What recently happened in India has made me question things again. Lots of things. I left India for UK with so much relief that now I won’t have to be hyper vigilant on the trains, buses, bustops, train stations, markets and all other places where men think it is ok to touch another woman inappropriately with no consequences.

I was brought up to shut up and not share these things with anyone. It was shameful. It was embarrassing. So I did. SHUT UP.

But every time I hear another woman being assaulted, tortured, blackmailed or treated unjustly, it hurts. A Lot!!

I have always questioned about what I can do and cannot do. What are my limitations. And if anything ever makes a difference when the police, lawyers and govt officials are mostly corrupt.

It is very unsettling for me to come across these incidents, yet I feel helpless and vulnerable. My mind races to what the corrupt can do and will do to my family back home if I raise my voice. What consequences will I have to face? And then I shut up again.

I watched this video last week and it made me feel the same thing. There should be a way to speak out. There should be a way to help. There should be a way to change. But I only have questions. No answers. No solutions. No steps forward. No clear path.

I understand that it takes decades and more to cause change. i.e. slavery, womens right to vote etc. But I don’t think I would like to wait that long for poverty to be gone, for literacy, for peoples understanding, for cultural openness and people to be mature enough to understand the difference between right and wrong and after that one fine day there will be no rapes. That’s way too long to wait for this to stop. As much as I understand that punishing people doesn’t shift thinking and only creates fear and people will go back to old ways when the fear is gone or they can work around it. I am angry, disgusted and repelled at what is acceptable in society and most people don’t even bat an eye. Things become headlines and news and then new things happen and old are forgotten. And life goes on except for the few who have been affected.

I don’t know what I am looking for but there is an intense feeling that I should do something. And maybe it’s just high emotions and tomorrow I will be stressed about my 3 yr old and other things that life throws at me and I won’t do anything. But I do hope I can, however insignificant it might turn out to be.