Hey India’s daughters, why loiter?

Why indeed should I have the right to simply walk down the street in nonchalance, at any given time of the day or night that I please, without my intestines being yanked out?

Don’t you know? I’m a box of sweets. I’m a diamond. I’m a goddess. I’m the treasure chest of everyone’s sense of honour. And the wolves and dogs are frantically scratching their nails on the door that leads to the streets outside. So shhh.. stay in girl, and stay quiet.

Of course taali ek haath se nahi bajti (you don't clap with one hand). Why would I wander in remote or crowded places if I didn’t like being followed or pinched and groped? Clap your hands in delight and pray, tell us girl, you actually enjoyed it, didn’t you? *wink*

Surely, if I choose to wear that piece of clothing it must mean I like being leered and whistled at? Boys will be boys yaar, how can you not pause every morning in front of your closet and contemplate if a scrap of cloth might offend someone’s sensibilities?

Of course I deserve to get petrol flung at me and be set on fire in front of the extended family because hey, pre-marital jaunts means I’m a slut, dummy. And yes certainly, why do you keep asking? I will continue to stand by this statement of mine years later as well.

You see, only 20% of the girls these days can be classified as ‘good’. The rest are on a mission to wander on the street and just excite drunk men, who’re driving around freely at any hour and wherever they please in the city. If I belong to the latter bracket of girls, I need to be taught a lesson, obviously. Oh and of course I’m taking notes: If I don’t struggle and put up a fight, I might just get away with only a beating. See, I’m expressing quite candidly here, there is no place for a woman in Indian culture, didn’t you get the memo?

But wait, hold on a second miss, why’re YOU complaining? You’re a privileged girl. You were lucky enough to be educated. To be fed just the same as a boy and brought up with love and affection. *Gasp* Your parents even allowed you the freedom to move to the big, bad ‘rape capital’ of the country two months after ‘the gangrape that shook the country’. Or travel often to any place you have the money to earn and afford.

Oh stop screaming aloud on Facebook status messages already, you’re the fortunate one who could wake up and stream the ‘banned’ documentary on an internet connection. And really, was it even a flawless one anyway? Let’s waste our breath by talking about the peripherals – the technicalities of procedure and permissions and how a rapist could be interviewed. Of why these white feminists come and make a ‘false’ film about India just to make us look bad. *weep*

Why don’t they make a film on their own problems instead? This is our problem, and we know the best way to discuss and solve the issue. So let’s be an editor of a popular news channel and start a viral hashtag against the documentary. Let’s drum up sentiments and rage endlessly about a competitor’s TRP-hungry appetite, because THAT’s the battle we want to fight and use our valuable airtime for, without even watching the documentary.

Let’s rally support to ban it because please, it certainly doesn’t have the potential to spark meaningful conversations about the issue. Obviously understanding the mind of a rapist won’t help us introspect and find a solution to tackle the root of the problem. Let’s stop having a two-way dialogue about the issue at all and leave the rapists to mob justice. Let the crowd lynch and murder them and post thrilled pictures of it on Twitter because hey, that’s how we’re going to civilise our society.

But then again, maybe I could just save everyone the trouble and do everyone a favour and not loiter out on the streets at all?

(Hah! Sorry to rudely burst your bubble, but *stretch* it’s 9.30 pm and screw you, I’m stepping out for a walk.)