Speaking Out: Why Your Voice Matters

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One of the most important conditions which I have to abide by when I'm alone on the streets is "Don't take it upon yourself to act like Calcutta's official messiah". Other than my congenital clumsiness on busy roads (which might get me killed one of these days), this was the reason I was not allowed to go out alone all these years. My mum and dad, like all anxious parents, think that giving a piece of my mind to the many hooligans of Calcutta is going to land me in trouble one day. And that is why, I am strictly instructed to go out, do my work, greet those I know and quietly come home without grabbing any unwanted attention. Because hell hath no fury like a Bengali mother if you cross that metaphorical line like the damned activist you are.

It had all started when I was eight. The first time I was sent out to get chillies and tomatoes like a 'big girl' from the nearby bazaar, would always be remembered by me and my mum - though for entirely different reasons. Everything was going well. I had picked the fattest chillies and the rosiest tomatoes, even haggled with the vegetable seller like mum, and was heading homewards, when I noticed a group of twelve year olds throwing stones and kicking a wounded stray. Infuriated, I had dropped my shopping bag on the roadside and had screamed at the kids. No one hurts animals in front of me, no one! The kids had merely ignored me and went on with their sadistic fun. I was seeing red. Screaming, I had grabbed a boy thrice my size by the scruff of his neck and started kicking him in the shins until a crowd had gathered and my angry dad had pulled me off the boy to carry me home. Needless to say, we didn't have tomato chutney for lunch that day.

Another time, at the age of thirteen, I had punched a man in the pavement for making lewd comments at a college girl. Thankfully, my parents were with me that day and they had dragged me away from the goon who had started using some colourful anathemas.

But as Malala has said, you can speak out and then be killed. She has proved that it takes more than guns to kill a soul like hers'. This world is fighting a war where financial and muscle power wins. Here the strong and influential feed on the fear of the weak. Be it helpless animals, children, differently-abled people, the racial and sexual minorities, or the poor - it is the so-called 'strong' against the 'weak'. Quoting Lord Varys, "Why, in your game of thrones, it is the innocent who suffer the most?"

But isn't it high time the underdog has its day? When will Judgement Day arrived for these sinners? I ask the God I don't believe in, "In your land, a homosexual person, an abused spouse driven into adultery, an agnostic child are 'sinners', they pay for their faults. But how come these vultures feeding on the weak, killing in your name, lying and deceiving good men get off the hook so easily?" If times are-a-changing, how can we not speak out, but stay mum as it 'does not concern us'? Every wrong in this world is my business. And at the end of the day, it is us paying taxes to some of the lawbreakers I condemn here. Yes, right. I choose violence. If it can do any good, so be it. And no, I would not stab these sadistic snakes in the dark. I am not craven. I ask all of you to join hands and speak out against any injustice you see, in the streets, in educational institutions, in hospitals and stores, and even in your homes, if you have the courage. Let us cleanse the world of these social diseases. Together.

And maybe, just maybe we all can stab the King where the entire court can watch him die.