U.N.T.I.T.L.E.D

I am a tad late on penning my views on the notorious gang-rape at Delhi which occurred on that fateful day, on  December 17th this year. However, better late than never is a policy that I believe in. Also, write-ups about such instances will never run out of value as they are a commonality in our great, diverse nation.

  Disclaimer: This post is written at a time when the author is in a murderously furious state and wants to rid the world of men-actually, men and women, who lack the sensitivity to actually opine that there is a cause for rape and that every man who rapes a woman has a reason to do so.

P.S: While the murderous feeling may prevail for awhile, the stance to rid the world of men will not. It is a temporary phase and is a result of the irritation and angst the author is feeling, with respect to men. While this post might sound a tad sexist, it is definitely not the intention. The post is merely the result of the extreme frustration felt by a 22-year- old towards men, who, despite belonging to the supposedly elite, sophisticated realms of society, act like barbarians.

As a student of a well-known college for women in Nungambakkam, Chennai, I expect certain standards of intelligence from the staff. Well, intelligence, sensitivity, all the same, in this case. A new professor has been appointed for the social ethics course in college and the first class of the semester began with a general discussion on the iniquitous Delhi gang-rape that blemished human kind, earlier this month on the 17th. The professor commenced by saying- “You girls must have heard about the plight of the rape-victim in Delhi. This is not the first time, a woman has fallen prey to crude, rapacious behaviour. Admittedly, she need not have gone for a movie that late at night. However, she did not deserve to be raped. Why do you girls think she was raped? What according to you is the cause for rape?”

Now, call me supercilious, but I firmly believe that social ethics classes in college are nothing more than a charade. They are, according to me, nothing more than weekly- one –hour- sessions where students sit in a classroom and allow themselves mental excursions, under the pretext of discussing issues of social relevance. Needless to say, I rarely pay attention in these classes. I am in a world, quite far away, lost in the expanse of oblivion, savouring the feeling of being blank for awhile, albeit, a short duration. All of a sudden, I was jolted out of my reverie by a question that was voiced loudly and clearly in class – “Women dress provocatively and often, this results in rape. So, what do you girls think was the cause of rape, in the case of the girl who was gang-raped in Delhi?”

My social ethics professor had done the impossible- she had rendered me speechless for over a whole minute. Words failed me as she awaited an answer to what she presumably thought was an intelligent question- what is the reason for rape? I was dumbstruck.

 I’m attuned to men being crass and unfeeling to women. According to many men, in fact, most men I've come across, their wives, women of the house, are not meant for anything more than cooking for them, cleaning the house and basically being domestic. Such men care naught that women too are high achievers and there’s a lot more to them than merely cooking, cleaning and housekeeping. However, what shocked me into speechlessness was the sheer insensitivity of a woman, my professor, towards a member of her sex.

 What can be the cause of rape? The question is devoid of logic. Fundamentally flawed. My professor’s statement was that women are raped because they dress provocatively, in which case, there was no reason for the girl from Delhi to be gang-raped as there is no mention of provocative dressing. It can be thus be established that women who dress provocatively are raped, women who are nude are raped, and women, even if fully-clad, are stripped naked of their honour and raped by animals, just like, in the case of the student from Delhi. She was raped not because she was dressed provocatively. She was raped because she was out at night, enjoying a movie, after a hard day’s work. Seems about right because it clearly reverberates with the resonant sentiments of society’s demons- how can a woman consider having fun? No, rape her and punish for the mere thought. Having fun, after all, is a man’s prerogative.


There is thus only one plausible answer to my professor’s question, for want of a better way of terming it- there is no cause for rape except that it happens as men are aware of their power to strip a woman naked and walk away nonchalantly, as thought nothing of significance happened. A man rapes a woman for no other reason apart from the fact that he knows he has the power to do so. He knows he can. What else would explain why Duryodhana almost raped Draupadi in front of her five valorous, unconquerable husbands 5000 odd years ago, or why his brother Dusshasana tried to strip the Kuru empress naked, in a sabha full of veterans?

An old Sanskrit proverb goes - ''Yatra naryastu pujyante ramante tatra devataha" . It essentially can be translated to mean, ''Where women are worshiped, there the Gods reside''. Now, it is ok if women are not worshipped by men. But it is unpardonable and unacceptable that they are stamped and raped.

Now you know why I am in a murderous state towards men. This scene has been witnessed innumerable times as a reflection of society. As a reflection of how men of today, who are supposedly cultured, sophisticated and well-educated, still think that a woman’s job is within the confines of her kitchen, that a woman dared not walk out on the streets or have fun at night, that a woman should be a reflection of the all-suffering, ever-patient Bharatmata, enduring all the crap men and society throw at her without raising a voice.


Behind the facade of culture, sophistication and learning, is a society that is essentially barbaric. Uncultured. Uncivilised. Krishna, in the Mahabharata, poses a question to Arjuna- if society kept mum while the queen of Indraprastha, Draupadi, was being stripped naked in the middle of her menstrual cycle, how could the society take care of lesser women? This question has been answered perfectly- after all, actions speak louder than words and the gang that raped the girl in Delhi have answered it most effectively. It is of little wonder that many women today are trodden upon by men, or are surrounded by chauvinists who think they have the license to do so because they are sure of the woman remaining silent.

Well, the man who was essentially God was bang-on, 5000 years ago, wasn't he?

OF GOLDEN PROMISES AND SHATTERED DREAMS...

