I see you my daughter…

Lying on the roadside …near the garbage heap,

Covered in your mother’s blood …

Your barely formed head…covered with sparse hair….wet…

Your eyes are clenched closed ……and pointed chin touches your barely moving chest…

Fists closed …arms crossed across your unformed breasts…

Your knees are drawn up tightly across your tiny caved in stomach…

The placenta torn and sneaking through them and lying …like a withered snake …unsure…

Your thin legs are crossed at the tiny delicate ankles…pink toes speckled with blood…

I see you my daughter…

 

 I see you my daughter…

Lying on the roadside …near the garbage heap,

Covered in your own blood …

Your head covered with sticky mottled hair …lying bedraggled across your bare shoulders…

Your eyes are clenched closed ……and pointed chin touches your barely moving chest…

Fists closed …arms crossed across your beautiful bare breasts with burn marks …

Your knees are drawn up tightly across your curved stomach…

The womanhood torn and sneaking through them and lying …like a withered snake …unsure…

Your bare long legs are crossed at the ankles…red coloured toes speckled with blood…

I see you my daughter…

 A journey of a million smiles ….a million blessings…so many tiny dancing steps…so many birthday gifts…a zillion words…so many classes and teachers… beautiful dreams …a journey of a million tears…

…to end from your mother’s blood in your own …from death to death …

 © Dr. Anita Hada Sangwan

Betiyaan

Resuming the blog after a short break with this Hindi poem that was written by my uncle Sanjeev Nagpal, a poetry enthusiast on the life of women in India:

 

Main iss mahaan desh ki ek aam hoon naari

Par mere apne hi logon ki nazar mujh par padi bhaari.

 

Ghar ke bahar nikalte hi ghoorti hain gidd aankhein,

Jinko bheed mein dekh kar bhi tham jaati hain saansein.

 

Kab kya anhoni ho jaye, darr se bhara hai zehen.

Gande fitro, shararti aankhon se mian jaati hoon saham.

 

Ghar se manzil tak ek khauf apne hi sheher mein,

Kya beti sahi salamt lautegi wapas apne hi ghar mein?

 

Mandiro mein main Laxmi, Saraswati, Durga ka roop ho jaati hoon,

Aur sadak pe aate hi ek vastu, ek cheez ho jaati hoon.

 

Ab band karo ashleelta aur hawas ka vyapar.

Varna tumhare vinash ke liye dhaar loongi Durga ka avtaar.

 

So rahi hai janta, police aur desh ka shaasan,

Par jaag gayi hain betyaan, ab tu nahi bachega dushasan.

 

Ye kaisa hai mera desh, mere desh ki shaan?

Neta to deta hai naare, ‘India is shining’, ‘Incredible India’, mera desh mahan!

Memoirs of a Rapist

This is a guest post by a guy who wants to put across a very strong point. Let NO mean NO, and not “try harder”. A must read for all girls-

First, let me tell you about myself.

I am your average guy. I come from a middle class family. I worked hard to clear my exams. I have a well paying job. I have travelled to Europe on many occasions. I love gadgets. I love cars. I love movies. I love girls.

I am decent looking. I am charming. I have had many girlfriends.

I am also a rapist.

Now that I have your attention, please read through the entire blog post before you judge me.

All this talk about rape being the fault of the victim has gotten me thinking. Who in their right mind can make a disgusting claim like that? Will we eventually start hearing people say that the victims of 26/11 were at fault for the massacre? Will earthquake victims of Bhuj be blamed for the earthquake?

Bottom line: I think whoever puts even an iota of the blame of a rape on the victim is plain stupid.

But.

But…

And this is a very sensitive “but” – and I completely understand the implications of what I am about to say, hence the double disclaimer – I also think there are things girls can do to avoid such incidents.

I know feminists will want to hunt me down and castrate me just for suggesting this, but please read the entire post before you judge me.

Personally, I believe that every individual has a duty towards self-preservation, so discussing these ideas is not counter-productive to getting the debate going forward on how men should change their mindset. The menace of sexual assault is so disturbing that we need to find solutions across multiple dimensions. Getting men to re-wire their brain is one such dimension. Getting women to be careful is another dimension. They are not mutually exclusive.

Enough has been written about what girls can do (or should not do) to avoid putting themselves in such dangerous situations. I am not going to repeat any of that here. What I do want to touch upon is something that I have never seen mentioned anywhere.

Maintaining the sanctity of the word NO.

This is where I must digress to my personal experience. I have dated a lot of women. I have slept with a lot of them too. I am not trying to brag, please understand that I am trying to make a point here. Having been that intimate with many women, I have what many of you would call data-points. That would not be my first choice of words, I don’t treat women as objects or numbers, but I am trying to make a point here. So please keep up.

