How educated are we?

I was reading an article published in 'The Hindu' on Sunday, Sep/3/2006. It talks about a female in the state of Rajasthan who was gang raped by five men and was left in the hospital sedated. When the medical report was out, terms pertaining to the inability to recollect something soon and being in a state of unconsciousness was highlighted, but nothing spoke about the woman been sexually harassed. A small village in the state of Rajasthan, where the income of the household is Rs.60/- day, much less than what we spend on a movie show in the cheapest theatres in Bangalore or elsewhere. The wife(who was raped), her husband and his mother have been to the school. None of them could pursue their education post eight grade, due to obvious reasons. The husband and his mother works on the fields and the wife was attending a vocational course in the village organized by the authority. This was not the only rape in the village; many women were raped and were left after the incident by their parents, husbands, and the families. Ostracizing a woman, for no fault of hers is the beauty of the human nature, if I can call that. Each time something wrong happens in a woman's life, no one is blamed but the woman. What was this woman's fault? Just that she trusted one of her friends and reach a place where the incidence took place? Let us forget about the village and the woman for some time. Assume that there is a person in our own family who is raped. Do we have the guts to face the world and accept the woman the same way she was a part of our life? I doubt. I don’t want to say anything now because I don’t know. I am a different person now, and I dont know what kind of a person will I be years from now, or after a similar incident. How many people in the urban world would accept a woman after she is raped? Come back to the village and the woman. Her husband and her mother-in-law did not leave her. They were there with her, right from the time when the FIR was lodged till date. The case is on, and two of the accused are acquitted. They never want to leave her, and I am sure they will not leave her. Being brave and facing the world is something that education cannot teach anyone. It is circumstantial and it has to come from within. How many people, educated families, well-settled, have left their daughters, wife's, mother's after they are raped? Numerous. How many people are ready to accept them after they have been through the trauma? Not many at all. And people like these, make me feel so small, because I know, I can never be like them. Hats off to this family. May god bless her and her family.

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