People are officially declared dead when there is no twitching of limbs. When heat in the body is replaced by deathly cold. When breathing has devolved to nothingness. Even in such situations, near and dear ones lose their sagacity and develop denial as a defence mechanism, refusing to accept the death of their beloved. What happens then, if a town is declared dead? How then are poor miners, who gave their blood and breath, literally (as this is what silicosis does) to the mines, expected to accept that their town, once rich with its gold fields, is a dead town?

What struck me odd when I set foot into Kolar was its stillness. The silence that blanketed the village was unnerving. It was undoubtedly a change from the frantic frenzy that characterized Chennai. It was birds, monkeys, fresh air, mountains and a blue sky that greeted me in Kolar. Yet, there was something strange about the town. The quietude was almost ghostly. There were hardly any signs of employment.

The Kolar Gold Fields, popularly known as KGF, is often referred to as a ghost town. Right from 2001 when Bharat Gold Mines Ltd (BGML) closed down operations and miners were forced to retire, KGF has worn a deserted look. Travelling through different parts of KGF- Coramandel, Oorgaum, Champion Reef or Marikuppam which marks the end of KGF, it is not uncommon to see people sitting outside small houses or huts, having vacant expressions on their faces , moving amidst hens and cattle and essentially, having a lot of time at their disposal . This is the situation that people of KGF face- a result of long periods of unemployment. The few people who are moving about are those that are desperate to not miss their train to Hosur, Mysore or Bangalore as it could mean a loss of money. Their only way of making a livelihood is to travel to the richer parts of Karnataka and work as coolies or painters – in short, to pursue any work that gives them the bare minimum required, in order to make their ends meet and ensure them two square meals a day.

This is where I ran into Albert, in Marikuppam. I was about to apologise when I realised that there was something odd about him- two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, two hands - yes—all there and intact. Then what was it that was odd about him? Was it his sunken eyes, a tiredness on his face that cannot quite be taken care of by a mere few hours of rest, lines of worry on his forehead? But no. Lines of worry were characteristic of people in KGF. It was Albert’s feet, rather, the lack of them that resulted in a conversation with him. Like every other person in Kolar, Albert too had a story to tell- Of once mining for gold and now, looking for any job that he could do despite being a handicap so that he would be assured a survival.

A miner for 18 years, Albert’s life was not easy. Three young children and a wife, an unmarried sister, a perennially worried mother and a father suffering from silicosis is not easy to deal with, especially if there is only earning member in the family. This is however the reality that Albert,a miner working in the Kolar Gold Fields, faced.

“Initially, it was my father who was working in the mines. I remember as a child, how I’d see him come back home, drenched in sweat, and tired out, everyday,” says Albert. “He used to work in the mines until he was diagnosed with silicosis- a disease which affects the lungs and is caused by long-term exposure to fine silica dust from the mines. Later, as the disease began taking a toll on him, he told BGML authorities that he could no longer continue working in the mines. This was in 1967, and Albert’s family moved to Vellore. Later, the authorities offered employment to the children of miners who worked with them.

“As the question of my father working in the mines was no longer a possibility due to silicosis steadily wearing him down, I began working in the mines, much to my mother’s discomfiture which was not unwarranted. After all, she was seeing my father dying a slow and painful death as silicosis tightened its pincer-like grip on him. However, my cousin who was also working in the mines convinced my mother to send me for work. Keeping in mind our financial constraints and the fact that our family was a large one, my mother permitted me to go for work. It was not like we had any other option. Death was certain either way- death due to silicosis or death due to starvation if we didn’t have money to fetch us a square meal a day. It was only a question of which was less painful,” he adds.

Silicosis is something which haunts Albert even today. Try as he might, he can never forget how his father suffered. The spasms of pain, the amount of blood he vomited with each cough , incessant coughing, a continual burning sensation in the chest due to ceaseless coughing, acute shortage of breath – his father suffered from all of these due to silicosis. Till date, if someone around Albert starts coughing incessantly and has continual breathing problems, his old nightmare about silicosis comes back to haunt him and he vividly remembers the pain and suffering his father had endured, until death was kind enough to grant him respite from a physically and mentally fatigued life.

It has been a decade since the mines have shut down. However, nothing has changed- be it the status of people’s unemployment, lack of housing and health facilities, or a better livelihood. Says Albert, “I was toiling away in the mines when one day I heard rumours that the mines would be shut down as they were running at a loss. I tried hard not to believe it. However, it became a reality. Call it a quirk of fate, but on the day the official announcement came, I was about to board a train which would take me to Coramandel and I missed the landing and met with an accident which resulted in my losing both my legs. Thus, I had no option but to remain at home. The same day, an announcement was made that the mines were closing down. My fellow miners were forced to retire. We were promised around five lakhs as part of the Voluntary Retirement Scheme, but we’ve barely got a lakh and that too, only after seven years of shutting down the mines. We’ve been given houses to live in. Though the houses are in our names, we are not permitted to sell them or rent them. Initially, when the houses were given to us, it was enough for most families as they had only two or three members. Now, with the lapse of time, families have grown in numbers and when we try to build extensions to our houses using the little money we can scrounge up, security is sent to our areas to forbid us from building extensions to our houses.”

As Albert is unable to work due to his handicap, it is his sons who have to work, in order to ensure the survival of their family. Two of Albert’s children work as coolie workers in Hosur and Mysore. However, their earnings go towards their own children and family. Thus, the only way Albert is able to run his family is through the earnings of his youngest son who gives him around Rs.2000 a month. Apart from this, all Albert has to fall back on is Rs.1000 which he gets as pension allowed for the handicapped and Rs.700 from BGML.

Talks of re-opening the mines are in progress. However, until then, life for residents of Kolar will continue in the same vein. This might be Albert’s story. However, it mirrors the everyday trials and tribulations of every other person in KGF.