Letter to a Sister

Dear Sister,

I do not know by what name you were born. I do not know how you look like. But I do know how you died. I do know how mutilated your body must have been in the last 12 days of your life. And that is why I cry and I hope that you are in a far better place than this world that showed its cruelest face to you on 16th December. 

Sister, do also know, that my heart cries at present, but the tears will be replaced by a strong resolve soon. I will continue your fight. I will not let your memory fade away like a sad distant tale. The wounds inflicted upon your body and soul will remain fresh in mine. Every moment from now on I would shudder to think that what happened to you could have easily happened to my mother, my friends and me.

In another couple of days, this year will end and a new will begin. It is in that new beginning that I hope our country’s mindset will change. A girl’s birth will be rejoiced. A daughter will be encouraged to live her dream. A son will be taught to respect. A mother-in-law will take pride in the achievements of her daughter-in-law. A woman will walk the streets without fear. A girl will watch a movie, board a bus, attend a late night party in peace. And if a tainted character even attempts to humiliate a woman, there will be hundred voices to protect and defend her.

I want to remember you not as a victim of gang rape, but a hero and a martyr because though the circumstances that led to your gruesome end should never befall on anyone, your trauma united this nation. You represent the pain every Indian woman is subjected to face - A whistle, a stare, a curse, an eve tease, a touch, a shame…everything. Your fight is the young India’s fight now. You have awakened the spirit of youth, to voice what is wrong and stand for the right.

Sister, I know your family’s loss is unfathomable. No one can bring back their daughter, their beloved sister back. I cannot even begin to imagine what they are going through. I can only offer my prayer and wish upon the stars to shine a little brighter upon them. May there be many messengers of God who bring them your news every day. Tell them that you are happy. Tell them that you are finally at peace.

You are gone, but let your strength remain with each one of us so that we finish what you started. Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome someday.

Love and peace,

AG




Image via http://adventuroj.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/tear.jpg

Who’s Getting Punished after all?

I went for a late night show yesterday with my family. The hall was packed though two seats next to me were still empty. Just as the titles began to appear on the movie screen, two young men came to occupy the seats. On any other day I would have remained oblivious to their presence, enjoying the movie. But yesterday, I felt uncomfortable. I kept fidgeting in my seat not wanting to share even that common arm rest with a complete stranger. Pretty soon, I changed places with my husband who had taken the corner seat. 

Back home, away from that public place, I sat thinking about my rather odd behavior. I prefer to know myself as a modern young woman. I am well educated, have worked late nights, hung out with friends, attended conferences and seminars, traveled alone within the city and around the country frequently. Changing places at a movie theatre just because a man happened to sit next to me is totally out of character. The only possible explanation I can think of is – it was the act of my subconscious female mind which still cannot come to terms with the horrendous gang rape of a fellow woman.

The thing is, on the outside, I am still the individual ready to face any challenge, compete at work, manage home and office, take on the world, but inside I am shaken, I am fearful and I am afraid that just a few steps away from home, perverted minds might be lurking in the shadows ready to nab me and treat me like an object merely made to satisfy their carnal instincts.

I can never board a bus ever. I will fear taking a taxi ride all alone. I will not even accidently enter the non-female compartments of a metro. I will not walk in a crowd in fear of the shoulders rubbing against me. I will not walk alone without glancing across my shoulders every second. 

Yes, I do not want to be this coward. I do not want to look like a weakling who is scared of every gaze and every touch of the opposite sex. But that is what it has boiled down to because one girl as fun loving, as daring, as modern as I am was shattered to pieces so badly that even a lifetime is not enough for her to gather the pieces and regain her dignity.

Modern India is flooding with examples of women who have made a name for themselves, and made their country proud with their achievements. Politics, sports, arts, science, dance, theatre, every field has a name of a woman written in golden letters. Her achievements are not based on her gender. Her skills are not any different from her male counterparts. Her actions are not any lesser because she is a woman. But in spite of all the advancements, the only thing that matters in the end is the body she was born with and how it is ogled on in the man-centric world. 

What happened to the 23 year old last Sunday was so ghastly that the tremors are being felt by each and every Indian woman. Shaken parents are back to restricting their daughters’ movements. Male escorts namely brothers, friends and colleagues are back in action. College girls want to remain in a group. Office goers are shying away from working late. So even though everyone agrees that the wrong doers were those evil men, the punishment of their sins are being faced by woman and woman alone.

From the moment girls are born in our country, our training begins. Sit in a certain way, dress in a certain way, speak in a certain way. Is it not time that the same grooming be given to boys? The guilty will hopefully get a life imprisonment, but when will all women be released from their life imprisonments? When will women be able to be part of a society where men treat them like a fellow human being and not just a toy to be fantasized, played and tossed around?

