked up at the woman, who in turn looked expectantly at me. That was when I recognized the situation at hand. Smiling weakly at the little girl, I turned back to go inside and fetch a ten rupee note only to run into my grandmother halfway at the door, with my mother at her heels. They looked at the company at the gate with disapproval and while my grandmother tsk-tsked,my mother started rummaging in her purse for what I correctly guessed was a two rupee coin.

“Why don’t you give them a ten rupee note?”, I asked her quietly. It was as if I could still see the little girl even though my back was now turned on them.

“Ha! Look who is talking! Isn’t it the breadwinner of our family?”, pat came my mother’s taunt.

As I opened my mouth to retort, she said,”No. Shut up and get your butt in the car. We have to rush now or the temple will close before we reach there.”

I mutely made my way to the car, not able to muster enough courage to turn back and look at the duo at the gate.

                                                **************

We were just in time for the closing puja.

I was glad that  I had to spend only ten minutes or so inside the temple. I had lost interest in both religion and religious practices alike since I began college and never felt it less amusing to be squashed between grimy semi-naked male bodies that reeked of sweat.

The sun was at it’s zenith and was glowering down at us ferociously. Gravity was daring the moist beads of sweat that clung on to my forehead to flow down.

“Here, put this in the donation box.”, my mother ordered me , thrusting a ten rupee note into my hand.

I noticed the ease with which she parted with ten rupees now and couldn’t help glaring at her for a few seconds before I walked hotly up to the steel box labeled ‘Hundial’.I was struck by the sheer irony of the situation- thirty minutes ago, two people show up at our doorsteps whom she gruffly dismissed off with just two rupees and now, here she was, ready to donate her precious ten rupees to the opulent temple authorities.

I silently murmured a prayer for the little girl as I dropped that ten rupee note in the hundial.

On the way back home, there were a lot of questions I would have liked to ask my mother; a lot of things I could have told her then.

But I didn’t .

I seek myself In the window panes In the blank mobile screens In the lotus pond In the mirror

For I seem to have lost myself Somewhere along the way So I looked back And found my loved ones At each meander

Retreating back to them I looked into their eyes To find myself in them

I then realized that In helping them find themselves I had lost pieces of myself in them Which will forever remain irretrievable

All this while I sought to seek myself But now I realize That losing myself in others is better

People people everywhere. But not does one think.

If you ask me, I’ll tell you there are only three types of people.

Some are all about finding light. These light seekers…They travel through long tunnels blindly believing in the popular opinion that there is light at the end of the tunnel. If they can’t find a tunnel, they create one. Sometimes I wonder what they are really searching for- the light or the tunnel. Life, for them is all sunshine and puppies. They are the annoyingly jovial,compulsively verbalizing ones you often meet at a party or in a crowded elevator.Those for whom even crass cacophony is music.

And then there are others who are symbolisms of Earth in themselves. They have equal days and nights- they sit through light all day to get into darkness and when darkness falls, they silently wait for the Sun to rise again. Life is a vicious cycle for them. The monotonousness in their entire life can be best described by one colour- grey- but ironically they can only see in black or white, there is no middle ground for them. They are the ones whom you meet on local trains, who go about their 10-to-5 jobs, carrying around their smoothly inscrutable faces.

The husband was to protect the family. The mother was to nurture the household. The lover was to love unconditionally. The…..

Why are we (still?) so obsessed with defining relationships?

Everyone in our life HAS to be labeled as a parent, aunt, sibling, colleague, friend, lover..or even enemy in some melodramatic cases.

In the family it brings about a sense of duty and responsibility. Often, this responsibility weighs down an individual that he/she simply acts out of duty and has convinced oneself that this is normal.

Outside home this is more loud and clear where we always want to define people as a friend, a lover, a sibling-like figure, a colleague etc.

Apparently it is these same definitions,which we create to deflect any confusion is what ends up creating most of the confusions. One gets identity crises about oneself as well as about others. We catch ourselves wondering what we mean to that friend who is over caring to you. We get confused when we feel ‘more-than-friendly’ feelings to a friend. We are offended if sibling-like-figures(to us) confess their love for us.

Why? Why do we have to tag and label everyone like they are things? Why can’t we simply see them as humans whom we love to varying degrees?

Shakespeare once said “Expectation is the root of all heartache”