Are we responsible for the arrogance of our law makers and rulers is the question any self respecting India should ask him/herself in the wake of the spate of incidents that have occurred in the past 48 hours or so. Let us begin with the premise I hope still holds true. We are a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people. We are the ones who elect our representatives both in Parliament and State Assemblies. These representatives are supposed to protect our interest and  put forth our views. I guess we are all agree on this. So in the best case scenario representatives should be a reflection of who we are and it is our responsibility to ensure that.

However the reality is quite different if we are to go by what happened recently. We are agree that rape is a heinous and loathsome crime. It is a crime against women and girls, the worst form of abuse you can imagine. No a political leader of the ruling party in a State that has seen an unacceptable number of rapes in the past month stated two days back that in 90% of cases rape was consensual! Please explain how rape can be consensual as I am unable to figure this one. The last rape was that of a 6 year old who was lured with a bar of chocolate and raped by three men. Now is accepting a chocolate consent to rape? And what about the 13 MONTH old that was raped yesterday! How can we hope that with such a mentality our politicians will take rape seriously and get the victims justice they deserve and hope for. As I write these words, a Khap Panchayat, read Kangaroo court- is busy discussing lowering marriage age for girls to solve the rape problem. It is never the man’s fault, is it?

Let us move on. Some days back a senior politician and Minister insulted a priestess. The altercation was cost on camera and it was horrific to see how he abused the poor woman and ordered that she be locked up to teach her a lesson. Now Mr Minister there are laws in the land and no one can and should get locked up at the whim and fancy of anyone, let alone a person who can only aspire to the holds without the help of people just like the woman he was abusive to. It is a democracy and not your fiefdom.

But that is not all. You agree that an official needs to do his duty. The duty of a toll tax officer is to collect the toll tax. Now some people are exempted – why is that I do not know – and need to show proof of their identity. If I told you that one such exempted person – a Member of Parliament in the occurrence, the kind of bloke you and I are supposed to put there – chose to jump out of his car gun in hand and threatened to shoot one and all in true John Wayne style. Now wonder what would have happened if you and I had tried that!

And last but not the least, should you not like what an officer is doing and want it done your way, then kidnap him! Yes you read right! That is exactly what another Minister did recently. It is true that he has since resigned, but on the other hand no FIR has been registered against him.

So it seems that when we – and by we I mean voters – elect a representative we give license to shoot his mouth, license to insult and abuse, license to brandish a gun and maybe even kill and license to kidnap. Wow that is something I was not aware of.

But let us come to the main point. We are a democracy and a democracy can only function well when each and everyone of us exercise our right to vote freely and intelligently. We are proud of being a democracy and cherish the freedom it gives us. Then why is it that most of us – so called enlightened electorate – fail to go and vote. I too have been guilty of this crime, for crime it is. We have to accept responsibility and take our role as citizens seriously.

The recent spate of rapes in the state of Haryana – 13 in just one month – have once again brought the extreme vulnerability of women in our country to the fore. It is not just the crime that is heinous and reprehensible. What is more shocking is the reaction of the law makers and keepers. Last week a young sixteen year old girl was gang raped by four men. Not able to bear the shame, she set herself on fire and died. In another case the father of a rape victim committed suicide as we was not getting any justice.

Rape is an abhorrent crime to say the least. What makes it worst in our land is the fact that it is the victim that is put to trial. Some months back following another spate of rape the administration had come up with astonishing prevention measures: women should not be working after 8pm, and should wear appropriate clothes! This time the local village council leader as come up with an even more astounding solution to rape. He feels early marriage would put a stop to rapes.  “I believe this is happening because our youth are being badly influenced by cinema and television. I think that girls should be married at the age of 16, so that they have their husbands for their sexual needs, and they don’t need to go elsewhere. This way rapes will not occur,“. Voila! Rape over! And that is not all, a political leader of the ruling party goes on to call rapes a conspiracy to defame the government. How that works is beyond my comprehension.

The bottom line is that in our country, where Goddesses are worshipped with passion and devotion women and girls are treated with utter contempt. If they are not killed in the womb then what awaits them is a nothing short of hell. As they have been branded as the keeper of the family’s honour they are divested of any form of freedom. Should anything untoward happen, they are the ones to bear the consequences. This is what the recent stories seem to tell. Rape is the worst form of crime where a man or many give themselves the right to use and abuse of a woman’s body. The tragedy in our land is that the onus of the aberration is squarely placed on the shoulders of the victim. They dress wrong, they watch the wrong movies, they have sexual needs that they need to fulfill being the latest accusation. How does all this apply to a minor who has been gang raped is a question begging to be answered.

It is sad that instead of being condemned by one and all, a reprehensible and depraved crime like rape becomes a political issue. I have no words to describe how it makes me feel. The country has a democratic system and an independent judiciary and the law is in the hands of judiciary and nobody else said one leader. We all know how the law works. We all know how humiliating the process is for the victim. Some countries have chemical castration of rapist. Maybe we too should consider that. It is time that women were treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.

How many times have you seen your favourite film? I wonder. Personally I am not a great cine fan and rarely go to the movies. I did once, but cannot remember having seen a film more than 2 or at best 3 times.  Often the extra times were to please a friend and were not my cup a tea. I would have preferred spending the two yours reading. So if I told you that in the past few weeks I have seen a single film so many times that I have lost count you would not believe me. But this I a fact!

