Deeply offensive

Nearly two decades ago, Kurt Cobain came up with his semi-controversial song Rape Me. There was a remarkable touch of lonely pain in those lyrics. But all things sung and done, it was a song. That's it. Flash back to today's unmusical reality as something terrible happened in Delhi recently. The horrific details that emerged out of this incident (mind you, not an accident) makes one's soul turn sick. Those who committed this unpardonable offense won't be able to forgive themselves. We shall never forgive them in any case even though we might forget them in the long run. And the girl who was the victim is going to find it unbearably difficult to move on. Our society—despite its righteous hue and cry—is too stigmatic to be conducive enough for rehabilitation. Rape is infamous for doing that that to the fairer sex. More so, men who do that give rise to questionnaire...endless trail of queries that question us.

    So how do we deal with this horror as a pseudo-society? Where exactly does the problem lie? Are we so sexually regressive that our very sense of morality gets clouded at times? Good apple, bad apple? Does sadism constitute an inherent part of our DNA? Don't we keep evolving as a species? Who are we? Misogynists? Unabashedly patriarchal? Can the media do a bit more than worrying about its TRP? Would the government show its spine for a change? Where are the fast-track stringent laws that'd discourage repetition? Will the real feminists please stand up? What role did our parents play? Religio-socio hypocrisy? Have they raised their daughters at par with their sons? Why do the former feel so insecure then? Kung-fu someone? Shall our poor victim become the physiotherapist she always wanted to be? Which direction might lead to a nobler world? Were we lost? Or we are going to be lost? Gun control in US and penis control in India? Go Shariah for a change? Castration? Damn, wouldn't that hurt? Isn't pleasure from others' agony is what this is all about? Let's redeem ourself, whatsay? Set up an incorruptible fund-raiser instead? Discuss? Abort misconceptions and inseminate knowledge? Open up our mind a little and embrace our imperfections? Shout a bit softer and listen a bit louder? Do we really don't need education? Sex education, huh? Mutual respect is dead? Smiling can be dangerous? Can't trust anybody anymore? Wasn't Gandhiji right? Didn't the Mayans just fooled humankind? Do you hear that? That's animal kingdom laughing at us. 

    As a nation, we are very angry. But this understandable rage has very little to do with the crime (or the criminals) in question. On the contrary, the somewhat hapless emotion reflects strongly on the kind of frail structure we've built over the years. When a system fails, it shows. Sadly, it requires a tragedy of such momentous scale to hold our attention for long. Ergo, we've failed somewhere and that bothers us. We don't know the answers to the questions this widely-reported anomaly (although the word is an euphemism) has given birth to. And that makes us more than furious. Perhaps it's high time gender equality is offered a job and rape, retirement.