Unik

Just few hours are left in 2013 now, I cannot help thinking how rapidly this year has passed. But when I look deeper it wasn't that quick after all.

The immensity of time never ceases to amaze me. All the joy and sorrow that this year holds. The laughs & heart-aches, success & failures, highs & lows, challenges & obstacles and life-changing decisions. All the wonderful people I have come in touch with and the unfortunate few whom I've lost contact with, meeting my super awesome BFF after two long years. The latest fad and all crazy new experiments. New places that were explored, places that were so unexpected and never on my list to visit. 'Bhilai' and 'Hisar'. Friends that got married. The great novels that I got to read, all the awesome movies and TV series I got to watch. And of course the cool projects I got to work on, well at least they look cool and startling on THE screen after all the perplexing and tiresome nonetheless incredible team work. All happy and not-so-happy accidents, breaking my 'Teacher' glasses, losing my phone(twice), and of course my adventurous train journeys.

In a nutshell.. What an amazing year it was. All the lessons that were learnt in this year were nothing but invaluable.

She was 23. She was a girl. She could have been anybody. She could have been me. It hurts me to think that it happened in the city I I love so much. The city I have always been so proud of. Now the girl is no more, people are on streets protesting, shouting slogans, lighting candles, silent marches, and lord knows what else. But lighting a candle won't bring her back. Nor shouting slogans will prevent another such crime from happening. We have been listening about more and more rape cases happening everyday that are coming into light. So where does this go to? The whole nation is grieving over the loss of its daughters, still the perverts among us somehow manage to make their way. Instead of trying to find a solution, political parties are busy blaming others for the mishap for their own motto. According to them either the girl is dressed "provocatively" or the morals are not sound enough (who gave you the rights to decide), and the most recent one includes 'Honey Singh'. If his songs are vulgar or obscene how do they get past the censor board? Are the govt officials doing there job properly? And eventually the blame goes onto the police, as if they have failed, like they were supposed to predict/anticipate this. The blame game is endless.

We often forget that the only person we should blame is ourselves and our thinking, which in my views is the sole reason for these kind of incidents. Discrimination of the girls from the very start, female infanticide, deliberate starvation, domestic violence are some of the issues faced by women in the present century, surprisingly even by the educated classes. Wasn't illiteracy once a cause of it? And as far as the dressing is concerned, are they saying that women will be safe if they are dressed in saris? Is that the case in villages? Do the girls there dress up provocatively? And what of the minors, does a 4 or 7 years old girl or a 90 year old lady will dress up provocatively??  Its high time now for a change. The need of the hour is to teach the people to respect women instead of lecturing the girls on how to dress. And for girls to stand up for themselves, our so called "Society" to change their thinking and give these sick bastards a hard punch on their face, with a punishment so brutal that these mentally sick people will think over a hundred times to commit such a heinous act ...