I find it difficult to breathe today... I have been trying to stem the anguish within my heart over the past twenty-four hours ever since I heard of the Chennai horror story of a tiny little girl having been brutalized and gang-raped by twenty-two monsters. To call them animals would be doing animals an injustice, for they could never stoop to these levels of degradation.
My heart aches because, till November 19th, 2017, I lived in the same apartment in Chennai, a space which I considered a haven of peace, where children of all age groups played and lived in perfect harmony. We would smile in pride when we watched children playing basketball and cycling in the evenings. Mothers would hold their toddlers by the hand and walk around the building, often sitting in the children’s park when out of breath.
It was assumed that the building had all the facilities required for a life of ease – well-maintained lifts, electricians and plumbers on call, an office that looked into every requirement of the dwellers, and above all, an efficient security agency that had a plethora of security men who were there in case of every contingency.
Nothing could go wrong, it seemed, in such enviable surroundings.
The horror unfolded two days ago on national television, a ghastly litany of gang rape, drug abuse and sexual violence, at the centre of which was a tender life that had been brutalized by twenty-two monsters, from the ages of 66 to 23. Each of them was an employee working in the apartment, all wolves in sheep’s clothing.
My heart sank further when I saw their photographs. I knew many of these men.
The genial lift guy who would sing out ‘Good Morning’ with a cheery smile
The prompt electricians who would walk in to repair tube lights and fans, whenever a complaint was lodged
The polite water suppliers who carried cans of water and came in to place them in the kitchen
The extra friendly security chief who sat at the gate and waved his hand every time he saw me
I stared at all their faces in the photograph on television, in which the word ‘ACCUSED” was written in letters of blood red.
These were the men all of us living in the apartment had trusted implicitly. After all, weren’t they the ones who were posted there to keep us safe?
Men in their sixties, fifties, forties, thirties and twenties... predators, vampires, beasts... RAPISTS!
Thank God there were no juveniles who would have got away, scot-free.
It was almost as if a common voice had whispered in their tainted minds, “Be the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.”
What is it we want for these rapists? Castration? Hanging until death? Or a living death that condemns them to a life of pain and agony? How can we sit back and let little children suffer such heinous attacks, again and again? Isn’t it time our country had laws that were strong enough to act as deterrents? The gang rape in Delhi sent shock waves throughout the country, enough to amend the law. But has anything changed at all? Rapes are still happening with impunity, and rapists continue to terrorize children and women, confident that they have enough time on their side to be able to live a full and fruitful life, before the law takes them in hand, if at all. Babies, adolescents, teenagers, young and old women – no one is safe from these predators. After all, India has been labelled the most unsafe country for women in the world. And no one cares a fig!
What has happened in this apartment building is something that all of us need to think about. Despite CCTV cameras all around, this gang of men still managed to pull off a crime this terrible, this unforgivable. Not one of them stopped to think of how they would have reacted if this had happened to their own children. It is these kinds of incidents that bring home the fact that danger lurks not only outside, but within the safe confines of one’s own home environment. It has become mandatory for parents and teachers to insist that their little charges know, not only about safe and unsafe touches, but about the possibility of predators all around them. We all need to hammer this idea into the heads of our little ones, and look out for every tiny sign of discomfort that could give us hints and clues of abuse, sexual or otherwise.
Today, the ladies in the apartment have come out of their homes and are manning the main gates, barring the entry of visitors. They are badly shaken, being mothers of young ones themselves, but are determined to stay on at their posts and fight this out to its inevitable conclusion. In their hearts, every child needs to be protected; they weep for the little one who was violated. It is for them, and for every single one of us, to explain to our children, in no uncertain terms, that the world is no longer a safe place.
For in the words of ex-President Barack Obama, “This is our first task – caring for our children. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how, as a society, we’ll be judged.”
