Why Do We Rape??

Why Do We Rape??

We are a product of balance between 2 opposing forces. Call them yin and yang. Call them light and dark. Call them love and hate. They are always the two sides of the same coin. To be a human, you need both the components. It’s the balance between these 2 that make who you are.

The basic 2 forces that rule us are the instinct and the brain. Instinct is the one that leads to instant pleasure, while brain opposes instinct for a much larger and sustained benefit.

A small example: Tomorrow is your final MBBS exam. You are ill prepared. You have 24 hours. Now you get a pass to big 24 hour party with unlimited food and drinks valid for only today. What will you do? If you follow brains, you will study. If you follow instincts you will go for the party without bothering about the studies and say “life is all about today, why to care about tomorrow?” Many will try to combine the both by studying all day and going to party at night.

Both instincts and brain are necessary for survival. Instincts allow you to respond by fight/ flight mechanism which allows you to survive immediate dangers without thinking. Brains allow you to be better equipped to face all dangers and tackle with them effectively. When you are in a street fight, your heart pumps hard and your pupils dilate. That's instinct. Without any thoughts, your heart is pumping blood to your muscles which needs all oxygen and nutrients so that you can fight or run. Pupil dilation allows more light reflecting from your opponent to be captured by your eyes so that you have maximum information about every minute movement of your opponent. But if you are not a trained fighter, these instincts will help you only for a short while...........maybe by helping you run away or ward off a blow. But, a trained fighter has his brains trained to channelize the instincts in a proper direction. Brain will assess how formidable the opponent is. It will decide whether to fight or to run away. While fighting it will know out of its training the future sequence of movements, which will help decide the current course of action.


But what has this argument got to do with raping?????? I am coming towards that. But there are several premises to base my arguments. So..hold on!


So we have seen that brain gives proper direction to the instincts so that they are properly utilised. Every culture around the globe has recognised this fact. They realised the power of brain and the danger of untamed instincts. Infact instincts tend to suppress brain. Under alcohol's influence your instincts overpower your brain.

There are truth around us to be discovered only if we can fully utilise our brains. But, instincts do not allow such utilisation. Hence, in most of the civilizations, the learned men gave up instincts (or worldly pleasures). They gave up all their material pleasures inclusive of greed for tasty food, good clothes, beautiful women, posh houses etc. I always felt that the GOD, that has always been referred to in our holy books, is nothing but ultimate knowledge (both GOD and KNOWLEDGE have been referred to as LIGHT).

Of course this “giving up business” is not possible to all humans including me. Hence all religion came up with rules and mythologies which were compulsory to be followed. For example, marriage rules (to prevent excessive lust for women), fasting rituals (to control food related instincts), charity (to reduce greed for excessive money) etc.

But all rules are good for some time. With time the situations change and rule must change accordingly. The rules which make a civilization prosperous are the same rules which will ultimately lead to the same civilization' destruction. That's a known natural cycle.

If you are guessing me now, you are going in the right direction. The same set of rules which suppressed instincts for good is now turning evil. Why? It’s because the landscape to which those rules were applicable is changing.
Let me explain this properly. India has been traditionally bound by the above mentioned rules. We get raised by our parents, are taught to respect women and elders, we marry, remain loyal, serve family etc. In this we do give up lots of things which are now being referred to as enjoyments and freedom.

On the other hand, west has slowly given up this rule based life. There it’s all about freedom, fun etc. Both, rule based philosophy and freedom based philosophy have their own pros and cons. But slowly the freedom based culture has kind of invaded us. I must say there is nothing wrong about it. It is just different. Our rule based culture was anyways on the verge of deterioration with male domination and caste domination seeping in. So, it is certainly a welcome change. But change always needs revolution. And people who initiate revolution or who benefit from the revolution are the biggest sufferers. Unfortunately in this revolution of freedom based living, women are getting butchered and raped.

Take example to Gurgaon. Boys living in villages have grown up seeing their mothers clad in sarees and kicked by their fathers. They have seen their sisters getting killed just when delivered out of the womb. When these boys became men, they always saw women as downtrodden. Suddenly Gurgaon, as we now know, is born. Uneducated village men became millionaires overnight. And they got introduced to the city crowd who had embraced the western philosophy. Now the same men were seeing women in mini- skirts enjoying with their boyfriends, drinking vodka and dancing to music. “Aren't they women?” “Aren't they supposed to be all clad with clothes?”
This is where inferiority complex seeps in.

What do you do when you feel inferior to someone? People like us will try to improve our knowledge/ skills etc. Losers will try to take revenge. Revenge always comes in the form of aggression. Instincts get heightened. You see it’s a fight or flight reaction that's resulting out of this inferiority complex. They will not run away...how can you run away????....they are women!!! So, what do they do...RAPE!!

There is no immediate solution to this. Yes, punishments have to be harsher. There has to be death sentence in case of rape. But this cannot be the solution. Having harsher punishment will inculcate only fear. And fear is the worst form of deterrent. Do you really think rapists did no fear aftermath of rape? But they were too drunk to fathom their fears. But, at this moment, this deterrent is needed.

