As part of my work, I look through news agency feeds all day. And every day, I find at least two reports of rape or molestation. The bad days have five or six. I haven't had a good day, yet.
And what amazes me is how people react to it. Rape has become so routine, we refer to incidents as 'Marine Drive rape' or the 'train rape' or the 'Delhi rape', which gets further categorised into 'moving car', 'university'...
How and when did something so heinous become something so, well, routine?
Some rape incidents get recorded, the majority don't. And what about incidents of eve teasing, of other forms of street harassment? We don't even know how often, why, when, where and who does this. And, often, we don't even talk about it amongst ourselves.
I never did, until Blank Noise came along. Did you feel as awful as I did? And did you also yell with rage or did you also walk away sometimes, because you were too shocked, too hurt to react?
The point is, that we need to react, discuss and record. This dullness needs to go. Because the victim is never at fault. And no-one has to stay a victim.
Testimonies, please. Mail them to blurtblanknoise@gmail.com.
