What Made You Cry Today?

Scottish MacDaddy · 12-29-2012, 06:04 PM

Written by Nila on Dec. 29, 2012:

That girl, the one without the name. The one just like us. The one whose battered body stood for all the anonymous women in this country whose rapes and deaths are a footnote in the left-hand column of the newspaper.

Sometimes, when we talk about the history of women in India, we speak in shorthand. The Mathura rape case. The Vishaka guidelines. The Bhanwari Devi case, the Suryanelli affair, the Soni Sori allegations, the business at Kunan Pushpora. Each of these, the names of women and places, mapping a geography of pain; unspeakable damage inflicted on women’s bodies, on the map of India, where you can, if you want, create a constantly updating map of violence against women.

For some, amnesia becomes a way of self-defence: there is only so much darkness you can swallow. They turn away from all the places that have become shorthand for violence beyond measure, preferring not to know about Kashmir or the outrages in Chattisgarh, choosing to forget the Bombay New Year assault, trying not to remember the deaths of a Pallavi Purkayastha, a Thangjam Manorama, Surekha and Priyanka Bhotmange, the mass rapes that marked the riots in Gujarat. Even for those who stay in touch, it isn’t possible for your empathy to keep abreast with the scale of male violence against women in India: who can follow all of the one-paragraph, three-line cases? The three-year-old raped before she can speak, the teenager assaulted by an uncle, the 65-year-old raped as closure to a property dispute, the slum householder raped and violently assaulted on her way to the bathroom. After a while, even memory hardens.

And then you reach a tipping point, and there’s that girl. For some reason, and I don’t really know why, she got through to us. Our words shrivelled in the face of what she’d been subjected to by the six men travelling on that bus, who spent an hour torturing and raping her, savagely beating up her male friend. Horrific, brutal, savage—these tired words point to a loss of language, and none of them express how deeply we identified with her.

She had not asked to become a symbol or a martyr, or a cause; she had intended to lead a normal life, practicing medicine, watching movies, going out with friends. She had not asked to be brave, to be the girl who was so courageous, the woman whose injuries symbolised the violence so many women across the country know so intimately. She had asked for one thing, after she was admitted to Safdarjung Hospital: “I want to live,” she had said to her mother.

We may have not noticed the reports that came in from Calcutta in February, of a woman abandoned on Howrah Bridge, so badly injured after a rape that involved, once again, the use of iron rods, that the police thought she had been run over by a car. We may have skimmed the story of the 16-year-old Dalit girl in Dabra, assaulted for three hours by eight men, who spoke up after her father committed suicide from the shame he had been made to feel by the village. Or some may have done something concrete about these things, changed laws, worked on gender violence, keeping their feelings out of it, trying to be objective.

But there is always one that gets through the armour that we build around ourselves. In 1972, the first year in which the NCRB recorded rape cases, there were 2,487 rapes reported across India. One of them involved a teenager called Mathura, raped by policemen; we remember her, we remember the history and the laws she changed. (She would be 56 now.)

Some cases stop being cases. Sometimes, an atrocity bites so deep that we have no armour against it, and that was what happened with the 23-year-old physiotherapy student, the one who left a cinema hall and boarded the wrong bus, whose intestines were so badly damaged that the injuries listed on the FIR report made hardened doctors, and then the capital city, cry for her pain.

She died early this morning, in a Singapore hospital where she and her family had been dispatched by the government for what the papers called political, not compassionate, reasons.

The grief hit harder than I’d expected. And I had two thoughts, as across Delhi, I heard some of the finest and toughest men I know break down in their grief, as some of the calmest and strongest women I know called and SMSed to say that she—one of us, this girl who had once had a future and a life of her own to lead—was gone, that it was over.

The first was: enough. Let there be an end to this epidemic of violence, this culture where if we can’t kill off our girls before they are born, we ensure that they live these lives of constant fear. Like many women in India, I rely on a layer of privilege, a network of friends, paranoid security measures and a huge dose of amnesia just to get around the city, just to travel in this country. So many more women have neither the privilege, nor the luxury of amnesia, and this week, perhaps we all stood up to say, “Enough”, no matter how incoherently or angrily we said it.

