It is not my fault!

I board a bus at broad daylight to return home but due to the terrible traffic, it is already dark when I reach home. Maybe many would think it's my fault. I struggle to rush home because somehow people may think it is my fault that drunkards and rapists and kidnappers roam the streets around my house after dusk. They may think it is my fault that these crooks abducted and raped a girl some weeks back.

My society preys at me with eyes full of hatred when I come outside in shorts and sleeveless tops because my body is not allowed to be showcased like that. I am to be dressed in full clothes with not a hint of my skin showing because somehow it is my fault that men get attracted to the skin that I show and their hormones ooze out of their body. Apparently, if people riding a white van grope at me and cover my mouth with some cloth to make me unconscious, it is my fault that I walked that street alone. It is my fault that I have guys on my friend-list. It is my fault that I smile at them while talking. It is my fault that when I pass by, my jeans attract them. Somehow, it is always my fault.

The people worship goddesses. But when Parvati got raped a couple of days back, the same people pointed at her saying it was her fault. Somehow it was her fault that she wore jeans to a party and apparently the jeans were provocative and an invitation to rape her. Invitation, you say? Why would a girl invite an unknown man to dance over her body and watch it herself? To the people worshipping goddesses sitting calm inside the frames of your puja room while blaming the real Saraswatis and Parvatis and Laxmis, you people worship a false god. My society tells to marry a girl off at sixteen so that she does not have to go elsewhere to satisfy her sexual needs. Somehow a girl’s sexual needs are a problem to the society, while men's needs are not a problem. We have never seen any headline like: “Guy getting raped because of the attractive suit he wore and the girl couldn’t control her lust.”

To the people blaming girls' dress as the cause of increasing rape in the society, it is not. Because, a girl in Burkha gets raped too. To the society saying girls should be married off at 16 to avoid rapes, what about the eight-year-old Asifa brutally raped and killed? Do you now suggest that a girl child should be married off pre-birth? To all those people saying we cannot clap with a single hand what about the heavy doses of sedatives fed to the victim so that the rapists can force anything inside her genitals starting from their own proud penises to rods and sticks. If you still hear a clap then it’s the rapist’s two hands coming together because the girl is tied tight! To all the people raping and murdering people in the name of religion, do you even know what religion is? It is faith, a faith that something powerful and supernatural is watching you every time and you should never do anything wrong. What does your god say when you abduct an 8-year-old and rape her in a temple? Religion, revenges, attraction are all excuses to the mentality and moral values which the modern human being especially the male counterparts seem to be losing with time.

To all the people saying it is my fault, to all the people saying my clothes are my fault, I’m sorry but it is not. It is not my fault.