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