The second was even simpler. I did not know the name of the girl in the bus, through these last few days. She had a name of her own–it was not Amanat, Damini or Nirbhaya, names the media gratuitously gave her, as though after the rape, she had been issued a new identity. I don’t need to know her name now, especially if her family doesn’t want to share their lives and their grief with us. I think of all the other anonymous women whose stories don’t make it to the front pages, when I think of this woman; I think of the courage that is forced on them, the way their lives are warped in a different direction from the one they had meant to take. Don’t tell me her name; I don’t need to know it, to cry for her.

nycfem · 01-01-2013, 09:59 AM

"What cannot be said, will get wept." (Sappho)

Stolen from: http://www.postsecret.com

Abigail Crabby · 01-01-2013, 10:57 AM

Watching the Moopster curled up in her blankets - realizing this is the last time I will see her for awhile.....

clay · 01-01-2013, 02:34 PM

I cried....for all of us....
I cried....to purge...for losses, gains, and life itself

cinnamongrrl · 01-06-2013, 07:04 PM

This song....and I have no idea why....

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCSMCgqlc-0"]I Drive Your Truck - YouTube[/nomedia]

DMW · 01-06-2013, 09:11 PM

I couldn't cause i was holding everyone else up. Even my Uncle.

TheMerryFairy · 01-06-2013, 09:14 PM

He fucking ate my candy! LOL There were tears of frustration streaming down my face. I think I had been holding things in for awhile.

alexri · 01-06-2013, 09:18 PM

Sometimes reality just smacks you in the face.

KCBUTCH · 01-06-2013, 09:22 PM

That song-she gave to me that said forever...she left one month and two days ago.

Bèsame* · 01-06-2013, 09:26 PM

its time to smack it back...first on the right side then on the left. If that doesn't work...throat punch..lol

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexri

Sometimes reality just smacks you in the face.

cinnamongrrl · 01-14-2013, 06:22 PM

A bad dream...and a memory...

TheMerryFairy · 01-14-2013, 06:55 PM

Knowing the site was back up and running! It was a great surprise

laruss · 01-15-2013, 03:00 PM

but then finding out that a friend was in the hospital when I had meant to contact her numerous times but was too "busy".

cinnamongrrl · 01-17-2013, 10:42 AM

Having to say goodbye to my car of over 2 years. She was my liberty when I came home to Mass and was rebuilding my life after the disaster it had become while I was away...
Figures I just named her...I won't name any others. It seems as soon as I do they die...or I'm stupid and sell them...

Goodbye, Careen. It was good while it lasted... rest in pieces...

I'm also saddened that all my Patriot's stickers will be lost with her too...not a good day...I feel like the fates are aligning against me...yet again...sigh

KCBUTCH · 01-17-2013, 10:12 PM

I cried twice today-
this afternoon knowing the my clients who needed to feel they were safe to explore their feelings while in treatment may not feel that way for circumstances I am hoping get answers on-due to managerial issues, not counseling issues.
AND JUST NOW-with the news the my LONG time dearest friend died a few hrs ago of a very very long fight with cancer.

TheMerryFairy · 01-01-2013, 10:22 AM

I cried this morning. After having a long night with only 2 hours of sleep, I had to force myself out of bed hangover and all to be at work JUST to do the paperwork. I hope I don't sound petty for I understand there are things far more severe which I could be crying over.

SleepyButch · 01-01-2013, 10:32 AM

I cried because a year that was not so great for me ended and a year with new beginnings started.

