Rise.

When my TV screen blared the news of the gangrape incident of 16 December, I simply shook my head and changed the channel. When I heard it again on the radio, I tuned into a song instead. My behaviour wasn’t one of apathy towards the girl’s plight but sheer exhaustion. I’d lost count. Rape. Assault. Eve-teasing. A little touching here and there topped with some lewd comments.

Over the past few years, as I’ve grown up, I’ve been shocked, angered, frustrated, livid, and then, simply learnt to live with it.

I’ve learnt to live with the fact that during the course of every day spent outside home, I will be stared, leered, whistled or commented at, at least once. If its a lucky day, I’ll get away with just a lustful stare. If its not, well, who can tell?

I’ve learnt to live with the fact that the ‘City News’ section of my newspaper will, as a rule, bring to me the news of atleast one rape a day, if not more.

I’ve learnt, like other girls in Delhi, to live with a sense of undue frigidity towards the scenario, for this is how things work in the rape capital.

 

While the recent case is absolutely heinous, cold and deplorable, it isn’t the first of its kind. And the way things are going, it won’t be the last. Because the laws are so toothless and the implementation so laughable, these men can afford to commit a crime as abominable as this, and simply get away with it. In and out of jail a couple of times, and then they’re scot free on the roads, probably to go out and indulge in some good ol’ raping and acid throwing.

What appalls me is how these hardened, remorseless men come up with strange ‘reasons’ to justify what they do, as if mere senseless words could change the abhorrence of the crime they committed.

She asked for it. Look at what she was wearing. She was out alone at 10 pm. She provoked me.

How hard is it to understand that a woman isn’t ‘asking for it’ unless she says it with her own two lips. That her skirt isn’t an invitation for you to tear away all she’s donning. That its a free country and any woman out at 10 pm isn’t out to stop cars and get laid. That if there’s no way your sister would look provocative to you in that dress, every second woman on the street shouldn’t either.

Its disgraceful to see what we’ve come to. We read reports of fathers raping their 5-year old daughters, and brothers raping their sisters, and leaders blaming it on ‘too much chowmein’ and politicians requesting women to not be ‘too adventurous’.

All of it hurts us. We take offence and we decide to rise. We organise candle marches and protest. We change our display pictures, put up Facebook-BBM-Whatsapp statuses, tweet and blog. We hold jams, cry, scream, shout and unite in spirit. We come together in hoardes and condemn such incidents and demand justice. We want the rapists castrated and paraded naked on the streets and humiliated and tortured to death. We want to stand up for ourselves.

And the next morning, we keep our head low as we step out of the house. We turn our face away when someone whistles at us as we walk the street. We shudder and shut up when someone deliberately pinches and touches us as we board the bus. We quietly inch away as a man comes and sits next to us in the metro ladies coach. We curl away when a bastard on a racing motorcycle slaps our butt as he zooms past. We breathe deep and ignore the filthy stares that we can feel at the back of our heads.

Because that’s how we’ve been trained. We’ve been trained to be docile, to not pick up fights because nothing good ever comes out of them. We’re trained to tolerate. And tolerate we do. Tolerate we do—the eve-teasing, the staring, the touching, the pushing—we take it all lying down.

Why do we need a ghastly incident like this to make us realise how unsafe a city Delhi is? Why do we, as educated and aware citizens, not read the signs everyday? Why aren’t these daily episodes enough to make us rise? All of us? Every day?

Its hard to change the mindset of 1.5 crore Delhiites overnight. But it isn’t all that hard for every woman to stand up to her for her own self. To stand up for a life of safety, dignity, freedom, and above all, fearlessness.

If the rapist out there was to feel and know you’re strong enough to fight for yourself, and strong enough to say no, would he dare to be a rapist at all?

Its all in the mind. In the mind of that pervert, who thinks you’ve asked for it, and in yours, who must become bold enough to show him you’ve not.