The twisted truth – Who is to be blamed?

A recent event that happened with a friend of mine has shocked me to my core. His dad hailed a rickshaw from his home to the station, a 20 minute ride. Being a share rickshaw, the driver stopped a couple of minutes later and 16 year old girl got in. The ride was going fine, until suddenly 10 minutes later, the girl fell (or jumped) out of the rickshaw. Not realizing what had happened, my uncle, a patient of schizophrenia, panicked and asked the driver to keep going. This might sound absurd to many of you, but those of us who deal with such patients would know that this is a genuine reaction of a person suffering from the same. However, the auto driver in his sane mind tried to flee from the spot. He was stopped by a mob and some traffic police and both were handed over to the cops. 

The girl reached the police station along with her family approximately 2 hours later. She had been treated at a hospital and got two stitches on her forehead. She came to give a statement that all was well and that my uncle wasn’t responsible for the mishap. The police even assured my friend’s mother that they will let uncle go by the evening. Suddenly, appeared this man who is a relative of the girl and asked the police to write an FIR against uncle, thanks to his ‘pehchaan’ (influence) in some political party. He put charges like molestation, kidnapping and attempt to murder. Shocked right. So was his family. It has been 3 weeks to the incident today, and my uncle is still in jail. 

Now let me tell you what the FIR states. The girl’s family has given a statement saying that she was pulled in the auto by my uncle and that he then tried to molest her while she kept yelling for help. And then, he pushed her out if the auto and tried to flee the scene.

There are a few issues I have with this made up story that has a lot of loop holes. This incident happened at 2:30 in the afternoon on LBS marg in Mulund, which is a pretty busy street. How come not even one person heard the girl scream? And if the girl was pulled into the rickshaw and was being molested on the back seat, why didn’t the driver stop? Let me tell you here that the auto driver was not even arrested. All he said when asked was, ‘Mujhe nahi pata kya hua’ (I don’t know what happened). If this story was even 1% true, he would have known what happened and in fact would have been arrested for kidnapping. How can my uncle kidnap a girl in an auto? 

The media hammered the last nail in the coffin when they published the article in the papers. Respectable newspapers like TOI also had this news in their paper without verifying the facts or examining the loop holes in their story. Isn’t it the responsibility of the media to uncover the truth? In these times when we are taking safety of women very seriously, everybody jumps on hearing the words molestation and rape. Verifying the details isn’t anyone’s priority. Our society is programmed to think of women as the victim. I don’t know why the girl’s family has framed my uncle to be a criminal. Is it for the ego of the relative who only wants to show his political pehchaan? Or to get any kind of financial aid from the government? But it is certainly not for justice.

I agree many of you will argue that by fleeing the spot he wasn’t showing humanity, but please understand he is a 56 year old schizophrenic patient. What happened with him post that is absolutely inhuman. He is in judicial custody and is not receiving proper medications. Please think of this person as your own father and imagine what he and his family would be going through in these tough times. How a middle class family is bearing the expenses, the humiliation and the harassment. 

We want bail be granted to him. I ask the people of this city that I call home, this city that I call just, to support and pray for him and his family. To speak up against such discrimination from the police and the media. Before you or I become a victim of the same.

Childhood is supposed to be filled with Innocence, Fun and Love

What is this world in which we live? Why is people's outlook towards sex changing and going in such a direction? Why is the age of rape victims declining each day? Is it correct to discuss sex openly? Watch adult movies?

It is so sad that we have to talk to our children about sex at such early ages. My niece is just three. But my sister feels the need to tell her now. Wow! Just imagine. 3! It is so disheartening for me to know that we have to teach our kids that sex is a bad thing. When we should actually be teaching them what I recently learnt from a Marathi movie. That it is all indeed supposed to be a beautiful experience. Your first love, your first kiss, your first encounter with the world of this pleasure that we do not talk about outside of our rooms, should all be memorable and sweet. It should be a result of the love you feel for someone. It should be with someone you trust and at an age when you are matured to tell the different between infatuations, attractions and love. 

Every time a girl is victimized, the say it is her fault. Women should dress appropriately. But what's their excuse of assaulting a little girl who doesn't even know the meaning of 'dressing appropriately'. Parents have to talk to their kids they say. But when? When they are 15? When they are 13? 10? 8? 7? 5? 3? When? Will the rapists and molesters decide this for us. Why should we have to talk to our little children about offenders? Why should we tell them that this world is full of bad people? Is this why we bring them into this world? Whom should we protect them from? Neighbors? Uncles? Bus drivers? People they call Brothers? 


People are exposed to adult movies and clips over the internet freely. Is this exposure to sex correct? Is that an acceptable excuse to rape someone? How can you live with yourself knowing you have ruined someone's life? What kind of mindset is this? It is both shocking and hurtful to know that some of these men have families and kids of their own.  

My heart cries when I see what childhood is turning into. You can't let your kids out. When a stranger looks at them and smiles we take them and walk away from there. We are living in a world where we don't trust anyone. Imagine the condition of the parents who have to leave their kids alone. Every day of their lives would be so scary. Hoping that their little ones are safe. In these times, neighbors are supposed to be your extended family. They are supposed to be looking after your children not looking for opportunities. This criminal offence definitely deserves capital punishment. In fact it should be so severe that the next time a person should be scared even to look at a girl offensively.

In the name of love

The most clichéd question that any lover would have ever asked his love, ‘What can you do to prove your love for me?’ And the answers can be highly practical to highly filmy. The normal (clichéd, I mean) responses to this question are. ‘I can bring the stars for you’, ‘I can die for you’, ‘I can give you all the happiness in the world’ and on and on.

But what I can’t understand is, why does anyone need to prove their love? If you love someone, isn’t it supposed to show? Why does anyone ask you to do things for them? Like if you really love me, quit smoking. If you love me, don’t talk to your best friend because I don’t like him. If you love me, leave your parents. If you love me, get serious about your career. If you love me, turn vegetarian. The list is just endless.

And it is not even just on demand from the other person. We question ourselves too at times. We need to do things for this love of ours to prove to ourselves that we truly love him. (I mean come on, don’t you freakin know your own feelings?) And we will do things that we don’t know, that we aren’t comfortable with, that we have never done in life. We make an effort. We go out of our way. But why? Love is acceptance. So if this person loves me, why would he be happy if I change myself for him? Or why is he asking me to let go of something that is so important to me?

I think now-a-days, we have confused love with our egos. I am not saying that we have stopped loving people. I am not saying that in all of the above examples love does not exist. It does. But when you ask someone to prove their love. That’s when you have let your ego in, my friend.

Also, there comes the time when we fight. So now that I am upset, how do I show that to you? I don’t eat. I stay up all night. I don’t go out. I don’t talk to anyone. I sulk. And after I do all that, I make sure that you know that I have done that. I’m sorry that I sleep whenever we fight, knowing that you are angry with me. But that doesn’t mean I love you any less. I love you and I love you a lot.

So next time when someone asks you, ‘What can you do to prove your love for me?’ Simply answer, ‘I can stick with you for the rest of my life.’ And that is it. That is all I am gonna do for you. And that is all I am expecting from you and from myself.