Honey, I killed the kids!

I have been in Delhi for three months now. Definitely not enough to pass judgments. But definitely something I would want to voice my opinion on. The papers are full of it and so is my mind. Honour Killings! Yes, I have heard and read about it. They happened in those remote villages across India where education had still not found its way and where liberalization was something still unheard of. But Honour killngs in the Capital city of my Country?

It breaks my heart to see how on the one hand the city is preparinag itself for the commonwealth games 2010 – wanting to give an impression that Delhi is a world class city, any day at par with the most developed cities across the world. And on the other hand, cases of such cold brutal murders happening in the dark alleys of the same city almost every week, are threatening to suck it back in the dark old age of panchayats and casetism. Making Delhi a miniature form of those villages I was talking about a little earlier.

I have read about, atleast six cases of honour killings in the last 2 months ( 2 months of the three months I have been in Delhi. The remaining one month had me so busy house and job hunting that I don’t remember reading newspapers. I might have only glanced through the classified sections, hoping my luck would shine and I would find an ad for an ideal home somewhere).That makes it 12 people in all. This is but what got covered in the media.

Daughters killed by their brothers, mothers, grandmothers, fathers. Sons killed by their in-laws, grandmothers, brothers, fathers. Some shot in the head, some electrocuted, some strangulated and some beaten till they bled and died. It just doesn’t seem right. It sends shivers down my spine. Some deaths have taken place after two to four years of the couples being into marriage. Have their families nurtured that-so called wound for so long? Have they spent all of those two to four years waiting for the right moment to strike? And what for? All in the name of family and in the name of community – Gujjars, Rajputs, Balmikis, Jaatav etc etc. (having come to delhi, my knowledge of various communities have increased drastically). What anyways is left of those families?

At times, I can’t but wonder if these lovers had knowingly chosen this end, well aware of the price of loving someone, their community thought they shouldn’t. Probably love knows neither reason nor boundaries. If you can’t be the one you love, it really doesn’t matter whether you are dead or alive.