Saturday, December 29, 2012

BRAVEHEART.....


REST IN PEACE BRAVE ONE!!





Be it VASUDHARINI or UDD, most of my posts in the past have been about Streeshakti, about these strong- resilient women. And today it is about AMAANAT, a braveheart who paid a HUGE price for being a woman, in fact an Indian woman!!

It's Sunday 4 a.m, I wake up with a shiver running down my spine. I experience a weird sense of gloom. I am still thinking about the Delhi rape case and about Amaanat who breathed her last yesterday. It was Sundari's 3rd birthday yesterday and as I was getting ready for the celebrations for my little girl, I hear about Amaanats death in Singapore. My heart sinks right there and for the very first time I regretted being a woman, a helpless one who has to fear for her own safety in her own country and fight for her rights at every step of her life.

As per the statistics more than 250,00 women gets raped annually in this world, but this particular case has disturbed me immensely and I simply can't get her out of my mind. The degree of non sensitivity, inhumanity and the brutality involved in this particular heinous act just leaves me with this one question - How could they do this to a woman, just how could they??

I have fond memories of my trip to Bombay last year where I travelled all alone, enjoying the mansoons, the local food and the transportation without any fear. I travelled in trains, local taxis and rickshaws from KalaGhoda to Juhu Tara at 9 in the night without having to worry about my safety even once. It felt good to be free and be myself  in my land but henceforth my trips to India will never be the same. I will have to reluctantly use chaperoning services as I have started to fear my own countrymen after this brutal incident. What a shame!! 


Sorry for sounding pessimistic but the fact is that things in India hasn't changed much in the past and it will not change in the future too, unless we dig the roots. Indian government did it's bit of drama by flying Amaanat to Singapore in-spite of knowing that her health was deteriorating, women protesters were labelled as "painted and dented" by Abhijit Mukherjee,  the speaker of Rajya Sabha didn't have time for Jaya Bachchan's plea & tears, a few other politicians blamed Amaanat for boarding the wrong- tinted bus, the sports fanatics worried about Sachin's retirement, the film buffs about Dabangg 2 crossing 100 crores and the truth is  in the end nobody really cared, such is the sad state of my country!!

I personally feel that brutality of this degree should be answered by brutality of the same degree, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Stone them to death, so that one wouldn't even dare to do something like this in the future and I hope a fair, fitting and a swift punishment is served to the culprits. Her fight should not go in vain.

I only wished that Amaanat was alive to throw that FIRST stone at those bastards.

Have a SAFE new year that's full of hope!

9 comments:

  1. It's time we teach self defense to our daughters no matter how young they are.....

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  2. So many deeply disturbing issues plague our country today! Discussion and protests are rife when the accident/event has just occurred, but all of us forget too easily! It's time we all see things through, I hope all this voicing out and dharnas are not in vain, I really wish the educated and the civilized see this through, bring justice to all those who have been wronged, hope her death doesn't end or erase what they've started!

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  3. I read this .. wanted to share..

    The young woman who died just wanted to live. She wanted to go home after seeing The Life of Pi.

    In that film, one learns that there can be two versions of one story. And it is up to us to choose the better one. It is not necessarily the one with the happier ending. It does not have to be the truer one. But we choose it because it is the one that allows us to go on.

    What we learnt-
    We learned that it is possible to shake a country out of its apathy. The tragedy was that it took an assault as gut-wrenchingly brutal as this one. We found out that young people do care, that compassion has not just been outsourced to NGOs. Let’s not question why this jolted us more than other rapes now. Let’s be thankful we are capable of being jolted.

    RIP --!

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  4. More than anything I feel ashamed that we call ourselves a democracy. Are we really one? Because clearly the citizens have no say. We should not be ashamed of being women, we should be ashamed of the government we voted to power, we should be ashamed that we call ourselves the world's largest democracy!

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  5. Well written.
    This incident has made a huge impact on me. As a mother of two girls, I have always taught them that being born a girl is a privilege and they should be proud. Here in Norway, in Scandinavia where I grew up (some of my years), I have experienced total safety even at 2 or 3 in the night, walking alone. I took it for granted. When I went to India during my teenage years, I remember my Uncle and cousins telling me to stay indoors after 8 pm. This was in Delhi,in the mid 80's. I rebelled and went shopping until way past the "curfew" set my Uncle.

    Then, no auto, no taxi would take me home and I was stranded in the busy streets. It was here, I met a man, who scolded me for being out so late. He stopped an auto(it stopped the moment the driver saw it was a man), gave instructions, directions and bargained with the driver, took his license plate number, gave him a warning that if anything happens to me, he will call the police, gave me his card and told me to call him as soon as I reached home. And additionally he told me not to say a word, it was clear that I couldn't speak Hindi.... There are good people in India, in our land. I just wish they spoke out more....

    As a woman, I don't want protection, I want freedom, to walk the streets as freely as any man, to wear what I am comfortable with just as any man, to have equality - simple human rights. Is that too much to ask?

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