16th December is again approaching. In remembrance of Jyoti. May her brave soul rest in peace.
16th December 2012
9:00 AM
Mumma, “I will be coming late tonight. Don’t wait for me at the dinner table”
“Why dear?” Comes a voice from the kitchen.
“I have to go out for a movie with friends”
“Friends or friend ?” Hmm her mother asked giggling.
“You know better mum”. Take care. Love you!
16th December 2012
2:00 PM
Phone rings
“Have you taken your lunch beta?”
“Yes, mum! By the way, anything important? A phone call at this brink?”
“Nothing important!” Just wanted to hear you.
“OK got to go mumma. Bye, love you.”
“Love you too. Take care.”
The call got disconnected.
16th December 2012
6:00. PM
XYZ BPO
“Let’s go. We are getting late. The show is of 6:30.”
“Yes! Just a few minutes.”
“The system is shutting down.”
12:00 AM
“Hello! Is this Mr. Sharma speaking?”
“Yes! May I know who is on the other side?”
“I am Bhavesh, from Safdarjung hospital. Your daughter is in ICU. Rush to the hospital.”
17th December 2012
1:00 AM
Safdarjung hospital
New Delhi
“Where is Jyoti?” Mrs. Sharma asked in tenterhooks from the receptionist.
“Ward 104. Rush!”
5:00 AM
The sun rose and shone brightly but besides the sun rose the country that day. Another rape in the capital of the country. It was not just a “RAPE”. A tag of RAPE would just not be enough to justify the grief of the family of that 23-year-old.
She was physically assaulted, tortured, harassed, smacked, thumped and what not. When the country was in the deep slumber that doughty girl was brawling in a city bus with 6 men. When the masses ignored that undraped girl in that chilly night, her friend was yelling for assistance. When mothers were winding up with their kitchen work, there laid a daughter naked on the roadside in ‘dilwaalos’ ki Delhi.
The next day the entire country was on roads protesting and demurring.
Newspapers were filled with the brutality and savagery of those half dozen men. News channels were debating about the juvenile accused. But among those was a family sitting there in the hospital bench weeping and grieving for their beloved daughter.
What was her fault?
For what was she paying, there in ward 104?
Maybe because she went on a movie
Oh! No. No. Maybe because she preferred an evening show
Or maybe because she went with her boyfriend
Yes! “BOYFRIEND”
Oxford defines the word boyfriend as a regular male companion
But the case differs in our country
Our country defines it as a “boy who is with a girl with ‘not so’ clean image and where aunties of colony keep a constant observation on that girl so as to gossip about her or taunt her parents in public” The ability to handle a conventional ritual seems so vital to us.
Mohammad Afroz the juvenile accused was 17 years 6 months old at the time of rape and murder. He raped her twice and was the main murderer. This “CHILD” iron rod in her vagina and took intestines out with bare hands. Attacked her friend with an iron rod and tried to overrun her. Ram Singh( bus driver) Mukesh Singh ( Ram Singh’s brother) Akshay Thakur ( unknown) Vinay Sharma (gym instructor) Pawan Gupta (fruit seller) were others involved in this heinous act.
We people. Yes, We! were feeling ashamed to disclose the identity of that audacious girl in public. Pity on us!
Our education system has definitely been successful in providing us higher pay packages but indeed lacked behind in growing our mental horizon.
Our HONOURABLE ministers had alluded the fault of her for that miserable rather doleful condition.
I somewhere agree with them.
After all! It was her fault to be born as a girl. It was her fault to be born in a country where girls are scanned and glared with eyes wide open. She fought day and night for 9 days. Doctors of country and abroad had given up before the ferocity and barbarity of those half dozen men!
She was gone..
She passed away like a wind in desert calmly and peacefully but behind that desert was a hidden dark world. The only thing that was needed was a ray of the bright sun to outshine filthy and debauched minds.
She..
She was JYOTI who illuminated our lives forever. May her soul rest in peace.
