I kept staring at my computer screen. What should I write? How should I put my frenzy thoughts in a coherent sentence? I like to write. It is my passion, my answer to the world that keeps me bogged down with its never ending questions. It is a kind of therapy to me. But this time it is not the passion speaking. It is the anger, the fear, the restlessness and mostly the contempt.

From being labeled as the fairer, weaker sex to a fragile body, women have had many nomenclatures. I recently read Khaled Hosseini’s ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’. The turmoil of Afghanistani women described in the book wet my eyes. I thanked God that I was better off. I thought I am in a land where I can study, I can work and I can dream. But now I realize that no matter where you are, a woman will never find a bed of roses. Damm! Every where she has to fight, fight a lone battle.

The recent Munirka gang rape incident has reinstated how barbaric people can be. Newspaper headlines, Facebook statuses, protest marches are screaming about it. Media has got its fodder. For days now they will talk, debate, state, explain etc etc about what is right, what is wrong. People will call for stricter laws. But where would we reach with all this? Like many other women of the city, I don’t have answers, only unanswered questions remain.

What should the women do? Should we stay inside their homes? OK WE WILL…Should we not go for work? OK WE WILL…Should we dress decently? OK WE WILL….Should we stop getting educated? OK WE WILL….BUT JUST GIVE US ONE ASSURANCE. THAT ALL THIS WILL STOP. CAN WE HAVE AN ANSWER???

I don’t know whom am I posing these questions to. Is it the men who commit such heinous crimes? Is it the women who somewhere contribute in their own degradation? Is it the society that treats women and men differently? Is it the law makers who care a damm about what is happening to a vulnerable girl on the streets?

What will we do with our economic growth? Where are the idealists who claim that the modern world is the pedestal of women empowerment? Is this what you call empowerment? In a metropolitan city, the national capital of the country where supposedly there should be more protection and a safer environment such brutal acts take place? Then what is the difference between a remote village and Delhi? The women in both places are unsafe.

Stepping outside or staying inside, both are scary.

The poor girl told her parents that she wants to live. I pray you do sister because there can be broken bodies but nothing like an amputated spirit.

I feel ashamed to be a woman in this land of barbarians….