Women that I have known for a long time, that I have even been intimate with, who have even confessed they love those moments of passion with me, tend to play a very dangerous game of “hard-to-get” with me. This is where they pretend they are not interested in sex, or make me work hard to “get” them. I say pretend because they readily accept later that they did want to get intimate with me just as much as I did, but the “game” is either an “adaa” of theirs, or a moral defense mechanism to avoid guilt later, or a way to show they are not really the “fast” kind. Either ways, if it has happened with me, I can assure you it has happened with many people out there.

I call this game dangerous because of the kind of precedent is sets. It essentially says that all that “NO” was a big farce. It tells a guy that NO does not really mean NO. That it just means you need to try harder. (You see where I am going with this?)

I look back at my experience with girls, and this shocking trend emerges. I see self made sex movies on the Internet of people and this trend becomes stronger. You may remember there was a sex scandal on the JNU campus that broke. Everyone talked about it. Many actually watched it. What no one pointed out in that video was that for the first 3 minutes or so, the girl (apparently already in a physical relationship with the guy) kept pushing the guy away. She vehemently keeps saying no. She ends up using all her physical strength to defend herself. So much so, that the guy had to eventually get violent just to “get” the girl. Shockingly, once the guy “gets” her, the girl is seeing enjoying the experience, even encouraging him to go further, almost as if the NO meant absolutely nothing. This is very similar to many home made sex videos you will find on the Internet. This sadly, must even be very true of what happens in many bedrooms across our country. In each of these situations, guys are being given the wrong message and the sanctity of NO being systematically destroyed.

Western civilizations take such NO very seriously. As a guest in a westerners home, if you say NO to another helping of their delicious pasta, you can be sure you won’t be asked again. Contrast that with India, where saying NO is probably the first response by default. Here, the host is expected to “fight through” your NO to come across as being genuinely hospitable. Combine that basic sense of “manners” with the dangerous “game” some women play and you have the beginnings of rape – specifically date rape.

This leads me to the point I am trying to make in this post. Of the many things we’re trying to do to reduce the incidents of rape, somewhere we need to start educating women to uphold the sanctity of NO. Let guys not be confused even in the slightest way about what the NO really means. It has always, and should always, mean JUST  NO.

Let women make this promise to their partners, they will say NO only when they really mean it. Let guys be clear with their partners, even a subtle NO will make them step back so their partners should be very clear about what message they send out.

Sure the timeless “adaa” of playing hard to get suffers, but atleast we get to see some real results on the ground. A fairly large percentage of date rape cases (sorry I don’t have numbers, I am just sharing my experience here) are attributed to an assumption that the girl didn’t seriously mean to say NO, she just said it because that is what she usually says in such situations. If even a fraction of those rapes can be avoided, I say it’s okay to wipe our hands clean of that “adaa” in the larger interest.

Sure there will many cases of rape where the animal inside just takes over, and these kinds of precautions won’t be of any use. But the one in a billion case of date rape that can be avoided because of this mindset change merits that kind of attention.

I for one have decided to change my moral bearings now. If a woman says NO even playfully, I will stop.

Female Foeticide

 Guest post by Ashwin Dodani,

“What is my fault, but?” the girl asked.

“You are a girl.” someone replied, in a shivering manner though.

Starting with such a question, I thought of writing on this topic because this is something talked about a lot and we are getting to nowhere even after just discussing about it. Here I just want to put my point of view on the topic and possibly this reading could save even one girl there out in the world making this worth. The question is asked by that female foetus who has not even yet came in this world and is brutally killed when was just about to come in to this beautiful world. Her mouth was shut by the answer which simply said that you are a girl. Is really being a girl enough to be killed? Is a girl that load to us which we can’t bear? Is a girl not deserving to come to this world and see the enormous beauty which God has created for everyone to relish equally? and there are innumerable questions which we can ask when it comes to talk about this topic.

The thought of writing on this topic came yesterday when I was watching an episode of “Crime Patrol” which had the same theme and the way it was depicted was so cruel that it made me teary for a while. Still that one episode was just a glance of what is going in this world when it comes to female child and though knowing that its wrong to kill a girl child, we are doing it. This fact that we are doing it wrong is depicted in the answer when its said, replied in a shivering manner, because everyone knows that killing a life is nowhere a good deed and we are no one to decide that who will come in this world and who will not. Its solely the decision of God to gift you a child and when you receive it you should respect it because there are infinite parents there grieving for a child but they cannot have their own. The fact, the bliss, the feeling of having your own child cannot be expressed in to words, though I haven’t been a parent yet I can say so because I have seen my cousin sisters when they had their own child, my own sister, how and what she feels about my nephew is enormous. The reason being behind this act is what I feel I am describing below:

“First of all in the name of girl, the first thought which comes to a parents’s mind is that we have to bear the cost of her marriage. Secondly how much we are going to spend on her development, her studies and making her a good human, at the end she is going to leave our home and go to someone else’s. Thirdly n number of insecurities they will have to face in her youth because wherever we see, may it be any city there are cases of rape, eve teasing and many more things which even girls don’t share with anyone because they just don’t want to feel worse about it. Fourthly now a days people have an image that if its a girl what more she can do than just making food, stitching, doing a basic job and raise her child.”