But this deterrent will fail. It’s like trying to cure fever by controlling temperature. To cure fever you need to cure the cause of fever.

And the cause is the anti- freedom anti- women culture of ours. Honestly, when this culture started it was clean and it was the best system any civilization can imagine. But it has got rotten. It’s gangrenous and needs to be amputated, else our entire country will get devoured by it poison.

We need super tough laws to help empower and free women living in villages. Alternate forms of government like Khap panchayats who, if found working against law, should be dealt like terrorists.

Lastly, we need good police system. If they themselves believe that wearing miniskirts and going to pub is obscene, all our efforts shall fail. They need to be educated. Their jobs need to be redefined.

People should see police service as a super lucrative job. Because we need good people applying for it. Current system makes me feel pity for them. When I enjoy holi and diwali they are guarding the streets. They have no place to sleep or no place to piss or shit. During election duties, I have seen them getting a vada pav for lunch. No sleep, excessive work, meager facilities- why would a normal man capable of getting decent job join police service?

I am not supporting them. But remember, people are corrupt if they are not satisfied or if system is inefficient. Here it’s both.

In short, our own perceptions born out of our upbringing is clashing with the newly introduced western philosophy. Though theoretically, concept of our culture is superior, currently it has got completely deteriorated. So long as we do not uproot the rotten beliefs in our culture and do not embrace the good parts of the western culture, we can only hope that rapists will not rape; but they will be getting born out there everyday out of their own inferiority complex!!

I do have a personal comment:

Western philosophy is by no means the best. And we do interpret it in a very naïve fashion. Speaking in English, wearing miniskirts, going to pubs does not make us more western than a saree clad woman. The philosophy is all about personal freedom and self independence.

I still believe that the discipline inculcated by our Indian culture makes us who we are respected for, globally. It’s just that we are misusing our culture making it favourable to whoever holds power. Any culture failing to protect those who cannot defend is no culture.

.......And the Pain is Back Again

Somewhere deep inside,

A pain still resides;

You feel it's no more,

But within your deepest memories it hides.

You feel you have moved on,

You feel you have won;

Then, one fine day, the pain comes back,

The poetry of life is a big pun.

The source of this pain was once the light of my life;

I trusted it, pampered it and cared for it,

Today the same feeling stabs me like a knife.

I miss those times, I miss those moments,

Can I ever forget this pain?

My light is here and very much here,

.........And the pain is back again.

To sleep or not to sleep- That is the question!!!!

Its 14th Nov '09; 9 am. M attending a meeting at JCM 7, Gurgaon. This horror meeting started yesterday. Honestly, Kartik's intentions were good and wishful. He had taken great pains in preparing for this meeting.



But.....did he succeed?????? If this is the idea to celebrate children's day.....then...oops............so childish of him!!!!!



Now, thats a very derogatory accusation from my side. But I have my reasons not to stop complaining. Slept at 3 am and woke up at 7 am; and I am not able to stop yawning. Pankaj is telling me "Nind se bacha le yaar". Kiran is engrossed in his weird thoughts regarding understanding his understanding of sexuality!! An example of perennial confusion!! Deepak is not sleepy though :). He has got his comfort zone of getting sound reaching his ears and nothing getting registered in his rudimentary brain! Rudimentary doesn't mean that it is non-functional; u speak of money and u will find a sudden upsurge in his neuronal activity................oh yes...............he understands money and only money is what he understands. He has no clue what T cells and B cells are..........but his innovative ideas regarding how to earn the best via allowances and bill claims can earn him Prix Galean in Merck!!!

But those are the personal attributes which every angel having horns of demons and every demon shedding tears of a child lost in somewhere in the midst of worldly jostles. What matters is the balance that u strike between this conflict of the angels and the demons who are embedded within your own YOU.

These are the chain of thoughts that actually keeps my neurons from sleeping in this fierce battle of boredom and frustration that is creeping in within every individual attending this meeting.

The choice is a personal one- but one query always remains: TO SLEEP OR NOT TO SLEEP- YES...... thats the biggest question!!!!!!

Time flies by

It starts with your love- not love for anyone; but love for yourself!! You see yourself becoming something; or doing something- dats your aim- a destiny that you have chosen for yourself. Then, you grow up. New things now become a priority in front of your chosen destiny. You wish and you keep wishing that one dat you will do what you always wanted to do. You keep postponing your dreams. You tend to do everything except that one thing. You keep reminding yourself of your priorities and everyday you promise yourself that tomorow I shall reborn to follow my dreams. And this you do everyday....until one day you realise that ITS TOO LATE TO PURSUE YOUR DREAMS. Yes, time flies by....we keep dreaming about the utopia and keep working towards its own demise. Yes, time flies by................ pushing your rudderless ship towards an unknown destination where the only thing that keeps you relieved is that you are still with your ship. Oh yes, time fies by................. and we start dreaming that in the next life we shall achive our dreams; when deep inside we know that one day this heart will give up and body will rot to a slimy mass of organic waste.......makes us wonder if there is a next life ...as the time flies by!!!!