LET US NOT REPEAT THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST... SPEAK UP NOW

Some observations on rapes and its reportage in India

1. The caste or the religion of the survivor has to be specified in the case of a minority victim. You know its a woman from the majority community or caste if her religion or caste status isn't specified.

2. The marital status of the woman is equally important. Seems it can possibly change the effect of the assault on her societally and emotionally.

3. Pedophilia is not only rampant but very much reported. However, Mumbai and Bangalore seem to be leading the charge for being home to the maximum number of pedophiles in the country!

4. Rape is an everyday habit in north India with UP and Delhi leading the charge.

5. Older women i. e. 50+ seem to be the fetish for younger rapists and children for older men. Rapists in their 20's and 30's prefer women within their age bracket.

6. Incest is prominently reported in the poorer sections of society. If you are middle class or rich you're safe or don't really report it.

7. Schools are no longer safe, especially if you're kid is studying in Bangalore. Nor are the keepers of religion or the upholders of law and order.

8. Women or men or children are rarely raped in custody. Thanks to AFSPA most cases including civilian ones in conflict areas are not reported. God forbid you print one and it'll open a can of worms.

9. Police apathy is at a all time high. They just don't care. So going to them is like going and complaining to a wall. Actually, complaining to a wall would be better. The wall wouldn't try and humiliate you.

10. Courts are on their own trip. Justice takes an average of 7 years. And then some of the those well read, educated judges come up with brilliant one liners like a menopausal woman cannot be raped. Obviously if she can't produce how does it matter if she violated.

Or the government comes up with interesting laws like a single woman has to declare on her child's passport if she was raped to have had the child and which is why she doesn't want the father to be named.

And finally the politicians and their complete disregard for a woman or a child goes through when raped.

Less said the better for the panchayats and the khaps and  their wonderful justice system of gang rapes as forms of punishment.

Just been through 11 months of reports of sexual violence and its already at over 2500 reported cases. Don't know how many more in store for the remaining 3 months.

A love letter that has been long over due

​It is often easier to write when in any kind of anguish or pain. It is easier to write, lamenting heartache and rejection. But when it comes down to writing about things that make you happy and content or people who bring joy and love in to your life, words don’t appear. 

How do you express gratitude for someone who makes you feel loved every single moment of everyday? 

How do you tell them how much their love and their patience means to you? How do you write and tell them what it means to be looked after and know that they are watching out for you. 

You cannot put it in words, for words cannot capture the deepest of emotions they make you feel. 

Love! Love is such a difficult word to describe when you are happy. Love is an impossible emotion to describe when you feel it is reciprocated in ways you thought it should and much more. 

It is at those moments you go back to things you have written dealing with heartbreak or rejection and you laugh at how stupid you were to think that was love.

So today I write my first love letter to you or maybe it is the second or the third. I cannot keep a count because no number of words and pages and can capture the emotions I feel for you.

You are the one. You are the one who I have been knowingly and unknowingly waiting for. You are the one with whom everyday seems like a new day and each evening holds a new promise.

You are the one that makes me question myself for all the wrong decisions and makes me want to change myself for the better. You make me dream but dream not manically. You make me look at life from a whole new perspective, a sense of joy for what the future could hold.

I know a person like me doesn’t deserve even half of what you have to offer and there will never be a way to pay you back for all that I owe you.

Let me tell you the biggest thing you have done for me. And for that alone, I am indebted to you for life - You have given me strength to let go of what I needed to the most, my relationship or the ghost of what could or should have been my relationship with my father.

You gave me the strength to know it was ok to step out into an unknown territory and be comfortable with that space. To have a life where my father, even with his distant presence, doesn’t exist – it was unimaginable.

It was the anger and grief of the failure of that relationship that has oft consumed me and fueled me. And now I find no place for it in my life, because I have you. You fill me up with such joy that I feel no place for anger or hatred. I just cannot find place for it.

I know you must be auto correcting my sentences and language as you read this, but I write here as I think. Not caring if it doesn’t make any sense or if the English is all over the place.

You make me want to do things, take risks. Feel emotions, like never before. You make me want to dance every day. You are reason why I smile every morning. You are the person who I am the most scared of ever leaving me.

Because if you do, I wouldn’t die, I wouldn’t vanish, or evaporate or any of that, I would just lose hope. And, I would lose any respect that I may have for myself, for losing you would be equal to losing the biggest opportunity of happiness and contentment life had to offer me.

And if you leave, I know it would be because I have failed and it would this failure that would finish me. It would be this failure in retaining the best that could have happened to me, forever, that would be the end of me.

Thank you for loving me or at least trying to. Thank you for taking out time for me. Thank you.

I will be eternally grateful to you for loving me even if it was for a single moment in that single day.

You are more precious than you may think. You are the reason why I feel I can get through every day as bad as it may seem.

Thank you for loving me.

I just want you to know - I love you.

Something I had written a while back and forgot it in the drafts!

Bolo kyun mujhe sadko pe jaake pyaar karne ka haq mangana padh raha hai?

Bolo kyun mujhe khulke saans lene ke liye morcha nikalna padh raha hai?

Bolo kyun mujhe apni khushi ke liye tumse ijazat leni paregi?

Kya Maine poocha tumse ki kyun kissi ko tum chahte ho?

Kya Maine poocha tumse ki kyun kissi ke saath khush ho tum?

Kya Maine poocha ki kyun apni zindagi kiss tarah jeete ho tum?

Toh aakhir kyun mujhse yeh chahte ho ki main - phir chup jaaoon?

Kissi kamre mein band ho jaaon? Kyun saans na le paaon? Kyun khushi se duur jaaon?

Bolo kuch? Jawab do? Bolo Kyun?

Tum kuch bolo na bolo, main ab wapas nahin jaaongi...

Still incomplete...

I AM NOT GOING BACK INTO THE CLOSET AND I AM NOT GOING TO LIVE A LIE... PUSH ME AS MUCH AS YOU MAY... THERE'S NO GOING BACK FOR ME!

July 02, 2009 one man and his verdict gave thousands if not millions hope... extending a sense of belonging in your own country... a feeling of being equal...

One verdict and it changed the life of hundreds if not thousands... Suddenly the world might not have liked me or who I wanted to be with, but the law allowed me to love... And that gave me hope for a better tomorrow

December 11, 2013 one man and his verdict took away the ability for me to breathe freely... Millions not thousands now felt heartbroken, sad, angry and ostracised...

Suddenly I was criminal for loving someone... Suddenly I was a criminal for wanting to spend my life with someone because 'He' had never met someone like me and couldn't understand how I loved... His words took away any hope I had of having a home, a family, someone to love..

Suddenly thousands not hundreds were once again pushed into "closets"... Suddenly it became time to hide.. Suddenly it became time for people like me who never saw how my loving someone as a reason to take to streets had to now "come out" all over again to the world and say "No Going Back"...

Today we take to the streets of Mumbai and Delhi again. Today I call on all those who believe in equity and rights for all to come join our happiness and our struggle on the 2nd of July 2014 at Jantar Mantar as we reclaim our rights, our dignity and our nation. Let us celebrate the past and prepare for future struggles by sharing our stories, songs and lives.

Date: 2nd July 2014
Time: 6 PM onwards
Venue: Jantar Mantar. Parliament Street. New Delhi

I WILL SEE YOU THERE