WakeupIndia: Story - The Real Story

I have decided to write a series of short stories on this topic. I wanted to write so much on this topic but I found that every time I started to blog about it or even planned a post I felt that onrush of frustration, rage and sorrow that I had felt when I read that Nirbhaya died. I was unable to write at all.

After a lot of thought I decided that instead of writing a post which is "real" I could write a story which would be "fiction" thus allowing me the distance I need in order to be able to write without giving up in despair.

These stories are not meant to be literary masterpieces but simply meant to illustrate a point or allow me to vent my frustration at the current system in which a girl is India is blamed for being a girl.

I have some other initiatives in mind as well, which I will tell you about as they take shape. Right now, I am planning and organizing.

For now, here's the first story in the series. You are welcome to share your thoughts.

The Real Story

Inspector Kiran Prakash entered the police station with a civilian in tow. The civilian was carrying a notepad and pen and looked generally like the stereotype of a journalist.

“Actually, reporter babu,” said the Inspector, “your news is little bit true. There are really many cases of rape reported in this area.”

Journalist Jyotiramaya nodded, encouraging the other to talk, which he did.

“But they are not real rapes.” said the inspector.

“They are not?” the journalist asked in his usual alert manner.

“No, no, not even half of them. Most of these cases are reported by prostitutes.”

“Prostitutes?” the reporter was genuinely puzzled now.

“It’s not so strange as you think, sir. These prostitutes carry on their illegal trade, and when a customer does not pay them, they cry ‘Rape!’ to involve the police and harass the poor guy.”

The inspector took a seat behind his desk, inviting the journalist to sit in front of him with a gesture.

Jyotirmaya sat down and asked “How many of these cases are registered by these prostitutes?”

Inspector said with contempt “Arre all of them, yaar! I know these girls. Bloody whores! They think they can fool the police!”

Hawaldar Jagtap Singh approached the inspector’s desk “Jai hind, saab ji!”

Inspector nodded “Haan jai hind. Jagtap, this is journalist Jyoti babu. He is writing an article on rape situation in India. Send someone to bring 2 coca-cola. And bring today’s cases.”

Jagtap left and came back with bottles and a file.

He placed the bottles on the table and handed the file to Kiran Prakash, “Saab ji, main case is only one, a girl has come to report a rape.”

The Inspector looked at Jyotirmaya, “Your lucky day! You will see with your own eyes how I do ‘justice’ to these cases in 2 minutes.”

Jyotirmaya only nodded, with his pen poised over his notepad.

The inspector faced the Hawaldar again, “What is the case?”

“You know our MLA saab’s elder son Bunty...this girl is saying he kidnapped her from her college and raped her in his father’s house.”

The inspector turned to give his comments to the journalist again, “Bunty is a bit naughty, but I don’t believe this girl at all.”

The journalist, against his habit, commented with astonishment, “But you haven’t even heard her story yet!”

Inspector Kiran Prakash took a sip of his Coke and gave a derisive grin, “Oh, Sir ji, I don’t need to hear her story. I know the real story. Just one of those whores I was telling you about.”

Jagtap contributed readily, “Reporter babu, our saab ji is fully right. I knew it as soon as I saw her. She is beautiful but characterless!” Then he turned to his superior, “Sir ji, I have put her in the lockup with the other prostitutes. Imagine her nerve! Accusing the MLA’s son, hain ji?”

The inspector looked at the journalist as if to convince him, “You will see yourself, sir ji. Jagtap, le ke aa saali ko. Bring her in!”

Jagtap left and re-entered a minute later, herding in front of him a girl that had clearly gone through a violent and traumatic experience. Her face and clothes were all dirty and damaged but her eyes held a grim determination.

Inspector Kiran Prakash’s chair collapsed on the floor as he got out of it explosively, his eyes wide as he looked at the girl.

The single word came out of his hoarse throat in a mixture of horror and disbelief. ”Rashmi!!”

The girl looked up at his voice and tears ran down her cheeks in streaks, “Bhaiya!” (Brother!)

Nirbhaya is dead!

[This is not a real post, just a jumbled dump of my thoughts.]

Nirbhaya was the name given by TOI to the girl who was gangraped on 16th December in Delhi. Another newspaper has called her Amanat and some others have given her the nickname "braveheart". The details of the case are well-known. Six men, six animals I'd call them though they are lower than animals in my estimation, raped a girl in a bus, beat her and her male friend with an iron rod and brutally tortured her, sexually assaulting her with the same iron rod.