The guy sitting next to me in the movie hall might not even have noticed my exchanging places with my husband. Even if he did, he might not have thought the act to be odd. But that’s exactly what needs to change, doesn’t it? Men need to feel equally awkward and equally insecure when a woman treats them with such mistrust that she can’t even sit next to them in a movie hall for a few hours. 

Gateway to the Gods: Haridwar

"The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions." - Alfred Lord Tennyson

An image of India for many, conjures up images of ascetics in bare minimum with locks of hair towering above their head like a coiled serpent and a trident or a metal casket in their hands. Needless to say, such saints are in plenty in this birthplace of Hindu religion and though the India showcased to the world today is vary of this image, it is still an undeniable and ingrained part of this country, just as much as the smart professionals who are revolutionising the IT sector of the world with their proven genius.

While modern India is self confident and optimistic and every inch the replica of any other western country, the mammoth cultural heritage of a thousand years or more, cannot be forgotten either. Look a little beyond the showy malls or past the concrete expressways and you can still witness the India of the nineteenth, eighteenth or seventeenth century co-existing with the modern globe.

Some cities are especially a rewarding experience for those in search of the India of fables and fakirs and one such destination is Haridwar. Known as ‘The Gateway to the Gods’ this city has remained for the past thousands of years the focal point of devout Hindus who want to exit the vicious circle of life and death to attain nirvana. And that all important status has been given to Haridwar by its glorious past and the holy river Ganga.

 

On the Banks of Ganga

Haridwar is the first city where River Ganga enters the plains. Leaving her carefree playfulness behind, Ganga descends from mountains and through valleys to transform into the feisty incarnation of power and composure. She is the secret gateway to heaven, the holy excelsior on Earth that can erase the sins of a thousand births in one drop and take your soul straight to heaven. For Hindus, there is no greater desire than to be soaked in the mystical power of Ganga and it is for this reason that many spend a lifetime wishing to come once to Haridwar and wash away their sins on the banks of the holy river.

The Legend

Legend says that Haridwar is one of the 4 places in India where a drop of immortality nectar (amrit) fell from the skies when it was retrieved by the churning of the oceans by Gods and demons. That raised the status of Haridwar to a pious strata from where it has never descended. Rather every 12 years the status is all the more glorified when almost 15 million people participate in the Kumbh Mela drowning their sorrows and sins in the biggest communal bath ever witnessed in the world.

An Ancient City

Haridwar is also one of the most ancient cities of the world. Archaeological discoveries have shown rare artefacts between 1200 B.C. and 1700 B.C.buried in the depth of this sacred land. It finds its mention in ancient scriptures as Gangadwar, Kapila, and Mayapuri. Indeed from the time when Lord Budhha traversed these paths to the Britishers who came to colonise India, the city has witnessed the rise and fall of many emporers and empires.

 

Things to See

Har-ki-Pauri – The main ghat on the river Ganga where devotees gather to bathe and pray. Evening time is especially a treat with floapting lamps covering the entire area with an ethereal glow.

Maya devi Temple – Temple in honor of the presiding Godess of Haridwar after whom it is also known as Maypuri.

Mansa Devi Temple – Atop a hill that can be reached by a cable car. The view from here is breathtaking.

Gurukul Kangri University – A centre of vedic knowledge where teaching by gurus is in traditional oral style.

Riverside bazaars – Mostly selling items related to their religious significance and thronging with small eateries.

For the Traveller

For travellers coming from beyond the shores of India, Haridwar is a place to decipher Hinduism. To watch closely how confessions are made not to a priest, but immersed in the vastness of a sacred river that ironically is becoming blacker by the day carrying the burden of so many sins.
The priests chanting hymns, little urchins pulling your shirt to buy a rupees worth flower basket or the brass pitchers filled with the sacred water, the mystical hermits who can tell all about your past births and present gastrointestinal problems in one breath, the thousand and one burning incense sticks camouflaging the smells of wilting flowers, burning pyres and waste, and the flood of human mass all converging to the ghats to find their passageway to salvation, in all these cacophany of sounds,you might just find the answers.The ravaging waters of the cold, torrential Ganga might just be able to dissolve your idea of what it is to be a human being. The cleansing of the body and the soul among a strange gathering might just help you look at life from an Indian’s point of view.

As described Sri Aurbindo once, “This physical world which for us is so real and absolute and unique, seems to them (Indians) but one way of living among many others, In short, a small, chaotic, agitated and rather painful frontier on the margin of immense continents which lie behind the unexplored. “

The Haridwar experience might just help you understand yourself a little better.

(This post was originally written by Atula for www.giftedtravel.com. You can read more of her travel stories here )

Image via cc/Flickr by Gane, rajkumar1220 and mckaysavage