12-29-2012, 06:04 PM	#1
Scottish MacDaddy Junior Member How Do You Identify?: Sapiosexual/Old School Bull Dyke Preferred Pronoun?: She Relationship Status: single Join Date: Aug 2012 Location: Upstate NY Posts: 51 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 81 Thanked 170 Times in 30 Posts Rep Power: 3463348	This made me Cry today!!! Written by Nila on Dec. 29, 2012: That girl, the one without the name. The one just like us. The one whose battered body stood for all the anonymous women in this country whose rapes and deaths are a footnote in the left-hand column of the newspaper. Sometimes, when we talk about the history of women in India, we speak in shorthand. The Mathura rape case. The Vishaka guidelines. The Bhanwari Devi case, the Suryanelli affair, the Soni Sori allegations, the business at Kunan Pushpora. Each of these, the names of women and places, mapping a geography of pain; unspeakable damage inflicted on women’s bodies, on the map of India, where you can, if you want, create a constantly updating map of violence against women. For some, amnesia becomes a way of self-defence: there is only so much darkness you can swallow. They turn away from all the places that have become shorthand for violence beyond measure, preferring not to know about Kashmir or the outrages in Chattisgarh, choosing to forget the Bombay New Year assault, trying not to remember the deaths of a Pallavi Purkayastha, a Thangjam Manorama, Surekha and Priyanka Bhotmange, the mass rapes that marked the riots in Gujarat. Even for those who stay in touch, it isn’t possible for your empathy to keep abreast with the scale of male violence against women in India: who can follow all of the one-paragraph, three-line cases? The three-year-old raped before she can speak, the teenager assaulted by an uncle, the 65-year-old raped as closure to a property dispute, the slum householder raped and violently assaulted on her way to the bathroom. After a while, even memory hardens. And then you reach a tipping point, and there’s that girl. For some reason, and I don’t really know why, she got through to us. Our words shrivelled in the face of what she’d been subjected to by the six men travelling on that bus, who spent an hour torturing and raping her, savagely beating up her male friend. Horrific, brutal, savage—these tired words point to a loss of language, and none of them express how deeply we identified with her. She had not asked to become a symbol or a martyr, or a cause; she had intended to lead a normal life, practicing medicine, watching movies, going out with friends. She had not asked to be brave, to be the girl who was so courageous, the woman whose injuries symbolised the violence so many women across the country know so intimately. She had asked for one thing, after she was admitted to Safdarjung Hospital: “I want to live,” she had said to her mother. We may have not noticed the reports that came in from Calcutta in February, of a woman abandoned on Howrah Bridge, so badly injured after a rape that involved, once again, the use of iron rods, that the police thought she had been run over by a car. We may have skimmed the story of the 16-year-old Dalit girl in Dabra, assaulted for three hours by eight men, who spoke up after her father committed suicide from the shame he had been made to feel by the village. Or some may have done something concrete about these things, changed laws, worked on gender violence, keeping their feelings out of it, trying to be objective. But there is always one that gets through the armour that we build around ourselves. In 1972, the first year in which the NCRB recorded rape cases, there were 2,487 rapes reported across India. One of them involved a teenager called Mathura, raped by policemen; we remember her, we remember the history and the laws she changed. (She would be 56 now.) Some cases stop being cases. Sometimes, an atrocity bites so deep that we have no armour against it, and that was what happened with the 23-year-old physiotherapy student, the one who left a cinema hall and boarded the wrong bus, whose intestines were so badly damaged that the injuries listed on the FIR report made hardened doctors, and then the capital city, cry for her pain. She died early this morning, in a Singapore hospital where she and her family had been dispatched by the government for what the papers called political, not compassionate, reasons. The grief hit harder than I’d expected. And I had two thoughts, as across Delhi, I heard some of the finest and toughest men I know break down in their grief, as some of the calmest and strongest women I know called and SMSed to say that she—one of us, this girl who had once had a future and a life of her own to lead—was gone, that it was over. The first was: enough. Let there be an end to this epidemic of violence, this culture where if we can’t kill off our girls before they are born, we ensure that they live these lives of constant fear. Like many women in India, I rely on a layer of privilege, a network of friends, paranoid security measures and a huge dose of amnesia just to get around the city, just to travel in this country. So many more women have neither the privilege, nor the luxury of amnesia, and this week, perhaps we all stood up to say, “Enough”, no matter how incoherently or angrily we said it. The second was even simpler. I did not know the name of the girl in the bus, through these last few days. She had a name of her own–it was not Amanat, Damini or Nirbhaya, names the media gratuitously gave her, as though after the rape, she had been issued a new identity. I don’t need to know her name now, especially if her family doesn’t want to share their lives and their grief with us. I think of all the other anonymous women whose stories don’t make it to the front pages, when I think of this woman; I think of the courage that is forced on them, the way their lives are warped in a different direction from the one they had meant to take. Don’t tell me her name; I don’t need to know it, to cry for her. __________________ Scottish MacDaddy Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

