Get up, Stand up, Grow Up.

So. Here's the lowdown.
A 23 year old girl and her boyfriend/male friend (the media is ambiguous) had gone out to see a movie, in Delhi, in the evening.
After the movie, they wanted to get a bus back.
Because obviously, in this country, the public transport system should be good, the police protection in public areas must be good.
FALSE.
There were some other men on the bus.
They started making lewd comments towards her. Being horrible people. You know the sort.
This boyfriend/male friend tried to stand up for her. He was assaulted.
The girl was gang-raped, beaten up.
Both were left injured, naked, on the side of the road, in the small hours of the morning.
And India finally woke up.

Credits - Apoorva Sonawane

This was the one incident which tipped the scales over.
The masses knew about the rape before, definitely.
The masses worried about rape before, definitely.
But the masses had not done anything.
Now, they're doing something.

There were rallies everywhere. Pune, Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, and rallies are planned in Chennai and Hyderabad too. It's something. It's just a bunch of people walking, but it's something.

Credits - Apoorva Sonawane

The Delhi one was bullshit, though.
The police opened fire.
Tear-gas, and a lathi charge.
[For the ignorant, a lathi is a big stick. A lathi charge is when the all-knowing authorities beat up people with those sticks. Usually, there's no good reason.]

And these were students. People not much older than me. Which is scary.
Dear police, we're trying to save your daughters too. Kthxbye.
[rare un-grammar nazi self, up there^. Because I don't want to associate myself with police now, even for the good cause of grammar.]

Back to the point.
I was in the Pune protest today. It was fantastic. Delhi, we're with you.

Photo credits - Apoorva Sonawane

So let me talk about the Pune protest.
I met two trolls. I wish I had slapped them when I had the chance.

The first one, was the type I like to call Silent Troll. They annoy you just by their presence.
Everyone was wearing black shirts, for the girl who had to go through so much. It's solidarity, it's togetherness.
This guy was wearing a black shirt, I'l give him that much credit.
The shirt had the words - God made woman. His biggest mistake.

Seriously, dude? Wearing that shirt to a rape protest rally? I would've loved to have given him a piece of my mind, but the event didn't need any negative publicity. So I just walked on.

One of the slogans was, "All we want is death for rape!". Even though I personally don't agree with the death sentence, I went along with it. I was one the few people running up and down, shouting "All we want is---?" and everyone else would go bejeesus bonkers yelling out "DEATH FOR RAPE!".

Except for this guy. When I was in his part of the line, he called me aside. I assumed, to ask me what the slogan was, exactly. You couldn't hear these things clearly.
No, this guy called me aside to give a sneer, a creepy look, and ask me "So you want despo rape?"
[despo = desperate. Because really, running up and down in that march makes me seem SO desperate.]

I did not mishear him. That is what he said. With a smirk. To my face.
If this had been an online conversation, that phrase would've had winks and hearts, and his DP would've been a creepy guy in sunglasses who thinks he's the shizz. But I digress.
Again, I did not say anything to him, because events like these can't afford negative publicity. So I walked off. Angry.

Yeah, we do have such extremes of stupid in the world. No wonder stuff is so screwed up.

Photo credits - Apoorva Sonawane

Then again, there's the good stuff.

LOTS of guys showed up. Way more than I expected. Saying that half the crowd was male would not be an exaggeration. Kudos, guys!
It doesn't matter if they were trolls, at least they showed up. Yay.

It was really well organized. I don't know who was in charge of it, but they did a damn fine job. It started on time (=not all that late) and we didn't end up going where we were supposed to, but at least nobody got in trouble. No attacks, nobody got arrested.
The fact that not getting attacked and arrested means it was a success is pretty bad, but at least it was successful. One step for girl/boy, one giant leap for stronger rape laws.

