“I called them Anna, Anna (Brother, brother) and all they did was pounce on me like beasts!” – a rape victim who is the wife of a priest, recounts in her testimonial to the media.
Rape is one crime that I personally deem to be the gravest of all crimes. I can never forgive a person who is guilty of rape. I understand that for murders, robberies, highjack, forgeries, fraudulent practices etc, there can be many compulsions and reasons. But I cannot fathom the reason for raping a woman who is a sister, a daughter, a wife and a lover for somebody. I cannot understand as to how one man can think of himself as so powerful to exercise his secret fantasies on the hapless body of a small girl. I can never stop shuddering at the reports of 2 year and 4 year old children getting raped. I have always felt strongly about this particular injustice meted out to the fairer sex, just because they happen to be physically the weaker sex.
Think about this – a woman who is in her teens or in her twenties - irrespective of whether she is beautiful or just ordinary looking, each girl will have her own ego as far as her body is concerned. A girl takes time to adjust to and become comfortable with her body. She observers, during her teens, the rapid and sometimes alarming changes that happen to her body. She is a bit apprehensive of how she will look like ( maybe for the first time in her life she gets bothered about her looks). She is also a bit apprehensive of how people around her will behave to her, a bit apprehensive of her own self. She slowly starts coming to terms with her physical appearance and start becoming more and more comfortable with what she looks and more importantly feels like. This can be seen in the way that she carries herself. But now starts her own admiration for her own body. She fiercely protects it from all kinds of intrusions from outside. The village girl might quickly cover up even a small glimpse of her legs whereas the city-girl might not be too bothered about her legs showing. But what binds both these women together is the sharp consciousness of the fact that some element of their countenance is on display. (I will write more on my thoughts about the greatest masterpiece of God – Woman, in a later post sometime. This was just a background to my thoughts, so that you can try and relate to this post like I do with these thoughts in mind. )
Recently I read in the newspaper, that the honourable high court has ruled that the victims of rape will be getting Rs. 20,000 as soon as the case is registered. This is primarily aimed at helping the victim to face the various processes, protocols and trials that she has to undergo while her case is heard and judged.
Now, is that really helpful to the victim? Can we really give her what she has lost? Do we even realize fully the ‘ real loss ‘ that she experiences? I being a male will never understand it but I doubt that even a woman who has not undergone this trauma will ever be able to truly understand the thoughts that cross through the victim’s mind?
My body to me is very sacred, very private and very very very my own. I have protected my body from all sorts of abuses and invasions all through the time that I can remember. I can never share my body with anybody whom I do not love. To me, my body is the extension of my soul and I will subject it into someone’s hands only if she is the one for whom I am ready to sacrifice anything and everything that I have, including my soul. It’s a way of my respecting her for what she means to me, by sharing with her my most private possession apart from my thoughts.
I can recount an instance way back from school. One of the girls in my class happened to walk past me by wriggling through a narrow gap between where I was standing and the blackboard. She brushed herself against my posterior and this immediately inflamed me. I felt abused and my private space was invaded upon. In my fit, I grabbed her by her throat and threw her disdainfully away on to the blackboard, almost injuring her badly. But luckily she was unhurt and stormed away muttering all along about how crazy I was and how she felt that I was a pucca asshole. So true ! Why did I react so wildly? It’s an answer that I have been trying to figure out for many years now and that explains why I remember it still.
I had started this blog as a way of expressing my anguish for the poor women who are getting raped every 4 minutes in our country ( according some report that I happened to read). I am writing about my take on my personal self because that is how I relate to this issue. Only if I imagine what I feel about my body, will I be able to relate to those victims. There are lots of thoughts and views that I will write about this topic later on but for now I am just leaving you with what Tori Amos says in a website -
“Rape's not something where you just go, "Well, get over it" or "Believe in love and peace, my child, and it'll all be over." Well, fuck you, that isn't the answer. It's a great thought, OK, but you can go and stick crystals up your butt and get on with it. I'm all for love and peace, but that's not the side I work on. If somebody would talk about it, or worse, joke about it, I would be ready to kill. That's not healing. It was a very long time after that before I was able to be with anyone again. And it has never been the same as it was before”
My question is, dear readers – Does rape, make a woman have doubts about her faith in God?
P.S. : the title of this post has all caps except " he " . That shows my opinion.
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