The Moralist Rapists of NCR

The metro was slightly crowded and I was in the second coach, one next to the first coach reserved for ladies. Standing close to the door, as my habit usually is, I was concentrating on the last few pages of some book, even the name of which has slipped away from my memory from the happenings thereafter. 

When it reached Indraprasth, a fellow came running and managed to get inside close before the doors close, pushing me sideways a bit. Maybe in his late twenties, the moron was clamouring on to someone on his phone, perfectly intent on grabbing everyone’s attention to what he was saying. I tried to focus on my book, but I was slowly getting irritated. 

The sum and substance of the creature's rant was this. That he was the employee of some international Call Center, that he had written an article on some B grade newspaper, that it was about the way  girls at international call centers in Gurgaon dressed, that they were also disobeying a new direction from the police which dictated that girls should not be seen outside after 8 pm, that these girls were violating the moral and cultural norms that Indians uphold and so on...” He went on to give a discourse on how girls are dressing scantily nowadays and inviting people to rape them. 

Once it made its point, it started getting restless. And then the ogre went into the ladies compartment to repeat its performance there. 

I have mostly been a harmless person my entire life. I cannot also say that the relocation to Delhi and the myriad experiences I’ve had here has in anyway changed me substantially. But I really felt like watching its (his) mutilated mangled remains, splattered beyond recognition under a truck or an SUV or something strong enough. Yes, I would have definitely loved that. And I am sure, if that did happen, what would come out of its head would be maggots. Maggots of insecurity, maggots of ignorance, maggots of sexual frustration, maggots squeaking a history of ogling at girls in the day and summing up courage to molest a girl walking in a dark alley alone. 

It is a frustrating experience to watch people. That is why I find it comforting to remain immersed in books. Call me a negative thinker, but all I see is arrogance, ignorance and violations. Metro is a chip of the society that offers you an interesting insight in this regard. I see youngsters in faded jeans, bright shirts, shamelessly staring at girls top to bottom, without once talking their eyes off. I see drunk boys in groups passing loud comments on what portions of the girl beside them is visible from which angle and how good she will be in bed and sort. I am not adding here the spitting, breaking queues, playing songs on cheap Chinese phones at ear shattering volumes because that will be kind of out of topic.

We have Gurgaon chasing Delhi, Noida and its other neighbors to become the rape capital of the country. We have an interesting policing system there that directs females to remain indoors after 8 PM. And we have villagers who sit in dharna claiming that the gang rape of a girl by some men from their village was justified because she was going with her boyfriend in a car at night. Pretty soon, we will have a “right to rape” for Male Indian Citizens (albeit with some reasonable restrictions, as the courts often say) included in Article 21 of the Constitution of India. 

My question is, what do you do when some people claim so? What if, a bunch of rapists are so blinded by their barbarous notions that they think they acquire a right to rape a girl if she is scantily dressed? And what if they are not open to reasoning? What if they cling on to the idea that men have a right to rape women based on criteria ranging from their dressing or behaviour to the time they are seen outside? And what if there are more to support them on the grounds of morality and culture?

I ask these questions to you because, I think, personally, that such people ought to be torched.