Deep Ties

Coming down to Kerala on a break is always such a pleasure! It is where you have grown up, after all, and spent many years, interspersed with joyful and not-so-joyful moments. The climate is the same, the roads are as dingy, there are myriad flats in place of individual houses, and all’s well in God’s Heaven. The only thing that remains unchanged, and will always do, is the attitude of the people here. We Malayalis have a style of our own, which grants us the leeway to be extra familiar, and one step forward would take us to the brink of rudeness. And from the brink to a topple-over is the easiest step forward ever. It doesn’t even need a shove, however much the other party is provoked! I walk into a friend’s home, and after the customary hugs, the first statement is, “You've put on weight, you know!”  This after regular walks, a strict diet and numerous packs of Sugar Free sloshing around in your system! I smile weakly, and nod, hoping that there’s an end to the matte...

Yet another young woman is raped, and all the hype is back again! A Uber cab driver beat up and raped a 27 year old woman after she dozed off in his cab. He threatened to assault her with an iron rod, if she tried to scream, bringing back gruesome memories of the Delhi gang rape case. After which, he slunk away like the coward he is. Later, he told his wife that they would have to leave their home in Mathura. This is a man who has two daughters and a stepson, supposedly a family man, but in reality, a monster who has raped earlier as well. Shiv Kumar Yadav is a repeat offender, who was arrested in 2011 for seven months in connection with a rape case. He was acquitted due to lack of evidence, which is what happens in more cases than not. Does lack of evidence mean that the man is innocent, or that the woman is the one to be blamed? Seven months in jail for a crime that should have ensured he was locked away forever? What is this country we live in? Where laws are so toothless ...