Dear Ruchika,
I am a citizen of India. I have only come to know what happened to you 19 years earlier just recently. From the period when you underwent hell and till circa 2010, we have known nothing about you and about the incident. Till 18 years and 11 months ago, there was absolutely no mention of you. This is all due to public negligence, media sensationalism and also the lack of technology for this information to reach the mass public. We are only reminded of your innocent face on television, but we as citizens have remained quiet for 19 years.
Firstly, I hope you understand that when a authority of power indulges in such crude behavior, we in India become helpless. Inspite of repeated appeals from your best friend, we are seeing the person come out smiling and with bail. It infuriates me too, because, if I as an ordinary man indulge in the same behavior, the police would have subjected me to third degree tortures and the whole society would have ostracized me.
However, there seems to be outrage in your case, but still there are some influential sections that remain silent and are allowing it to drift this away from the conscience of the public. Ruchika, I have always wanted to ask, why do we always fall silent and helpless? Why cannot we realize that we need to set a precedent and do something which no one has ever done before.
I only wish that there are more people like Aradhna. In a country of one billion, she is waging a lonely battle with indirect support from thousands. Why in our country do we like to romanticize the underdog, when we have everything which does not give us the tag of an underdog? Ruchika, what should be done? It is times like this when you should not have committed suicide, however, I can understand your reason.
We, as a society, are too hypocritical morally to do anything about such instances like your case. We wholeheartedly condemn the personality or we condemn the wrongdoer only after sometime. Our situation is like a typical Bollywood Masala flick. The villain commits a crime like molestation or rape, the girl is ostracized by the society and her family is abused, the girl ultimately takes it upon herself that she has let the family down and she commits suicide. Why did you follow the stereotype?
There are discussions galore, and the media continues to disect the facts to the bare minimum, which furthur confuses us. We needed your testimony now, Ruchika, but unfortunately, society has claimed one more victim.
What have we done? What will we do? I guess, if nothing worls out, Ruchika, you are completely free to heap abuse upon us. What a sadistic thing to say. Afterall, you are dead and are now peacefully up there, so what use is the scorn heaped by a soul? At the end of the day, we can only say Sorry, Ruchika. really, Really, Sorry