One of the reasons I don't follow news is to avoid reading such horrible things, but this was too big to have escaped my notice. My colleagues told me on 22nd. Then I could not stay away from it as the girl was fighting for her life in the hospital.

I did not want to write a post on it and I don't know if I would be up to publish this, but all these thoughts have been swirling around in my mind since then and I feel that I must dump them on paper if I am ever to have any piece of mind. I don't know if it would work but I need to try. It's been driving me crazy!

There needs to be logic or order in this post since it'd just be a dump of my thoughts, only for my eyes.

The men who did this unspeakable thing were the bus driver and his friends. I consider them lower than animals. Even animals don't rape.

The thing that gets me and that has made me cry everything I think of it is that she didn't deserve it. She was a good girl, a productive member of the society and from all the facts that have come out, a brave girl! She did not deserve such an end to her life!

The bastards who did this, on the other hand, are scum of the earth. Most of them have previous criminal record. But they are still alive. Why?

I don't consider rape as a sexual crime even though it is classed as one. Rape is crime against human dignity, any person who attempts to take away the dignity of another human does not deserve to be treated as a human being himself.

The worst thing it has done is it has made me ashamed of my city and my country. I am painfully aware of the fact that people hear "India" or "Delhi" they think about shameful incident. I have been always proud of India and especially Delhi but now...I am even ashamed to be a man. :(

Then Friday evening came the news that after battling with her injuries for 13 days Nirbhaya died in the hospital in Singapore!

The last time I was this sad was when my father passed away last year. Of course, that was more personal but the sense of shock and irreparable loss is the same!

The saddest thing about this whole incident is not the 6 monsters who did this but that we have a system where they felt that they could.

Even when I was completely enamoured with the western culture I still liked the Indian culture. And as I grew up I liked and respected it more, the thousands of years of tradition, the immeasurable stores of knowledge...but in Indian culture we hail the woman power as the goddess, Durga, Lakshmi...is this how you treat your goddess, like animals? Like objects of lust to be mauled, harassed and tortured?

What the fuck! How can you treat an innocent girl like that? She is someone's daughter, someone's sister...how do you dare to lay a finger on her?

But we don't have a system where a normal citizen can expect to be protected by the police. We have a system where a normal person is afraid of the police.

And then we wonder why India is not a super power!

India will never be a superpower unless we stop the two-faced, double-standard bullshit and recognize Indian women as the power that they are.

Every time the issue of crime against women comes up, there are always some jokers who comment that women these days wear revealing clothes and thus provoke the attacks on them. I want to shove their faces in mud! Believe me you have not seen revealing clothes until you have been to a nightclub in London, or New York or any Western country. But they have much fewer cases of rape.

Because in England the maximum sentence for rape is UNLIMITED! In England, a girl can walk up to a policeman and say, "That guy is harassing me!".

We cannot call ourselves civilized until we change our basic attitude towards women.

What an irony it is that the city that has a female chief minister has a rate of 1 rape every 14 hours!!

Rape is worse than murder and must be treated as such. When you kill a person, you merely kill them, when you rape a girl you take away her human dignity and that is unpardonable.

I am proud of my country and my city that the general public has risen against this state of affairs but I am not holding my breath for any real action. The fact that the government didn't react to this incident immediately shows that the politicians do not consider it an outrage that it is, for them it's just one of those issues. But the people are not having any of that nonchalance from the leaders this time so they had to act or pretend to.

Congress is proposing a law where maximum penalty for rape would be 30 years with chemical castration in extreme cases. But in a country where last year rate of conviction for a rape case was 1 out of 635 cases, what effect do you expect it to have? One?

And then they make such a big deal about a police constable dying in a ruckus with the protesters. You want me to feel sorry about a lousy cop? Frankly, one girl like Nirbhaya is worth a 100 Delhi cops any day!

There is not shortage of those also who blame films for corrupting the culture and inciting such crimes? Really? So what do you do when you watch a cooking show - go rob a restaurant? Stop making excuses for your bloody, barbaric mindset and be a man! Not an animal, a man! A real man!

In this tragic, heart-breaking affair there are a couple of things that I feel thankful for. I am proud of the people of my country who have shown the power-hungry, chair-chasing politicians that they cannot tamed by a few cops in the demand for justice! I am proud of the Indian media who reported all the developments in the case but kept her identity confidential.

And I am proud of my country for giving her the respect that she deserved, for having the sensitivity to cancel new year celebrations official and private to mourn the loss of a brave girl who was the pride of her country even in death.

(I have decided to publish this post but I can't bear to read it, so it will go without proofreading. My blog will sport the black banner for a week.)