March 8 is Women’s day. Yes i know I’m writing few days later, all the more reason, as few events have left me perturbed.
This IS the day for women, in memory of women’s fight to get an equal footing in a male dominated society. That the ways of the world too have been scripted by men for women is a known fact. To be born in this world & live on one’s own terms & conditions, is still NOT possible for many women. My salam to all those women who have been fighting these age old barriers, stigmas & this world basically.
I can list over a 100 women who have taken it upon themselves to be before their times & make our lives easier. However this day, our fight wc is on-going is made into a commodity as the Women’s day is marketed by all & sundry.
Many frivolous media, marketing & advertising experts have marketed Women’s day. I won’t go into those details. However we celebrate this landmark day. This time it is a blot on our calendar in India.
A young student was killed at point blank range. The accused was her stalker neighbour, who bumped off Radhika Tanwar & the killer saw her die coldly & slipped away. There can be many a pros-cons. I don’t think it’s easy to pass a judgement on those who witnessed it. He had a gun, let’s not forget it so to expect all commuters to leave everything to nab the killer is asking superman qualities in normal struggling humans. I may theorise, how everybody could have spontaneously surrounded & overpowered him. But we are talking of a society, which is struggling to make peace in their lives with their own problems. A killer with a gun on the loose one’s life is imp.
So Tanwar’s killer slipped away from Delhi University campus while the rest of the world moved on & women celebrated women’s day. 3 days down & the killer is yet to be caught. I thought there was vigilance thanks to police, the CCTV cameras. I don’t know how but the man has slipped from the clutches of law initially.
Back home in Mumbai, a early 30s housewife & mother of 2 threw her children from 19th floor & then flung herself to death. Again on women’s day. I have been asking myself this question, something surely grave has happened, NOT suddenly that she motivated herself to do something as violent as this.
Imagine a lady who had to take such a step. The son who, she dangled for a while before throwing him down, truly Sad. Then that naive little girl of hers. What must’ve gone through her mind till the last moment, we will never know & what must’ve transpired there too we’ll never know. But the truth can’t get burnt on their pyre.
Something surely must’ve snapped in her mind. Nidhi saw no road at all, didn’t think there was an alternative. She didn’t share with anyone her problems, or then saw no recourse at all. With all roads blocked this lady took such a step.
Many a man said, “How could she do this?” “She’s not a good woman, mother.” “At least she should’ve spared her children.” Should she have spared them? If she were to have done that, then just killed herself? Surely Nidhi knew that all their lives her kids would’ve had to listen to the taunts- their mother was evil, society would have bad mouthed her & they’d have been left to the mercy of god.
It still gives me shudders. Years ago i covered a story of a young middle class, creative director’s daughter throwing herself from SNDT college’s terrace. Eeks. I still get goose pimples. These acts of killing are NOT acts of bravery, they also are NOT acts of losers. The person is helpless. I just can’t imagine killing myself. NO way. Nidhi was a CA. i still can’t believe why she was mentally, emotionally dependent, saw NO hope. didn’t ever think of doing something of her own – be free & happy.
It is only concrete, a true concrete jungle.. Cold & hard. Imagine the sound of banging down of bodies with a loud thud. Ouch. It hurts. Does anyone deserve this kind of a harsh death? I don’t think so.
As for Nidhi, she got her children ready while she had made up her mind, that this IS it. NO more giving life another chance. She told at home she’s going to drop the kids to school. She takes the elevator up to the top most floor. Makes the kids remove their shoes, school bags, lunch boxes; she aligns them in a line. First throws the son who apparently when Nidhi tried to get the balance kept him dangling for few seconds & he bit her as per the marks on her body. Then imagine she picked up her tot of 3 years, threw her & in a split of a second Nidhi threw herself from the 19th floor.
Why? What is it that makes people like Nidhi do this? Since last 2 days all people are talking is she was a CA, studying MBA. She spoke to her parents & she had a friend, what kind of a lady is she? We simply don’t know what has transpired within their four walls everyday & every night. And you know what we’ll never know. The man even if by remote chance gets arrested, will go out on bail, remarry & have new children. That’s how they live a false life.
Meanwhile an artist, who works using art therapy on psychologically & emotionally affected persons told me, “She has done whatever with a very cool mind.” May be i said. But what right did she have to kill her children? ”
“She didn’t want them to suffer like her. She didn’t want them to be reminded everyday that their mother was weak, had some problem & killed herself. She chose to die leaving them behind, would’ve given them grief, plus the situation in their house would never have favoured the children.” Didn’t know that an artist could see all this through her photograph, plus the pics of the way Nidhi had arranged the shoes, kids’ school bags, etc. “The cool mind with which she planned all this shows nothing in her action was on an impulse. It was done in a calculative manner.”
After this gruesome death came news of 2 more girls’ bodies being found in suitases. There were strangulation marks, obviously some sort of consensual sex, which again is not an issue. But the fact that the men who kept a relation with them resorted to such violent behaviour.
They were not just hit or strangulated, they were murdered in cold blooded manner. AS if this violence is not enough, their bodies were then dumped in a suitcase. This is the worth of a person a man once loved? this what levels people will resort to? I’m too shocked by these events.
For all the talks, we are a peaceful nation, we love & respect women, this is contradictory. The fact is that violence on women has increased, it yet again shows we still are vulnerable. I really don’t know what we have to celebrate.