Serving Rape Lite
![[linked image]](http://www.tehelka.com/channels/Op-ed/2009/july/04/images/rape.jpg)
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main42.asp?filename=Op040709serving_rape.asp
THE SHINEY Ahuja case isnt particularly shocking.Indian Men have been forcing themselves on vulnerable women forever. Maidservants, younger relatives, unaccompanied girls using public transport, unhinged women wandering the streets, teenagers on the way to coaching class, Facebook friends, foreign students who dont know the unwritten codes that an Indian girl picks up by osmosis as she grows up everyones fair game.
A cursory scanning of the newspaper reveals at least a couple of reported rapes every day. The stories behind each of these cases seem to get increasingly convoluted, as though theyve been scripted by seasoned writers of violent porn, brothers of Marquis de Sade: mohalla cricket teams affirming their bonds by raping a girl out with her boyfriend, a father inflicting himself on his daughter with the collusion of her mother and at the behest of a tantrik, college romances taking awful twists in suburban hotel rooms.
Viewed against this backdrop, Shiney Ahujas alleged actions are villainous in the Prem Chopra mould out of sync in their lack of extreme bestiality. Ah, just think of all the things he could have done but didnt. So the act of rape itself appears to have lost its power to jolt, unless its a gang bang caught on camera or has a similarly hyperreal twist. Whatever happened to the Hindi film industrys trendsetting ways? The thought is oddly comforting for everyone but the victim whos currently languishing in a state home, her dreams of a prosperous future put on indefinite hold.
In the countrys overactive imagination, the strip of land between Bandra and Goregaons Film City in Mumbai is one long casting couch on which starlets in string bikinis perennially recline. Bollywood is a lush island where our lurid sexual fantasies are played out behind those anodyne familyfriendly scenes that make it to the screen. How surprising it is then to find out that one of those who seemed to have star potential imprinted on his forehead even when he appeared in Vasundhara Das Meri Jaan music video back in 2001, is like the average man on the street not at all averse to trying his luck with the household help. All those gorgeous women he had access to and he slums it with the maid, the chattering masses murmured disbelievingly on the local trains, in office canteens and on social networking sites.
In the countrys imagination, the strip of land between Bandra and Film City is one long casting couch
Perhaps its because we are a deeply puritanical people (despite the wide popularity of camera phones and file sharing chat rooms) when it comes to background, i.e. class and caste, that the protective laugh response kicked in so quickly after the story broke. By now everyones heard the joke about the housemaid who refuses to wash dishes because they are too Shiney or the SMS that labels Ahuja a bai-sexual.
Meanwhile, the case has taken on the absurd dimensions of a reality television show. The only difference here is that the dramatis personae are so over the top, you dont need foul mouthed bald twins or a bushy eyebrowed Ashutosh Ranatype to inject excitement into the proceedings. Theres the aggrieved Bharatiya nari figure, the faithful wife proclaiming the innocence of her soulmate at a widely covered press conference. Theres the sudden appearance of a detailed report by a journalist called Flynn Remedios, previously famous for sending lewd text messages to starlet Sherlyn Chopra, that suggests the victim had a gambler boyfriend out to part Shiney and his imaginary millions. Theres unsolicited advice for Anupam Ahuja from Pooja Bedi, who was once in a relationship with Aditya Pancholi yes, Kangana Ranauts original sugar daddy (heres where the venn diagram could come in) and dumped him when she discovered he had seduced her underaged maid. Theres the equally sudden reappearance of Madhur Bhandarkars old millstone Preeti Jain at the head of a morcha that went on to burn effigies of Shiney and, who else, middlebrow Madhur himself. Peripheral players include another domestic help who equates a refusal to attend church and a propensity to chatter endlessly on a mobile phone with an invitation to rape, and neighbours willing to vouch that Ahuja is a loving husband, father and son who doesnt even smoke or drink, as if that discounted completely the existence of a dark side. Anytime now Jahnavi Kapoor, the girl who slashed her wrists at the Abhi-Ash wedding, is going to teleport herself into this narrative.
Watching the adivasis of Lalgarh is too unsettling. The aam aadmi turns then to the sensation of the week
It makes for fantastic television, and it gives everyone something to focus on apart from their own wretched lives and perhaps even the state of the nation. Real life is fraught and has issues that are too big to fix, even understand. Only some aspects of the BJPs self -destruct mode lends itself to interesting television. The players are mostly untelegenic and so entrenched in their upper caste proprieties that they behave with a boring gravitas. Besides, few viewers want to contemplate how the unraveling of the BJP, the only national party that can counterbalance the Congress, isnt entirely good news for India. Next, watching the adivasis of Lalgarh be dragged out of their homes by security forces is too unsettling. While these issues play out in the background, the aam aadmi turns to news pornography, the inane sensation of the week, thats easy to grasp and even easier to get moralistic about. If it isnt socialite Sheetal Mafatlals attempt to smuggle in Faberge eggs, its film star Sanjay Dutts inability to make his sisters get along with his wife. If it isnt Salman and Katrinas umpteenth split, its his falling out with Shah Rukh Khan. Things were beginning to look boring when Shiney delivered his head and other body parts to the media on a silver salver. Still, fatigue is setting in and already viewers are switching channels.
There are two ways in which the Shiney scenario could play out: If the DNA evidence is inconclusive, this could be the making of superstar Shiney; if hes pronounced guilty, he could spend the next seven years in jail. Thats the end of a promising career. Or is it? Could he return to express his deep regrets on a talk show with a sympathetic host and pronounce that his jail experience had instilled in him a respect for all women, even the strangely attractive downtrodden ones with their frail nutrition-deprived bodies who work in his home? Anything is possible. The dystopic future with its unpredictable norms could end up making the rape of a domestic worker a rite of passage, a necessary stage in Shiney Ahujas march towards self actualisation, a step in his struggle to slay his personal Mr Hyde. The maid, meanwhile, will have to deal with flashbacks to that afternoon when someone whose DNA is definitely lodged in her fingernails despoiled her. Whether Shiney did it or not, that young girl is the one condemned to eke out a life sentence.
