Two years ago, on December 16, I had woken up late in the morning. It was my birthday the previous day and I was still mentally reliving the lovely celebration that went on tillmidnight. December birthdays have that dual charm. I could ring in a new year as well as celebrate being yet another year older, yet another year wiser.
Instead I was greeted with screaming headlines of a gang rape in my city, my home, New Delhi, India. As an Indian living in Dubai, and running a magazine to celebrate the culture, chaos and colour of India, this was something that was hard to come to terms with. There was no time to adjust to the shock as I got flooded with a barrage of question by friends and colleagues there about the land I came from and on the way we treat our women.
For the first time, I could sense this palpable fear, not just around me, or my family, but in the faces of the people from my country flashing across television screens. People were talking, protesting, screaming and wailing. Someone was chanting a hymn. Hard questions were asked of the government. But I couldn’t really see the commotion and pain that engulfed India because I was not at ‘home’.
But my home too had changed. After this episode, the next time I travelled to India, my family announced that they would be picking us up from the airport, even though we were to land at 7 pm in the evening. I was told that it was no longer safe to take cabs.
It got me wondering on how much things have changed in the last couple of years. In my first job as an intern with a media house, I used to travel extensively and cover North India as a part of my job, alone with a driver, or in a bus; and sometimes with a cameraman.
Do I feel safe when I return? No. Would I have felt safe doing the same job today? No. Can I argue with my parents on worrying too much about me? No. Do I compare the manner in which the women are treated here and there? Yes. Though it would be wrong to say that heinous acts against women are not committed outside India but it would be right to say that the safety, protection and the respect a woman enjoys outside is far more than she would in her own home, India. The stark difference in experience of living in India and abroad is how you are protected and treated not because you are a human but because you are a woman: an individual deserves to be respected irrespective of the gender.
Today, yet another year has passed and it’s my birthday again. And again, we are at the same spot where we were last year. We are fighting, crying and protesting. We are holding hands and praying. We are standing by each other and drawing courage and resolve from a Nirbhaya that is raped every day in our country: 20 rapes happen in my country each day.
Is this the sad déjà vu case of rapes in India, I am asked and left to wonder? Did we learn nothing in the past two years or have we come to accept rapes as a season in our country: one that will appear and re-appear. Like summer and spring perhaps. Or Scam and Murder Season.
Or like the ‘Falling in the pit’ season. Remember how at one time everyone in India was obsessed about kids falling into pits. The whole nation prayed for a child stuck in a pit as troops tried to save his life. Did no one fall in a pit after that? Were all the wells and manholes covered over? Who knows? We have all moved on since.
Similarly, a 23-year old was gang raped two years ago. The rape continued: a 6-year-old, then a 45-year-old, and now a 27-year-old was raped on December 5. Soon we won’t remember her/them, either. Will we just move on?
Image courtesy: BCCL
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