Photo credits - Apoorva Sonawane

We're the future. We're the youth. We're the ones who are going to make a difference.
It's time to get up. Wake up. Grow up. Stand up for what's right.
YOU are part of tomorrow. YOU are the future.
So YOU better do something about crap like this.
No waiting around for the government to do something, not waiting for legislations or laws to change.
Start from the bottom level.
Prevention is better than cure.
Don't wait for something like this to happen before trying to make a difference.
Because really, tomorrow is only what we make it.

Photo credits - Apoorva Sonawane

So get moving.

Teach us something useful.

This is a poem inspired by the Connecticut shooting, and the Delhi gangrape, and the fact that I was doing nothing except Maths. Which is pretty freaking infuriating.

Don't teach us physics,
Don't teach us chemistry.
Teach us love, teach us humanity.
Don't teach me algebra, I'm never going to use it.
Teach girls to value their virginity, because one day they're going to lose it.
Teach the people, they can NOT take it forcefully.
Teach the men, teach the boys.
Teach girls to do and wear what they want -
It's not an obligation, it's a choice.

26/11, 9/11, and Connecticut is just as wrong.
There's only so much I can fit into this song.
And it won't even matter - poets and preachers, artists and teachers -
"You're not an engineer? Inferior creature!"
People of worth aren't paid any heed -
until they're judged, with their "need for attention".
Like, seriously? We're 2 days from the world's end -
You think anyone will be sent to Heaven?

And whose heaven is it anyway? Christ's? Allah's? Ganesha's?
It doesn't even matter - it's the world's biggest issue today.

Don't teach us about things in textbooks.
Teach us to open our minds.
Teach us to be the change we want to see in society.
Don't teach us about expectations, about violence, about cruelty, about the gods above.
Teach us humanity, teach us love.

An Ode to Emily Bronte

"I have seen nothing like it; but, indeed, I have never seen her parallel in anything. Stronger than a man, simpler that a child, her nature stood alone. [...] In Emily's nature the extremes of vigour and simplicity seemed to meet. Under an unsophisticated culture, inartificial tastes, and an unpretending outside, lay a secret power and a fire that might have inflamed the brain and kindled the veins of a hero; but she had no worldly wisdom; her powers were unadapted to the practical business of life: she would fail to defend her most manifest rights, to consult her most legitimate advantage. An interpreter ought to have stood between her and the world. Her will was not very flexible, and it generally opposed her interest. Her temper was magnanimous, but warm and sudden; her spirit altogether unbending"

This is what Charlotte Bronte had to say about her younger sister. Emily died on December 19, 1848 - but not without leaving a mark. Wuthering Heights, everyone has heard of that book. A large collection of (highly underrated, in my opinion) poetry. No, she wasn't prolific as others. Maybe she didn't even write as well as the others of her time (but you will have no doubt of her writing ability once you read her poetry). But there's still a reason that I keep July 30 and December 19 marked.

Emily lost her mother at 3. Then, she went to a horrible school, where she lost her older sisters Maria and Elizabeth. On returning home, she found that her father wasn't the best of tutors either. Emily, Charlotte and Ann would often write together, or go to the moors, and they only had the company of each other.

And that's one of the main reasons Emily strikes such a chord with me. On reading her writing, you could tell that she was a lonely girl. You could tell that she'd lost a lot. You could tell that "inartificial tastes and an unpretending outside," and that she had "a secret power and a fire". There was nothing fake about her. Nothing inartificial about it. She wrote with a passion, she wrote from her heart.

But the thing that stands out the most to me is, her pen-name. Charlotte, Emily and Anne published under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. And even though it's badass - that they're choosing to write when writing wasn't encouraged in girls is a pretty big thing in itself - it's sad that even in the 19th century we had such sexism. But that bit doesn't matter now.

I never knew Emily Bronte, but I wish I did. And through Wuthering Heights and her poetry, I do feel like I know her. I would like to end this piece on an emotional high, but I can't. So I'll just leave you with my motto for the rest of my life.

"I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the gray flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side"
-Emily Bronte in Oft Rebuked, Yet Always Back Returning.