Today’s Kunti

I was at the office today, not that busy, the way I usually remain, when the very thought of how a girl is exploited even when she is on a public transport just swarmed back in my conscious mind again. I tried to divert my mind a bit, trying to get rid of these troubling thoughts when suddenly the newspaper lying on my desk caught my attraction. There was a story regarding the suicide of a girl who was raped by her neighbor. 

Reading that news, I was shocked, probablynot as much as I should have been, as such news have these days become quite common with 2-3 pages of a newspaper dedicated to cover crime reports from the city with murders and rapes hogging most of the spaces. And it reminded me of an incident which acquainted me with the word “rape” for the very first time. I was very young and in the junior section of school. Our Principal announced during the assembly that the next day would be a holiday as a student of our senior section had died. Neither did he tell us the cause of her death, nor was I inclined to know as I was overjoyed by getting a holiday quite unexpectedly (I think all the kids of that age are quite immune to the sorrows of the world and love nothing better than a day where they would get to play at their own leisure). But I did keep a solemn appearance as I went up to our class from the assembly grounds. It was then when I overheardsome senior boys discussing, in whispers, something important amongst themselves.I could hear them in bits and pieces, which were strewn with repeated usage of the terms “rape” and “suicide”, which till then, was totally Greek to me. I went home and asked my mom the meaning of these words. She gave me a look (the kind of look you get from your mom when you do something bad), and told me these were “bad” words and not to discuss them with anyone.

As time flew by, my scope of “knowledge” regarding the world around me grew wider and I came to know the proper meaning and relevance of these words. And gradually, when I was in high school, I came to know about the whole incident regarding that girl’s suicide, as it was a very hot topic for gossip in our school for years.

The girl was a student ofthe 9^th standard, and she took tuitions from a teacher of our school. She was having some problems with her studies when the teacher “kindly” offered her help and arranged an extra class to solve her problems.When the girl visited that teacher’s home for the extra class, he took advantage of her innocence, ignorance and trustand raped her repetitively. The teacher (I don’t know whether it is right to call him that after what he did) also threatened her with dire consequences, if she reported the incident to anyone and he would make her fail in class. She (as not matured enough, and because of very high peer pressure) was afraid of her failing in exams. Neither did she know what her parents’ reactions would be in this matter and was afraid to tell them anything. She couldn’t tell anything to her friends or anyone else; neither could she accept the fact. That night when everyone was asleep she hanged herself.

The next day her parents saw her lifeless body hanging, and people said there was a hint of painful smile on her face. Her parents came to know everything from the suicide note of hers but it was too late as she was already gone. They did file a case against the teacher. What happened next is unknown to the gossipmongers yet.

I did feel very sorry for the girl. I was very angry at the teacher also. But I was unable to do anything about it just like everyone else, and soon the incident faded from my mind and vanished into obscurity.

I really don’t know why after so many years this incident popped back, out of nowhere in my mind. But I did marvel at one small detail, the girl’s smile. Why was she smiling? Was it intended for this ignorant and infected society? Or was she smiling at her own fate, her own doom? That remains unanswered till date.

Was it because the girl from my school, failing to decipher what to do next - whether tell her parents or keep mum for the next of her life and get pricked by her inner conscience - lost the will to live any longer? Or was she afraid of this ignorant, selfish society, which has never lost an opportunity to out-cast and ridiculea rape victim (whether the perpetrators have been punished or not)? Was it just the fear of failure in class, she being unable to understand what was more valuable; or did peer pressure lend a hand to silence her? Wasn’t it the failure of her parents who could not give her a strong enough ground so that she could open up to them irrespective of the level of blunder? Is she the only victim of such cruelty? There are so many questions and so few answers!

Parents and teachers are “la crème de la société” .They is the pillars on which this society and civilization rests on, and we learn our lessons in humanity from them. How can a teacher desire for his student? Why should a child think that her parents won’t believe her? Again, we are faced by more obvious questions. In fact this society has offered us nothing but questions, and never have we striven for the answers.Generations have passed but the questions have remained the same. Doesn’t this incident bring us face to face to the story of”Ahalya”? Being the most beautiful woman on this planet, she was desired by God Indra, even the king of the gods.He had sex with her in the guise of her husband, which technically can be termed as rape (as sexual intercourse happened with a wrong intent or deceitfully), even if the woman had agreed for the copulation, ignorant of the disguise. Though she was atoned by God Rama, for this girl there was no atonement. Don’t we see the example of Medusa who was raped by the Poseidon in the temple of Athena, where she was the priestess, a ravishingly beautiful maiden; and Goddess Athena, enraged by this fact transformed Medusa's beautiful hair to serpents and made her face so terrible to behold that the mere sight of it would turn onlookers to stone?  Aren’t we taught that our teachers are our God? Haven’t we read in the Vedas that “MatrudevoBhava, PitrudevoBhava, AcharyadevoBhava”? Where are the answers, I wonder…?

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Women and their insecurities

I am a small town guy who arrived in this big city for better prospects and prosperity. Say it my hard work or just my sheer luck or as some would say by God’s blessing, today I have a great job, a good house and a car. Some would say I am living the perfect urban-Indian dream as an upwardly mobile noveau middle-class.