01-01-2013, 09:59 AM	#2
nycfem Moderator How Do You Identify?: femme sub Preferred Pronoun?: Baby Grrl Relationship Status: Attached Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: NYC Posts: 6,794 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 52,987 Thanked 21,446 Times in 5,101 Posts Rep Power: 21474855	"What cannot be said, will get wept." (Sappho) Stolen from: http://www.postsecret.com __________________ *** How do I... ?** Check out the Members Helping Members thread: http://www.butchfemmeplanet.com/foru...embers+Helping

01-01-2013, 10:57 AM	#3
Abigail Crabby Senior Member How Do You Identify?: Queer Femme Preferred Pronoun?: Princess Relationship Status: Single, but sociable Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Mount Airy, NC Posts: 4,226 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 14,554 Thanked 9,668 Times in 2,484 Posts Rep Power: 21474856	Watching the Moopster curled up in her blankets - realizing this is the last time I will see her for awhile..... __________________ Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. Marcel Proust Turns whatever happens to you into a positive...

01-01-2013, 02:34 PM	#4
clay Practically Lives Here How Do You Identify?: Butch (Silver Fox) Dom Daddi Preferred Pronoun?: 50 Shades of Clay Darker & Deeper Relationship Status: married to my forever Join Date: May 2011 Location: salt air & sandy beaches Posts: 13,136 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 97,020 Thanked 31,667 Times in 7,748 Posts Rep Power: 21474864	I cried....for all of us.... I cried....to purge...for losses, gains, and life itself __________________ To find someone who will love you for no reason, and to shower that person with reasons, that is the ultimate happiness. ~Robert Brault Last edited by clay; 01-01-2013 at 02:38 PM. Reason: changed thoughts...:(

01-06-2013, 09:22 PM	#9
KCBUTCH Senior Member How Do You Identify?: Undaunted QUEER Dom, Daddy Preferred Pronoun?: MYSELF, Syr, Hy, or friend prefered Relationship Status: Cautious, indifferent... Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Below the foothills above the beach Posts: 1,848 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 4,240 Thanked 3,305 Times in 884 Posts Rep Power: 21474850	That song-she gave to me that said forever...she left one month and two days ago. __________________ "If you want to know the secrets of the Universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration"-Nikola Tesla

01-06-2013, 07:04 PM	#5
cinnamongrrl Infamous Member How Do You Identify?: cleverly disguised as a responsible adult* Preferred Pronoun?: wild woman Relationship Status: No, thank you. Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Home in NC..gonna dig in like a tick this time… Posts: 7,661 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 15,232 Thanked 27,597 Times in 6,955 Posts Rep Power: 21474859	This song....and I have no idea why.... [nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCSMCgqlc-0"]I Drive Your Truck - YouTube[/nomedia]

01-06-2013, 09:11 PM	#6
DMW Member How Do You Identify?: FTM/Male (Will 14) Relationship Status: Caught An Angel and she doesn't lie! Join Date: May 2012 Location: @ Posts: 784 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 2,256 Thanked 1,858 Times in 614 Posts Rep Power: 21474850	I couldn't cause i was holding everyone else up. Even my Uncle.

01-06-2013, 09:14 PM	#7
TheMerryFairy Senior Member How Do You Identify?: Pansexual/Sapiosexual femmey dyke who likes to crossdress now and then Preferred Pronoun?: She/her OR ze if I'm crossdressing Relationship Status: Floating and walking My path, happy in life. Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: On my Merry Fairy way! , Canada Posts: 3,630 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 8,727 Thanked 8,694 Times in 2,987 Posts Rep Power: 21474852	He fucking ate my candy! LOL There were tears of frustration streaming down my face. I think I had been holding things in for awhile.

01-06-2013, 09:18 PM	#8
alexri Member How Do You Identify?: - Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: - Posts: 549 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 1,209 Thanked 2,799 Times in 468 Posts Rep Power: 21474850	Sometimes reality just smacks you in the face.

