Dateline Kerala, November 2012 In two parts of Kerala within the space of a
week two girls, both minors, make this
complaint that should shame our entire
nation: a. My father has been raping me
for three years... and now he is eyeing
my younger sister b. My father, my
brother, and my two uncles have been raping me for two years yes, you read it
right. Minors, raped by their own fathers.
Father, Papa, Baba, Abbu, Appu, Pa, Abba, Daddy.... words that energize the addressee, and fill
him with soulful and joyful sense of
responsibility, and are expected to provide
to the caller, fulsome security, and unquestioned protection against the entire world, suddenly
acquire menacing connotations. Papa becomes the demon personified, the very
worst of criminals, more heinous than the murderer, when he eyes up his own helpless and dependent daughter.
As a trustee he breaches the foundation of faith and hope. He annihilates the
tenderness, destroys the innocence and demolishes
the playfulness that a child has a birth right to enjoy. Worse, he leaves her no escape. All
this for his uncontrolled momentary lust, erasing all distinction between a daughter and
a mistress. Hypocrisy costs dearly. Very
dearly in cases such as these. A society that is obsessed with sex, but that
abhors public acknowledgement of this as
a fact of life, and which scorns fair,
consented sex between adults, hides under the
carpet sins of worst cruelties. And I strongly suspect we have only seen the tip of the deathly iceberg I invite you to ponder and comment on: - how and how much to punish such devils from
our midst - how to tolerate, indeed,
accept consensual sex between adults Far from being a kind-hearted angel, I am
guilty of many wrongs and excesses. Yet
I couldn't help cry today. For just a moment I tried to be one of those little
girls. And nothing but scary dark
appeared all around me. Completely dark.
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