Damn you, Woman!

In this country famous for Gandhi and a monument a lovesick emperor built in memory of his wife, being a woman is akin to being a contestant in the Survivor series. The only difference? If she survives, s he gets to win an opportunity to live with dignity.

From age two till she coughs her last, she is a potential victim for men blinded by lust and rage. In a nation where men outnumber women, frustration outnumbers contentment, failure outnumbers success, cries of anguish outnumber sounds of laughter, corrupt outnumber the honest – being human becomes the first casualty. Someone somewhere is invariably waiting to trample upon her self-esteem. In this struggle for power and survival of the fittest – the underprivileged, the fairer sex, the principled have to fight the hardest. They don’t always succeed. But they know they must never give up.
 
She knows she must never give in. Because if she does, she will be doomed to a life of servitude.

It helps if she is born with silver cutlery in her mouth. It certainly helps if her family wields wealth and power and insulates her from reality.

But God forbid if she nurtures aspirations of being independent and seeks out a life of her own - she is clearly being “adventurous”. If she’s foolish enough to walk the streets or travel in buses, she is meant to be groped and pinched. If the man gets lucky, he even gets to rape her. And for the sake of brotherhood he’s even willing to share his booty with his friends. It’s tough to let go of sharing and caring values he has imbibed since childhood.

There are certain dos and don’ts a woman must adhere to if she’s about to get raped. She must accept her fate gracefully. She should stop being an unreasonable bitch and swallow that feeling of revulsion like a bitter pill.

Simply put, she must surrender if she values her life and intestines.
 
God forbid, if she dares to act normally – kicks, claws, scratches and screams – she ends up being a vegetable on a ventilator for the rest of her life. Just pray that she dies, so that all those years of joys, accomplishments, the identity she carved for herself, doesn’t get wiped off by a cruel twist of fate and she’s simply reduced to a label - “a rape victim”. As if she never had a name, a life before she chose to get assaulted.

Her most horrific moment gets splashed all over national dailies, becomes fodder for rising TRP’s, and is brandished as an issue that political parties use to settle scores with. She ceases to be human.

Some will google for pics of her mauled vagina, others will call her a braveheart for having the will to live and a few will feel her anguish and cry for her fate. Women who take to the streets demanding justice for her will be dismissed as dented and painted. The police will smirk, and give candid views on women who file rape charges, passing them off as prostitutes who didn’t get paid.

Every time a woman gets mauled and assaulted, it is not just a travesty of her fate, because what follows is much worse. The shame, the ridicule, the disbelief she has to put up with doesn’t let her heal. Ironically it’s the perpetrator who walks off with all the sympathy – poor boy! He couldn’t help it. It was she who tempted him.

There will be men who will be man enough to stand up to this injustice, get beaten up by bullies because they are simply hindrances to their act of pleasure. Men who will hang their heads in shame on behalf of those for whom machismo is a misunderstood concept and for whom women are ‘objects’ waiting for their stamp of ownership.

For every brutal assault on her dignity, it is she who has to pay by forsaking her freedom. She will be asked to cover up, ordered to stay home and forsake her dreams for the sake of her honour and her family’s. The more she tries to take flight, the more they will try to pull her back.

While those men will continue to strut the streets looking to prey on another girl foolish enough to believe in herself.

Damn you girl! Your parents should have killed you the day you were born, like so many others do.

But they didn’t. They chose for you to live.

Don’t give in, don’t give up. Because struggle today is for the sake of a better tomorrow. A tomorrow, where you can be what you want to be, without a hint of apology.

RIP Amanat, may you have a better life next time.