Friday, December 28, 2012

Amanat

The anonymous young woman was nicknamed Amanat (Treasure) by the press; her savage gang-rape  set off unprecedented protest marches and riots around India. She died today.

The story--all of it I can't even--is at the link. A few of the heart-wrenching, scream-inducing prompts are below:


On December 16, the student watched The Life of Pi at a South Delhi mall with a male friend who offered to escort her home. They boarded a private bus - the sort used so often by commuters in a city where public transport is inadequate and unreliable.
The six drunk men on board began harassing the student. They beat her friend with an iron rod. When she tried to stop them, they turned on her, hitting her with the rod before taking turns to rape her. The bus kept circling a 31-kilometre stretch in South Delhi, for hours as it rolled unstopped through a series of police checkpoints.
In messages that she scribbled for her family while on life support systems, Amanat reportedly asked if the six men who had damaged her so badly that her intestines had to be removed had been caught and punished.
The 23-year-old had persuaded her parents to sell their small piece of land in Uttar Pradesh so she could move to Delhi to study medicine. Since then, they said recently, their meals are very often rotis with namak (bread with salt).
There are so many tragedies here. One of the most frustrating may be that there are so many enlightened people in this story--the young woman living her life, her caring male friend, her parents who went through financial hardship and sacrifice to give her an education. It hurts that some completely unrelated goons can insert themselves into this narrative--precisely at the point successful change--and turn it into one of unimaginable suffering and tragedy.

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2 comments:

AAL said...

This story just hurts. It hurts that this is the world. It hurts that this could be every woman, everywhere. It hurts that no matter how much progress we make, it isn't enough.

maya said...

I agree, AAL--so wounding and so frustrating.

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