Perhaps I'm not being fair. I have male friends who say they wouldn't care if a girl had sex before marriage. Clearly I have dated some. No doubt many educated, urbane Indian men are more evolved. Perhaps even some of the boys and men who are disgusted by the mistreatment of women and who gallantly go to Ramlila Maidan demonstrations or stand outside the hospital after such attacks, because they are truly angry at the patriarchy and violence women face, would have no problem to love and cherish a victim of such hate.
That is a nice thought to have. Yes, Vikram would. So would Amir, GK, Rohit, maybe even Anil. A nice thought, maybe, but not the real issue. Whether I am soiled goods or not is just a branch off the tree of disregard. The roots of misogyny go much deeper.
Take the phrase so many journalists love to haul out, "India's violence against women starts in the womb," because we have record numbers of female foeticide and infanticide in this country. But even that is just another branch off the tree of disregard. The reasons for rating boys more than girls - and let's not pretend that even some of the well-meaning demonstrators don't do the same - goes deeper, doesn't it?
It is shockingly simple: in India, and beyond - for this is not only an Indian problem - most men, though not all, and even many women, see women as inferior to men: girls are disregarded as a problem or liability at best and at worst they are chattel to be used and abused like animals. Of course not everyone who believes animals are inferior to humans goes around kicking dogs, strangling cats or buggering sheep. But for those whose response to frustration or unsated desire is physical violence on top of a deep disregard for women, presto, you have potential rapists. A lot of them. And that is the rotten core. I don't even want to excavate through the putrid decay, the stinking, scummy roots to get to the bottom of it. Your guess is probably better than mine. I'm in no state to be rational.
But I ask you, will killing rapists or chemically castrating them, those who are caught, really clean out that putrid decay?
Sorry. I'm being operated on, so blood and guts are on my mind. I keep trying not to think about the operation. Because I will be fine, right? Just fine.
You see, unlike the depraved Dec 16 gang-rape in which a physiotherapy student was raped by five men and a "boy," who did not think that was degrading enough and so penetrated her further with their fists and a rusty iron rod, destroying her intestines which eventually killed her; or the little five-year-old girl who was locked up by a neighbour, raped and found unconscious with candles and plastic bottles lodged in her genitalia; compared with them I was lucky. My attack and humiliation were marginally less brutal: an hour-long drive around Delhi while I was "reasoned with" about my company and ambitions as a working woman, several punches on the face when I refused to be "reasoned with" followed by three consecutive rapes with an excruciating finale of a writing pen being jammed up my anus before I was finally kicked and pushed out of the car onto a lonely side street, my head hitting the corner of a discarded old brick, leaving me at death's door.