Now before I carry on I must admit that this new fad, if I can call it that, is courtesy the new man in my life: Agastya my grandson. This little man has changed my life in more ways than one and managed to make me do things I never dreamt I would. One of them being seeing a movie n times. It all began like this.

One day my husband showed the little fellow bits of Mamma Mia on his computer and the little one got hooked. After that day, every time he was allowed to watch the screen, he wanted to see Mamma Mia. I honestly thought he would get tired of seeing the same movie over and over. No way. So for the past month or more I was treated to Mamma Mia day in and day out. He would get up in the morning and even before saying Good Morning, would turn his endearing eyes to his grandpa and say ” Put Mamma Mia”and if the old man did not comply then he would turn to me and say ” Nana is not putting MM!” So MM it was early morning and MM became our good night song.

But that is not all, in between viewings of MM, I was made to discover other things: Doraemon and Chotta Bheem. I must confess I have never been a cartoon nut even in my younger days but lo and behold grandma had to get hooked on these two cartoons and rather than resist and turn my face around and pick a book, I decided to follow the little leader and watch these shows. I must say rather sheepishly that I got somewhat hooked and found myself following the stories. Utpal watches these shows too and never got me to follow them as the fleeting images I saw as I came in and out of the room were never enough to make me want to sit down and watch. But having to forcibly, well not quite, sit with Agy made me watch and enjoy the episodes. The endearing cat robot  Doraeomon comes or the daring little Chutki became part of my life too. Grandma had to rock!

My little boy flew away yesterday night after a last viewing of Mamma Mia. The house is so empty but my head is ringing with Abba songs. I am missing my little man. May be I should simply go to my room and watch Mamma Mia!

Square foot for square foot your maid’s rent is probably higher then yours. The rents for shanties and jhuggies across the capital have hit the roof. People are paying 30 rs a square foot for flimsy tenements not larger than 10 square feet with no bathroom, kitchen or running water. This fact was revealed in a study by the the School of Planning and Architecture’s (SPA) National Resource Centre.

We have experienced first hand the skyrocketing of rents over the past decade. Ten years ago you could still find a shanty for 500 rupees a month. Today the same space is nothing less than 2000 Rs. And migrants have no option but to rent such jhuggis are rooms in any part of the capital is nothing less than 5000 Rs a month. A poky, windowless room with an apology of a bathroom  goes for 5K in the Govindpuri lane where we are located. And Madanpur Khader village that till recently had rooms @ 1000 a month and provided shelter to migrants is undergoing a mutation. With medical tourism at its height and Apollo Hospital a stone’s throw away, landlords are evicting their poorer tenants, knocking off the old structures and erecting swanky guest houses and service flats for the relatives of long term patients. It is a roaring business with many takers. The erstwhile tenants are now running helter skelter to find alternative accommodation in a city that has none.

We may turn up our noses in disdain and even disgust while passing through a shanty town. We may feel that such aberrations have no place in a city like ours. But have we ever stopped to think as to why this has occurred? And above all do we realise the strong link that binds us to the inhabitants of these shanties. But let us begin with the first statement: how and why have we reached this situation. Have you ever wondered if our city has adequate provisions for housing its poor? Big cities normally have poorer quarters with high rises. We have zilch. Many years back private houses had the ubiquitous servant quarter that were meant to house those working within the premises as well as their family. So your maid husband could be an plumber, electrician, carpenter or simply an employee in a shop. Then slowly the concept of large well constructed servant quarters was transformed as people redid their houses taking in the servant quarter space to make a new flat that could be rented. The servants were relegated to tiny rooms on the roof often with just an asbestos sheet to ward the heat or cold. The room was barely sufficient for one person.

When migrants came to Delhi  many many decades ago they looked for space to live. They often found  some vacant space and erected bamboo poles and a plastic sheet begin with. They knew the space was illegal and so did the authorities. But the later did not evict them as they saw a way of lining their pockets. The poor migrant had no option but to pay. When the numbers grew the political parties started looking at them as potential vote banks they needed to woo. They were given an identity in the  form of a voter’s card and soon became legal! This game carried on. The migrants felt emboldened and the flimsy structures were soon replaced by more concrete ones and then just as the rich did, they too decided to become landlords: roms were built on top of the one they lived in and rented to newcomers. This happened in every slum in the city from the larger ones and even the legal rehabilitation colonies to the tiny ones that often sprung up on small pieces of empty land across the city. These are the rooms that now fetch a hefty rent.

These places house the people who are the backbone of the city and as I said earlier people who are closely linked to us. The ones who carry out repairs or even build our homes, the ones who look after our every day needs and care for our very own, the ones who make our lives a tad easier. Have we ever stopped to think about where our maid  or our plumber lives? I think we should.

The shanties and hovels a large part of the city live in are homes to those who stay in them. I have been always impressed by the care taken in setting them up: the kitchen corner with shelves lined with gleaming utensils, the sole bed that always dons a bright cover, the school bags of the children that hang neatly in another corner and so on. The space is squeaky clean. I have visited many such homes and been warmly welcomed each and every time with smiles and warm cups of delicious tea.

But these living conditions are abysmal and appalling. Any city that expects any of its inhabitants to live in such conditions should hand its head in shame. The surroundings are dirty and often dangerous. Many such homes are build next to factories and often lower than the roads. Many factories discharge their chemical in the open drains where children often play.

It is time something was done for these people and time for the city to embrace its own with the dignity they deserve. But for that the Government would have to build proper housing. I do not think that is about to happen if we are to believe today’s headlines: Government plans to sell surplus land to ease fiscal crunch!