Being a Girl in NCR

A class IX student gang-raped by three men in a parked car in South Delhi, a 17 year old girl allegedly abducted, raped and dumped in Delhi, and not to forget the December 16, 2012, the rape of a paramedical student which shook the entire nation, the newspaper is full of such instances almost every day. It seems like every minute, one girl or another, in some corner of India is going through extreme brutality.

Being a girl in NCR, one can just be thankful to God every evening when she comes back safely and pray to God every morning when she is leaving for work. She is bold, talented, confident. But now she feels that the world always manages to find a way to punish her for this, to punish her for being a girl. Yes, she is scared now. She is scared to step out into the world. She knows she cannot trust anyone. That friends and protectors have turned predators. She knows it all.

And yet, she refuses to give up. She is determined to push her way through all of this. People have blamed her dressing sense, but she has witnessed prying eyes pierce through even when she is dressed to her fullest. She wonders, what could have been wrong with the dress of the girl on 16 December when Delhi experiences extreme cold. And when she walks with a guy, she knows very well that it makes her a vulnerable target. She knows dirty minds thinking around her that she is an easy target. “If she can do it with him, then why not me”, this is the filthy thought that crosses their minds.

The perpetrators of that outrageous crimes have been given capital punishment. But does that make the world for her and others any safer. She wonders and keeps on wondering. She is watching in silence. She is scared because she knows, all it takes is a moment. A moment that could shatter her dreams, a moment that could render all her achievements insignificant, a moment that would bring her lifetime of pain, a moment that is worse than a nightmare. But she, the girl in NCR, hopes to survive. And I pray that she succeeds.