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A tribute to the rape victim. A Wake Up Call for all of us.
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Who Says She Died?
Who says she died?
She lives on!
She lives on in my heart.
And I didn't even know her.
Do you know her?
I am sure you do,
How could you not
Know her?
She was one among us!
Did I say I didn't know her?
I was wrong.
I know her
As Nirbhaya, the fearless!
As Amanat, a treasure!
As a daughter
So full of dreams
And the will to live
And to fight on
I know her.
Yes I do,
I know her intimately,
As a brave heart.
A brave heart,
She defied her tormentors,
She defied mindsets,
She defied death,
longer than she possibly could.
She rests in peace,
I am sure she does
but do martyrs rest on
or do they squirm
if they are forgotten
Or their sacrifice is lost?
Let there be justice,
If she is to rest in peace,
Let us change mindsets,
Let us free ourselves
From oppression.
A rape is not as much
about sex.
It is about oppressing,
About overpowering
And such things would never stop.
Unless, Unless
And nothing less than
This would do any good
Unless we genuinely learn
and imbibe equal respect,
Starting from homes
to schools and workplace,
Remove the cobwebs of
Our patriarchal mind.
Make sweeping changes in our laws
A juvenile who rapes is not innocent
He is everything wrong
And should be put away for good.
Likewise it’s a joke
If a married man is allowed to rape
Conjugal rights do not give you rights
To be a beast.
And then a rape is not just about penetration
It is not just about ejaculation
It is simply about oppression
And by all means,
Have stringent counter laws,
Shame & expose those who
Misuse the law
for settling personal scores.
Like for instance,
breaking a promise to marry
is simply a breach of trust.
Consensual sex between adults
cannot be construed as rape
No matter what the laws says.
In the same vein,
There is nothing consensual
About sex with a minor
Or a mentally disabled
That is rape
In its most bestial form
And should be punished as such.
And then we speak of conditions,
Of provocation,
as if we are not men,
But beasts
Like dynamites,
Waiting to detonation!
We must learn to accept,
A large part of India
has moved on ahead
And you cannot shove women back
to the dark ages.
Just like men,
A woman has equal rights,
To wear what she pleases,
To walk the streets,
To do her own thing,
Even sleep with whosoever she wishes,
And to refuse who she wants,
She is not a goddamn commodity.
Slap away those dented painted mindsets!
You must not say,
When in Rome
Do as the Romans do.
We live in a global village.
And Rome fell ages ago.
There is no going back from here.
There is no other way
than mutual respect.
There is no other way
than overhauling mindsets.
There is no other way
than punitive swift laws as deterrent.
And as my daughters question me,
why so many rapes these days
And are we safe?
And I answer
It is not as if there is a storm of rapes.
It has always been going on.
And sadly no one is safe.
It is only now people are speaking up
Rapes having been rampant all over.
In the hinterlands and in our villages,
in the safety of our homes,
and on the roads,
in the glares of the cosmopolitans
And in the rush of metros
Rapes have always been rampant.
Rapes have also been an instrument
of subjugation.
But now people are not shamed,
they want to shame the oppressors
This is a tide
that cannot flow backwards.
It will either change us
or it will drown us all.
Do not tell me
Rome was not built in a day
Remember she passed away today
Remember, she is not dead.
She just passed away.
Leaving an unfinished battle
For all of us!
(c) Shyam
29 December 2012