01-14-2013, 06:22 PM	#11
cinnamongrrl Infamous Member How Do You Identify?: cleverly disguised as a responsible adult* Preferred Pronoun?: wild woman Relationship Status: No, thank you. Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Home in NC..gonna dig in like a tick this time… Posts: 7,661 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 15,232 Thanked 27,597 Times in 6,955 Posts Rep Power: 21474859	A bad dream...and a memory...

01-14-2013, 06:55 PM	#12
TheMerryFairy Senior Member How Do You Identify?: Pansexual/Sapiosexual femmey dyke who likes to crossdress now and then Preferred Pronoun?: She/her OR ze if I'm crossdressing Relationship Status: Floating and walking My path, happy in life. Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: On my Merry Fairy way! , Canada Posts: 3,630 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 8,727 Thanked 8,694 Times in 2,987 Posts Rep Power: 21474852	Knowing the site was back up and running! It was a great surprise

01-15-2013, 03:00 PM	#13
laruss Member How Do You Identify?: Femme Preferred Pronoun?: She or Goddess Relationship Status: Settled in Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Edmonton Alberta Posts: 1,322 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 2,849 Thanked 5,329 Times in 1,045 Posts Rep Power: 21474851	I was already feeling like a bad freind today... but then finding out that a friend was in the hospital when I had meant to contact her numerous times but was too "busy". __________________ Creativity is a drug I can't do without. -Cecil B. DeMille

01-17-2013, 10:42 AM	#14
cinnamongrrl Infamous Member How Do You Identify?: cleverly disguised as a responsible adult* Preferred Pronoun?: wild woman Relationship Status: No, thank you. Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Home in NC..gonna dig in like a tick this time… Posts: 7,661 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 15,232 Thanked 27,597 Times in 6,955 Posts Rep Power: 21474859	I will be crying all damn day.... Having to say goodbye to my car of over 2 years. She was my liberty when I came home to Mass and was rebuilding my life after the disaster it had become while I was away... Figures I just named her...I won't name any others. It seems as soon as I do they die...or I'm stupid and sell them... Goodbye, Careen. It was good while it lasted... rest in pieces... I'm also saddened that all my Patriot's stickers will be lost with her too...not a good day...I feel like the fates are aligning against me...yet again...sigh

01-17-2013, 10:12 PM	#15
KCBUTCH Senior Member How Do You Identify?: Undaunted QUEER Dom, Daddy Preferred Pronoun?: MYSELF, Syr, Hy, or friend prefered Relationship Status: Cautious, indifferent... Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Below the foothills above the beach Posts: 1,848 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 4,240 Thanked 3,305 Times in 884 Posts Rep Power: 21474850	I cried twice today- this afternoon knowing the my clients who needed to feel they were safe to explore their feelings while in treatment may not feel that way for circumstances I am hoping get answers on-due to managerial issues, not counseling issues. AND JUST NOW-with the news the my LONG time dearest friend died a few hrs ago of a very very long fight with cancer. __________________ "If you want to know the secrets of the Universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration"-Nikola Tesla

01-01-2013, 10:22 AM	#16
TheMerryFairy Senior Member How Do You Identify?: Pansexual/Sapiosexual femmey dyke who likes to crossdress now and then Preferred Pronoun?: She/her OR ze if I'm crossdressing Relationship Status: Floating and walking My path, happy in life. Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: On my Merry Fairy way! , Canada Posts: 3,630 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 8,727 Thanked 8,694 Times in 2,987 Posts Rep Power: 21474852	I cried this morning. After having a long night with only 2 hours of sleep, I had to force myself out of bed hangover and all to be at work JUST to do the paperwork. I hope I don't sound petty for I understand there are things far more severe which I could be crying over.

01-01-2013, 10:32 AM	#17
SleepyButch Senior Member How Do You Identify?: Dude Preferred Pronoun?: He, Him Relationship Status: Taken Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Hidden Valley Ranch Posts: 3,511 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 6,220 Thanked 11,248 Times in 2,754 Posts Rep Power: 21474853	I cried because a year that was not so great for me ended and a year with new beginnings started. __________________ . You cannot embrace those things that will not embrace you back.