I Learned To Avoid The Crime Pages, But Now I Refuse To

As someone who becomes enraged when injustice appears anywhere in my immediate vicinity, there are some things that I can discuss with all the passion I have, venting my frustrations onto them with the honesty in my heart and being truthful about their interventions and impacts. 

But there are still certain areas of discussion about gruesome crimes that take every ounce of my sanity and calm, rendering me with fear, guilt, and most of all a disgrace towards how accustomed we have become to inhumanity. 

For me, rape is the latter topic of discussion, one that I try not to know too much about.

Why Some Conversations Feel Too Heavy To Hold

​It is so essential to talk about it, yet it is so difficult. We, as a society, try to shy away from discussing this topic more openly and informatively.

I often wonder, do we keep rape as a concept that lies within the bounds of theory so that we can keep it at bay and just hold our efforts to criticise it?

Or do we talk about it as the dark looming spirit that exists around the corner, one we are too afraid to even name or say? 

Do we find it insensitive to talk about the number of crimes that take place against women? Or do newspapers lack the angle of personalisation for us to finally find ourselves enraged about the crimes that take place?

​I remember reading newspapers diligently when I was young. I would go through each section diligently, gathering the best piece for the round table conference I would have with my father on Sunday morning, where we would discuss the happenings of the world.

I recollect writing down the news from the entertainment, sports, business, and politics, all through local, regional, and national news.

I was often told these were the most appropriate sections to read and choose from.

I do not remember reading stories explicitly printed about rape and gender violence against women back then, a big contributor being the lack of awareness and open conversations back then. 

Being told by my elders not to read about this kind of news and not openly discuss these topics, I would not ponder deeper into these topics. I mean, who could blame them? Talking about something like this has always been unpleasant.

I remember how shaken I was reading about the Nirbhaya Rape case and the stories that circulated online. My friends and I would never brush upon a subject like this, although deep down we all felt disturbed.

We were all silent observers of crimes around us, ones who knew about it but would not openly discuss. I remember for the longest time I would not read the news of crime and would avoid looking at those sections of the newspapers, but it no longer gave me the peace and sanity I was longing for.

Because the truth of the matter is, violence exists everywhere around us. Now, as I read the news, I try to be as conscious and as detached as I can against the grain, trying to balance the rhetoric with rationality, but deep within, I am still the angry little girl that I was back then.

The Questions We Ask Before We Offer Empathy

​Over the years of my reckoning, I have tried to numb my rage, to not feel too much about the harsh news we hear across the world.

Some phrases can help, such as 'the world is a bad place' or 'it is not something in your control.' The world we live in has done its job well in hierarchizing the things we should be bothered about and the ones we can leave in the air of nonchalance.

If a young girl has been subjected to this gruesome crime, the first question that society asks is Who was she with? What was she wearing? What time was it? Was she roaming outside alone?

We need timestamps and character certificates before we decide whether to stand up for her. What is shocking and terrifying today will be forgotten tomorrow because we have to move on to newer, more disturbing things to worry about now.​

As I try to ponder deeper, I find myself under the contradiction of contrasting thoughts while trying to engage with this news. In all this, as we accept what is happening today, we run ourselves at the risk of normalising something inhumane at its core.

On the contrary, in all fairness, no one has the emotional bandwidth to deal with each case with the same brevity of resilient attention.

How can one talk about rape without dehumanising its depths to be regarded as any generic news or succumb to its atrocities, that one cannot do anything anyway?

My action plan- To pick up the newspapers and read them again with utmost sincerity, the news will be the same, but I hope my reaction to it will be different.

I hope I can read about rape and violence with a rational and stable mind, enraged and critical, yes, but not being paralysed or succumbed by it. 

As I read these newspapers, I hope it pushes me to do something about the violence around us. I do not know what it would be in its entirety right now, but till then, I will keep on reading and keep on writing about it with the best of my abilities, one story at a time.

Authored by Hridya Sharma, a freelance writer. | Views expressed by the author are their own.