Someone died today

Someone died today.

So many days of rage and sadness. A frustration screaming out of every woman whose being has been violated and every man who dreams of a safer haven for his women. They have been days of posters and banners, fires and effigies, prayers and more prayers, shouts and rallies, candles and flowers, authority and mobs, violence and water canons. They have been days of news and views and opinions on television, of debates and more debates, of discussions and negotiations, of blaming and hiding and pointing and denying. Days of black and white ... and all shades of grey in between!    

Someone died today. 

And with her we feel has died a part of our own being - a part that trusted law, believed in fair justice, relied on security-providers and lived a life free from fear. A part of us that dreamed of simple thinking and secure living. Of family planning and ageing. And dying a natural death. Not an imposed one, nor a man-made one. A part that believes, and likes to believe, died an untimely death within all of us.

Someone died today. 

But this 'Something' that She has left behind all around and inside us should not! We've done a lot and worked really hard. It's time to sit, and think. No, not who to throw the next stone on or whose face to blacken in the next protest. Not which social site needs our voice to be heard or where to light the million candles. 

It's time to think. 

It's time to look, within. 

It's time - to know ourselves, so we can know, understand, respect and appreciate others - our children, our neighbours, friends and family, and even strangers. It's time to connect the human way, through understanding. Because the human thread is the only shared thread running amongst us, we who revel in our diversity and uniqueness of community/caste/creed need to first become one big breathing mass of humanity. No, not for a cause alone, but for everyday of our lives. Not sporadic voices of support in times of evil, but a feeling of oneness and sameness, by virtue of being humans together, by virtue of wanting to protect and be protected in return.

Someone died today. 

But Humanity remains. Find it. You need it, and more importantly, others need it from you. 

We make the world and make up the world, both - we give birth, we rear, we educate, we set examples, and then we cover up, we hide evil, we kill our daughters, we sell those who remain. We vote, we support, we choose, we enjoy favour, we give power and then we blame those in power, abuse them, ask them to leave. 

We want change? It is within. We just need to sit down, and think!