Delhi Gangrape Case - Will we ever feel safe again?

And then, she dies. End of story. No amount of black dots and candle light marches, or protests and boycotts is going to change the fact, that she dies, alone, hurt and in pain, in a strange hospital bed, away from home. And the ones who did that to her, will live, scot free. Sonia Gandhi says, there shall be justice. When? Decades later, when the ones who did this heinous crime are old and have lived their life already? When they are tired of working and would be happy to have help in terms of food and residence (and free security, that's the highlight of it!) (Read: Jail). Decades of course, since the victim wasn't a Priyanka Gandhi!

We live in a country that's a Democracy ruled by an Empress Regnant, where bureaucracy has a vice-like hold on every phase of life. Where, the lawful heads of the country are just for namesake. Where the political game-playing makes it the deadliest sport.

Yes, I'm proud to be an Indian, but am I proud to live in India? NO!! I don't feel safe here.

Every step I take away from home, takes me closer to the dangers lurking in the dark.  Every time the rickshawalla looks at me, I wonder what he's thinking about. Every time I walk alone from work, I wonder if somebody is following me. Every time I see a boy with a bottle, I wonder if there's going to be an acid attack. Every time I take a bus, I wonder if the driver/conductor is the same criminal with a different face. Every time I step out of the house, I wonder if I'll be back home, safe..

It's not the  clothes we girls wear, but the morals or the lack of it, amongst the men. We live in an oppressive society. It's the thinking that's been drilled into them and us, that women are beneath them. Our life is not as valuable as theirs. As mothers, daughters, sisters and wives; we're always beneath the fathers, sons, brothers and husbands.

If only, the mothers of these murderers had taught them the right things. If only, the wives hadn't accepted their murderer-husbands' torture as a fate dealt to them by life. Or just maybe, they didn't have any mothers, daughters, sisters and wives, a family, because, a man with a family would surely have a heart. And no man with a heart could do something so terrible.

She died. She wasn't supposed to, not yet.
She died. A death that wasn't meant for her.
She died. And there' nothing we can do to change that.

Putting the rapists/murderers in jail or hanging them to death will not stop another one of us from dying a similar death. But it'll be a start. A start to end this horrible disease that's taken hold of our society.

CHANGE!! It's what we need, to survive, in this brutal world.

Love / Friendship minus The 5 senses

They say, Love at first sight. But can Love happen beyond the 5 senses? Not necessarily the romantic kind of Love. But the purely platonic, " I'll always be here for you " way? Can a friendship blossom between strangers who have never met, and may never meet either? Can just Social Networking Sites be a stronghold for a growing friendship?

I came across him on one such website. It was a childhood picture that started it for us. Facebook messages moved on to become text messages. That was followed by Whatsapp and then, BB Messenger, with phone calls, letters and little gifts sprinkled in between.  So, I've known him for over 4years. Told him my deepest secrets, my most embarrassing moments or just the little things that happened to me during the day. Listened to the things he had to say, survived the times when he pulled my leg or tried to kill me by simply making me laugh. We trusted each other, totally. May be it was the fact that we had no common person/s and a few hundred kilometres that separated us, but it helped. We never fought, argued a little may be, but that's about it. He became my 3 AM friend, MY PERSON. I like to believe I managed to become his person too. (It would be embarrassing to know I wasn't, especially after such a public "announcement" :P )

But like any regular pair of friends, we've had our ups and downs. Times when we didn't speak for weeks together or days when we exchanged over a thousand messages back to back. But we went with the flow and surfed through the waves. Obviously, I know there's going to be a time when it might not be the same. Time and distance that separates us today may bring us together or take us further away, he's always going to be my special friend. Always!

So yeah, back to my questions from above. Is it really possible to care so much about a person you haven't met? I think so. I totally do. Talking to him makes me smile. He's one person who can make sense out of the gibberish that I talk. And yes, I haven't met him. Though I hope, that if we ever bump into each other, we can still be the same, crazy and psychotic pair that we are.

I love him, in a purely platonic way that is, before you can get any funny ideas. :P I'm sure when (and if) he reads this, he's going to know I'm talking about him and he'll go all "Ewww!! Such happy-gooey stuff this is!" And that's the reaction that'll truly make it worth it!

For my handsome-est Biwii! XoXo
Love, Zee!

 

Mumbai!!

How I love Mumbai!! It's so alive!! Always!! Last night, I was at Bandstand at 1 am , it still buzzed. Imagine, traffic on the highway! 3 am and there's a woman I see, still walking in the park, talking on her phone with nothing to fear. We just sat by the window, counting the cars that went past, and trust me, that was fun (and romantic :P )!!  It's funny how, a tiny bus stop could come to mean so much to me. Or the 5.46 am I took to reach class. It's the little things about the city that makes it so beautiful. The locals giving you directions so precisely or how a single Vada Pav could be enough for a meal. The strange love and hate relationship amongst the neighbors, they'd gossip about you all day long, but they'd also be the first people to come help you out in a crisis. A  Gujju area right next to a Muslim settlement that's just beside a Maharashtrian complex, that's not something you see everywhere! Or even this, just one residential complex with so many people, with different cultures, celebrating Diwali and Christmas and Lohri with the same spirit and aplomb. Mumbai, it's the only place where I can survive, without fear! So, there may be terrorists who want to strike it down, or the local politicians (read: Goons) who deface my beautiful city with the ugly posters or even the lakhs of people who this wonderful city has welcomed with all its love, it's still A L I V E! There's no place else that I could survive.  No other city could ever feel like H O M E to me! M U M B A I, it's where I belong! मुंबई मेरी जान! Truly!

Poetry to Prose..

Transition - From poetry to prose! Getting back to writing, non-exam stuff that is, I thought would be tough, but surprisingly, I haven't seem to have lost the touch. Just like all those letters I sent to my cousins and friends. May be it's that, the need to write down what I feel. Makes it easier to get over things. But honestly, if could sill do one thing, it would be poetry. That play of words, that random rhymes, nothing made me happier than simply noting down little words and phrases and watch it come together  to form a wonderful poem. From writing about fish and chocolate, I  grew to write about the romance of the old bench in the campus. I got my dose of high, my romance and frustrations, happiness and melancholy, all from writing about various things.  Poetry, I may not do anymore, but I sure can use this bog to write my heart out. So come, read me..