Rape, Suicide and Movies: A Reality Check!

I should say the movie Ravanan is the reason why I am writing this. I could not help but lose myself in thought after watching the movie. One thing really got me hooked, obviously the movie was worth watching and beautiful and all but that is not what I am talking about. There is a character played by Priyamani in the movie, they introduce her character as a strong woman who is protagonist’s sister. A few scenes later she commits suicide after having being gang-raped by Police men. At this point I wondered why the directors or rather script writers decide that a woman should commit suicide once she gets raped, does that really necessary to prove that she is a quintessential woman. Is it all for chastity or virginity the women live for?? May be some script demands that she ought to die but here it was not. Is not his younger sister getting raped a big enough reason for the protagonist to fight against the Police and kidnap commissioner’s wife?? I must say I was disappointed with the way Maniratnam and Suhasini treated the character.

Why is it like rape victims commit suicide in all the Indian movies we watch, well there are a very few exception. But don’t directors have social commitment to make the society better??? We cannot prevent the psychic men from committing rape but we obviously can motivate women to fight against this injustice. I am not asking all the directors to stop making entertainment only movies and turn to social movies which are meant to have an impact on people’s lives, that won’t really help because the mass seldom watch such movies. But I am asking to stop killing the rape victims if it does not really affect the flow of the story. If we keep doing like what we are doing, no doubt that an innocent woman getting raped would not think about anything but suicide, do we really want it that way?? Do we really want them to pay their life only because some antisocial psychic pricks find happiness in this bloody act?? I would rather say we don’t. We ought to do whatever it takes to stop the atrocities like rape from happening but we also need to be prepared for the worst. What if it happens? Should or should not the victim live?? We know how hard it will be for her to come back to a normal life, it may take a few years but I believe a human life is worth the suffering. I don’t know what can we do to bring them back but I really can say we should change our attitude towards the rape victims; they are no material for a tea time laugh for that they have not done anything wrong, they only suffered.

I don’t believe women commit suicide because they believe it’s not worth living if they are sexually assaulted but its more because of the insult they will have to take when this goes public. So we should do whatever it takes to keep them away from public eyes but at the same time we should find ways to prevent women from exploiting this benefit to trap innocent men, because I think if they have nothing to lose a few woman may be willing to file sexual assault complaints to take revenge on men they have personal problem with and also there is the possibility of crooked men taking advantage of this situations for business or personal benefits. All I hope is we will do whatever we can do, without putting too much effort, to make the life easier for everyone. I hope directors will also.