Recently, someone tweeted about an airline passenger refusing to fly in an airplane piloted by a woman. I didn't react. I no longer do. These things are 'chindi,' for me nowadays. The earlier Nandini would have written letters to the Editor, written an emotional post, vented on Facebook, said 'Fuck you' to every man in her line of vision and vented it all on her husband. Now, Nandini has become like everyone else. Reads news, cribs and moves on. Until a couple of days later, a girl who still seems to have faith in me pinged me the link. I didn't respond for 2 mins. I didn't even have to read the news ( didn't read it from the tweet, either) I just knew it. A man refuses to acknowledge a woman. Simple. The reason for feminism. The girl who pinged me? She's a feminist and isn't ashamed to admit it, thankfully. I owed her a response. Unlike everyone else who in the name of feminism either burn bras or act like they are not feminists just so they are not made fun of, by the boys. As I typed out my response on chat to her, I wondered what made me this blase. What made me this apathetic to the cause I lived for, a couple of years ago? Personal situation? No. I didn't have an answer. Just sheer shame, I confess. Again, just like every Indian who treats a bomb blast casually unlike the Americans for whom lives changed after 9/11, I forgot about the article. Until I read this. I cried.
I read 'Aruna's story' by Pinki Virani when I was 19 years old. Those were the days I read India Today avidly and saw a book review on Bitter Chocolate. That book was by Pinki again, but on incest. #Samedifference no? Both issues don't exist and if they do, it's because of the girl. As a feminist out to prove a point and as a Women's Studies student, that book had to be read. I doubted everyone after reading that book, all the men - family and friends. I cried for all those kids. I wondered what I would do if it happened to me. I also saw on the back cover that Pinki Virani wrote 'Aruna's story.' I didn't find that book in the book store, so it was forgotten. Then, I finally found it for Rs 50. I bought it from a roadside bookseller. The cover was red and black. Symbolic, I thought.
Those days, I read the book I bought immediately. I started one evening and couldn't control my tears by the time I finished the first chapter. I stopped. I had classes. I had other stuff to do. I was the practical know-it-all. I came back to it when we discussed Rape in class. I wasn't in class. I was busy doing theater because education through academics wasn't important for me. Reinforced more and more when I read books. It didn't matter. Academic discussion of what rape was and whether it was because of social conditioning we accept it or whether a man's power is assumed in the power equation. Who cared? Aruna had been raped. Brutally. And the man was free.
I went back to the book to figure out if I could use it for an assignment. After missing my classes, I wanted my assignment to be really good and based on current events so I score extra points. Yes, current events. Aruna was raped in 1973 by a ward boy who couldn't take it that a woman caught him stealing and pointed out that it was wrong. I finished the book that night. I cried at every page. I couldn't believe that it was possible. Not in a democracy like my India? Not in a country where there are people like me fighting? Surely no, right? To date, I see the book and tears well up. I haven't been moved anything like the way Aruna's story has moved me. I've not had sleepless nights over anything else but thinking what Aruna must be doing. Pinki Virani, in the book talks of Aruna being alive. This was in 2001. The book was written in 1998. I hoped and assumed she'd be dead by now. She was a painful reminder in many ways of what I was, who I was. Painful in more ways than one.
After reading that book, I've constantly imagined situations where I'm in danger of being raped and prepared myself for it. I told myself I'd not let anyone do that with me, I'd fight back. I fought back when that guy ruffled my hair on a bus in the middle of the night. I fought back when the other guy pinched this woman's butt in front of me. I fight back every time someone laughs at me for being a feminist. Like Aruna. She is 64 years old today and still fighting. The Supreme Court is trying to decide euthanasia laws in India. She wants to die. Obviously. We haven't done much for her, have we?
The rapist was free after 6 years of being in jail. He was jailed long after the rape, of course. And not for rape. But, for attempted murder. Why? Oh, if you are a woman over 18, YOU have to prove that the bastard raped you. And if there is no penetration, it is not rape. So, it's okay if a guy pinches you, if he gropes you, if he treats you like an animal or if he leers at you or if he spits at you and drives away, if he rips your clothes apart, if he insults you. It's okay. You are a person with a fuckable vagina. With breasts. They are meant to be used. Get over it. This is the message our laws give us, our mothers prepare us all our lives for, our grandmothers cry for this reason when we are born and the reason we are killed when we are born.
Walmik probably got married to a pretty and innocent woman. He probably has grown up kids now. He probably led a life. He must have taken his wife out to the movies. Seen umpteen 'mujhe bachao scenes' and not felt anything. Why would he? He only tried to kill a female superior who showed attitude. In his defense, she didn't die. She still lives. Rather exists on a hospital bed. Screaming in terror every time she heard a male voice- from outside her window or on the radio. Eating through tubes. She was declared blind and was brain dead because the bastard used a dog chain to choke her and it cut off oxygen supply to her brain.
I've lost all the control I seemed to have mastered with my views on men a couple of paragraphs back. And I've lost all sense of balance that a well-written post is supposed to have. She does that to me. That Aruna has haunted me. I thought she was gone. But, no. She doesn't haunt the guy who raped her. She doesn't haunt the Indian justice system. She haunts women like me. Because I cannot do anything for her. Fuck, I cannot do anything for myself.
My whole week is ruined now. Good I'm absent minded. Good I'm a bloody Indian. Good I'm socially conditioned to adjust. Good I'm an Indian woman. I will forgive, forget and crib only the next time Aruna is in the news again. Hopefully, in the obituary pages. Then she can really haunt me and only for a short while. Because she belongs to the women we've forgotten.
