SHAME ON YOU WOMAN.

Story: Anjita Roychaudhury

15th March 2015

How do you plan to save a child from her father, how to save a woman from a passerby, how to save a female passenger from a bus conductor, how to save a single woman from her own date, how do you caution the little girl on the evils of talking to the veggie vendor, how to tell a child that the school cleaner could be her rapist? when does she feel happy smiling at a boy and not squirming after? how does one end sickness of this magnitude? what sexual imagery of the woman do we snuff out? In her stereotype TV commercial underwear? in her 13 month old infant diapers? or in her silk sari? most likely the one in her shorts!

So which one does the man spare, when he isn't hunting? what image is he looking to molest? Maybe we ought to start by teaching these tiny unaware unsuspecting babies to stop breathing? Because we are a hunted lot now. We are hunted for being.

We are a sick people and the sooner we stood up and did what Suzette was able to, to take pride in being the victim of a sexual horror, and not just be a statistic, then maybe, just maybe we have the one chance of killing this mindless beast, once & for all. Because perversion has no end, it mutates to a deeper darker version of its own self. And our system breeds it. endlessly. with or without the BBC word of caution.

We need to monitor our children, very closely, our boys even closer still, because the massive percentage of this rotten Indian males (i will not be apologising to any of my many men friends, because like us, its your gender, you end up taking a collective fall for it, like we do for ours, we get raped for being women, so you get to share the blame with the wondermen on unending sexprowls) is not going to have a change of heart and he wont understand this trauma or pain or death. He simply won't. But he can be taught. trained to feel pain and trauma & fear death.

This wont happen without a massive surge, an precedented cleansing, a violent pent up rage from nearly 50% of this country's population that just doesn't react much to brutality of this order. It is our fault...let's face it. We let this happen to us. We are weak enough to let this pass, year on year, election after election, we are not even on any serious manifesto, we exist without becoming relevant to state machinery and political haggling and also to our male counterparts. We like to blame it on the Indian DNA (which is just such a ridiculous idea) and every morning's paper is making me realise that we are all just scared little escapists. We will write and comment and chat while endless little children and women will bear this brunt of male angst and power tripping somewhere. Or perhaps we will lynch them.

The system won't do it, and we are too disunited to bother as a collective unit of victims. And yes, we all are victims, because I dare ask here how many of us who have ever boarded a bus, plane, auto, train, rickshaw have not been physically, mentally, verbally spared the abuse, in small significant doses, as we grew up? It didnt just happen to someone I know, it happened to everyone i know. So lets keep pretending it never happened. That's what's sick about us, not the men, us. We have never fought back! Ever. Because we chose to forget the disgust, the sheer vomit inducing sensation that gripped us when we felt the look, touch, words, a song, a pinch, the squeeze of hands. We deserve this image. And sadly some of our guiltless men will pay the price, even if they are harmless gentle souls. Too bad.

But I think it's time this need for change gained a critical mass and we stopped voyeuring out on some outraged news anchors verbal diarrhéa every night and tuck ourselves into this *never never land* again. We need to teach our girls to fight, physically, morally, verbally, and loudly. Take pride that you survived and you fought. Take pride that some man had the courage to help you fight, or some woman maybe gathered her stregth to fight with you, but fight you must. You could get hurt but learn to fight back. I intend to, with or without any support. Because there must be a day when it all stops. And if you want to be a part of this fight, do it. Dont depend on any wall, or call or bandh or march to get the courage. You have to find it in you to fight this alone. Suzette did. Nirbhaya did. This child probably is still fighting to live in this god forsaken hospital.

Let's stop being hunted for being who we are.