Stand Together

I always complain and whine about how women are ill-treated in India but today my question is to the women. Women, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Why can't you stand up for yourself and take matters into your hands? (LITERALLY!). So this is the story. I was on my way home tonight, it is only 8:00PM, which means it is not too late in the night according to Hyderabad standards. At times I have to take one of those sharing autos rickshaws for a distance of 5kms. I opt for this mode of transport over a bus because it goes faster and is more comfortable. Just before the auto rickshaw started off a drunk man got in and sat behind the seat I and three other women were seated in. He put his disgusting arm on our seat and I immediately hated it and let him know about it as well. He obliged and then suddenly he started stroking the back of the girl sitting next to me. She looked old enough to not be scared but to scream and get attention but all she did was look at me with pain and shame in her eye...

We call India our “motherland”. I don’t know how the word “motherland” sounds to rest of my fellow citizens but to me it sounds feminine. India is a place where people, both men and women equally, believe in female divinity. The number of goddesses and female deities rival those of ancient Greece! But today, India is a place where every Indian girl and woman curses God for creating them as women at least one time each day. It does not surprise me that the UN has declared India to be the deadliest place on Earth for a girl child. But why? Why in a land where there are female gods are girls killed and women abused at a rate that it is impossible to watch the daily news or read the newspaper where such incidents are not reported. What about those which go unreported? What happened to baby Falak? What happened to the teenaged sexually abused girl who abused Falak? Why is a 10 year old girl raped repeatedly to such an extent that she can’t speak anymore? Why is the girl child still put ...