Unfortunately, my car broke down today and I was compelled to opt for a mode of transportation, seldom used by me in the past three years. I was going to take a bus to my office! I got up on the bus hoping for an enjoyable bus ride after many days, but something happened on the bus which did shake up my morality and my grey cells and forced me to take a closer look at our civilized and humane society. Probably, such incidents are a common sight that get enacted in broad daylight in front of thousands of commuters or pedestrians, on or off public transports and in places all around us; maybe for some it is not even an event worthy of any notice or thought. But it did strike me.

Luckily, (I guess) once on the bus, I managed to get a window seat. After sometimes, a school girl took the seat beside me. She seemed to be very lively and quite excited with the bus ride, as were the other kids, all clad in their starched school uniforms. I somehow felt that she was also a keen observer, trying to catch a glimpse of her copassengers through the corner of her eyes, as if she is too self conscious or is mildly bothered about something. I was a bit amazed feeling her concern, as I was constantly trying to guess who, in this “civilized” world, would be a reason for her discomfort.  As time went the bus started getting crowded; people had to stand due to shortage of seats. When the bus was almost full, something caught my eyes and I was shocked. A middle aged man, who by this time has pushed his way through the crowd and was standing write over the shoulder of this girl next to me, was constantly thrusting his pelvics against the upper arm of the girl.  I could now sense that the cheerfulness and excitement in this girl has dried out and she looked tensed and peeved, while trying to arch her body away from the acts of libido of this faceless monster right on her side. A feeling of anger, dismay and abhorrence filled me and sensing her discomfort, I mildly asked her whether she would like to take the window seat or not. She seemed quite distraught and confused, which I guess was a natural feeling for a young teenager girl to have in this world of strangers looking for an opportunity to meet their venereal desires by exploiting her tenderness. Luckily, she agreed and we instantly exchanged our seats. I looked up to spot the faceless monster, but by then, he was gone.

I thought of turning off my mind and take a thirty winks as I had still some time before deboarding. My nap was suddenly interrupted even before it got well under way, when I heard some commotion from the rear end of the bust – it sounded like a heated argument. I managed to turn my neck to catch a glimpse and say a young boy and girl, probably college students, engaged in a verbal duel. From what I could make out of their conversation was that the boy had done some act of mischief peeving the girl to the extent of her raising her hand to almost slap him. She complained of the boys continuous efforts of touching her indecently, while the guy protested that it was because of the crowd that he could not keep his balance and had unintentionally brushed against her. But what amazed me even more was that some of the co-passengers (that included some women also), instead of supporting her, were blaming the girl for her misfortune. They said her dress was “inappropriate” and the likes of that, questioning the girl’s morality. Others preferred to enjoy the show.

I was wondering, whether my counsel was required or not, and that’s when I heard the conductor scream the next stop – ah, that’s my destination as well! I got up and started moving up, the crowd by now has also thinned. I turned around to catch a glimpse of the school kid who was seating next to me, she was docked to the window, daring not to look around and feeling much safe and secured at the window seat. But my jaws dropped to see that same lecherous middle-aged man, hurriedly pushing through the crowd to take my vacated seat. Uh, but there were others standing around, why didn’t they protest? Or they, like me are going to get off in the next or the next to next stops, I wondered. I was shoved by the crowd from behind and with a heavy heart, had to clamber down the steps and on to the pavement. I walked towards the window and saw the girl, still staring out of the window listlessly. I sighed and thought, she needs to fight it out herself now.

All these thoughts kept rumbling in my head the whole day. I was oft pondering about our status, where we were, and where we have reached now, searching in vain but with tremendous hope for signs of any kind of betterment in the way of life than our forefathers. But I neither could see nor feel the silver lining.

Maybe this is the natural phenomenon of evolution from a beast to an animal, from an animal to human and from human to the righteous! Maybe the people who always avail the public transport system are well accustomed to all these. Maybe that’s why these don’t strike them as it struck me. But I literally can’t stop my fingers from pouring down all these words on my WordPad as my grey cells are kept on screaming at me, goading me to put it up for the world to see and ponder. The more we change the more we remain same. Some may think that I am frustrated (or intoxicated) enough to think philosophical sayings. Well they may not be much wrong.

But it’s not really philosophy, it’s a perception. We have to just take a look at today's world; and more importantly we have to take a quick peek at the curious case of "Womanhood".  Don't we find our mythological "Draupadi", "Sita", "Kunti","Ahalya" and so on all around us? Have we really changed? Though we have so many reservations   for women in almost every arenas of daily life still are they secured ?? Have the narrow lanes of our mind been transformed into freeways? Well my "frustrated" brain doesn't feel so. Our social outlook and acceptance haven't really moved on. Places, appearances, language, transport, habits, fashion, trends, and modes of entertainments may have changed; inter relations, education, science may have advanced a lot; they may have made loads of changes to the social backdrop but have they made any change to the essence of it?

Isn't it like some old wine in a new bottle but unlike wine it doesn’t improve but deteriorates? The caramel of the society just remains the same changing its wrapper era after era. And the candy is losing its crunch with the passage of time.