This is the basic mentality I am talking about. Yes, I know many things have changed in today’s world but then there are I can say 50% of the people who still have these in their mind however modern they have become and no matter any number of changes they have accepted. There is no doubt that parents are very insecure about their children and this when comes to a boy or a girl remains same but the intensity when it comes to a girl child becomes more because they feel that they are the one who take their parents’s image in to the society and anything bad in regards to them will put their family to shame. But when the same things are done by their boys the society doesn’t raise a finger, why? Is that the boys are allowed to do so or there is an impression that boys are meant to do so, they already are such since they are born. If we see this scenario in the latter part boys become the worst reason to be a part of their family and they are automatically putting their families to shame where girls not doing anything just born in their family make them so insecure and protective. Isn’t this the biggest question to ourselves?

If we see with a broader perspective we can adore and respect the girl child with the same dignity and even make the most out of them making you feel proud and lift your collar. If you feel that you raise your girl child with the same dedication, you allow her to go work in a good company and you do her marriage in a good house where the same mentality exists, don’t you think they will make you proud? If she performs well in an organization, if they perform in their Life, won’t you feel the same Respect that your child did that? When you made her learn to be strong, when you taught her that Life is a constant battle and she faces her problems on her own, cries alone but still be there for you when you need, won’t you cry out a bucket? Its all about having a broader perception and not always getting affected by the surroundings and what people might think. You conceive a child not thinking that it would be a girl/boy but someone who will bring happiness to your family, a pride in your heart and that constant smile on your face which makes even your death peaceful. Checking the sex of the child developing in your foetus should make you feel guilty that are you giving birth to someone who will just take care of you and provide you a financial support or someone whom you would be proud of to have as your own blood.

Not that every guy is going to feed you Respect and love and not every girl is going to ruin your image, family and existence. It all comes in the way you raise them. If you count your blessing to be blessed with a child and accept whomever he/she is, trust me you will never be short of happiness because your intentions were true, your faith in that child is pure and the way you have raised the child will fill the child with all of you in them. This will carry forward and make them believe the same and this can change the scenario of the world in the coming generations. Start taking responsibility for the capability you are given, for the love you make and for the abundant sanctity you can experience if you move on from the same old beliefs.

I hope this article makes you believe that may it be a girl or a boy when it comes to Respect even hermaphrodite gets more than both of them.

Thank you for Reading..

The deeper betrayal- A Delhi Guy’s Perspective!

Guest post by an Anonymous Delhi guy who feels there is a deeper meaning to the act on Dec 16th. He thinks the humans have become dangerous animals & still need to evolve.

A lot has been said about the Dec 16^th Delhi Rape Case.

Many have wondered how could one human rape another human. Many feel rape should invoke harsher punishments to be wiped off our psyche. Many have argued men should be better raised for this menace to be eradicated.

I’ve been pre-occupied with something completely different about this case. I am not so sure if it has been explored by all those who “talk” only when such incidents come forth to our notice.

I am talking about the animal violence that followed the otherwise ghastly act.

What is it about our genetics that makes us go over the top? Not just in the case of rape, take road rage for instance. When someone cuts us off while driving, not only do we get medieval by cutting them off at the risk of hurting others, we sometimes force them to stop their vehicle, beat them up, and then even as their near dead motionless body lies there, we kick it or shoot at it one last time just to satiate the animal inside us. That is eerily similar to what happened at around 9:30 pm on Dec 16^th – not only did several men rape a girl, they then went on to physically damage her insides and then threw her off the bus. If there are many amongst us who would go overboard in the case of road rage, we must come to this disturbing conclusion that there are many amongst us who would have done the exact same thing as those evil men in the case of sexual rage.

I am not sure I have an answer to why it happened. But I am not sure if it can be cured by harsher punishments – heck if that were the case we’d have zero murders. I don’t even think better upbringing would wipe this off our psyches – heck if that were the case, we’d all be respecting our elders and be kind to children.

I think in the final analysis, one thing is very clear. Humans have not evolved as much as we’d like to think we have. The animal inside us is very much alive. And maybe it’s gotten even more dangerous. We’re now hunting amongst our kind.

And as long as that happens, none of us are safe from each other. Not women, not children, not men either. No one