Even since I have come to Delhi I
have been harping on the fact that people here definitely need to learn
humility. Life is not a race! It’s not about getting ahead of someone or
getting better off of someone. It’s about giving, being humble, polite and
thanking almighty by returning back to society. The people here seem to be very
complacent about the city and proudly say “Dilli
dilwalo ki hain”. Arey kaise bhai jab dil hi chota hain!! Here people have
the heart and the soul to spend on themselves but do not have the heart for
giving back to others.
But I am not here to write about
how selfish Delhi is, but I do want to speak my mind over a horrific incident
which happened in this city on December 16th, 2012. I know that
whatever I will write is not an eye opener, but I just want to yell my heart
out and I am yelling on paper. A 23 years old medical student was brutality
assaulted and raped at around 10 pm in the night. She was returning from one of
the most posh and famous mall in the city – “Select City Walk”. My initial reaction was that 10 pm is not so
late at all but I came to realise that I was too ignorant with the norms of the
city. People told me that anything beyond 7:30 pm in the night, is considered
late and dude this is winter! They questioned that what the girl was doing at
that time of the night. She should have known better. If you want to go late (mind
you 10 pm is also late by Delhi norms!) you better have your own vehicle and
yeah that is not enough you should have a group of at least 5- 6 people if you
do decide to have a night life in Delhi. Here I was expecting empathy but what
I saw was complacency!
People have come to believe that incidents
like rapes, molestation are a norm in Delhi and this unfortunate incident with
the girl is just another one to the list. Such incidents just keep on happening.
It’s just that media choose to report this one. Apparently every second day you
will find an unknown body on the Saket-Gurgaon highway. It looks like rapes at
night has become an accepted thing here and a girl should know better before
leaving late at night.
Here is what I have to say to
Delhi, when you deny a girl her right to mobility you are actually denying her
a basic fundamental right. And by accepting the untold city norms you are
making the situation much worse for the future. The norm should be that every
convict in such cases should be arrested and punished accordingly. Even the eve-teasing
of the girls should be taken very seriously and must not go un-punished. And
you know what the teaching begins at home! If you respect your wife, your
sister, then your boys naturally begin to respect women. Ours is a society
which holds the women in utmost respect and Delhi needs to teach its boys the
same! If you continue to fail to do so, trust me you will not be able to
protect your daughters and sisters by just locking them in the house. Nothing
prevents the six hooligans to break into your house and rape your daughters and
sisters. And it might not take much more time for this to happen if Delhi does
not learn its lessons from this and many other incidents that happened in the
past. But in its current deplorable state May be Delhi deserves it!
