'RAPE SCHEDULE': Delhi Woman's Moving Poem Is Really Moving

Even after worldwide protests condemning the brutal gangrape of ‘Nirbhaya’ in 2012, women continue to feel unsafe and alienated in Delhi. Highlighting this, Bhavna Bhasin, a Facebook user from New Delhi, shared a stirring poem titled ‘Rape Schedule’, which subsequently went viral.

The poem is a moving account of a girl, who knows a time-bomb is ticking away.

As darkness sets in, even as she is getting to know a person and enjoying his company, she is constantly reminded of the curfew she is supposed to stick to, the notifications from five missed calls blinking on her phone and her parents’ misplaced anger.

All that she has to do is to stick to a schedule that will make sure she reaches home ‘unraped’.

‘Rape schedule

I am on a rape schedule

It’s after 10,

the city is receding,

street lights flickering,

A murmur of ‘go home’

is in the air,

Audible only

to my ear .

We had just started talking,

I was telling him why I chose

writing over practicing law,

‘That’s a bold move’ , he said

I quickly shut the phone screen

that said 5 missed calls

Now I’m not allowed contingencies

you see

If I said I would be back by 11

I should have been in bed by 10

Or planned all life events before 3

Because I am on a rape schedule

I know this could be a wonderful conversation, and we have only

just begun

But I’m tracing the map,

it’s forty minutes to home

Every passing second,

another potential rapist gets

added to the list of ways

in which a consequential,

highly avoidable fate is met

after a night of fun

So I have to go,

keep the shoe,

keep my share of the night sky too

Because I am on a rape schedule

My parents have already imagined

every possible horrendous thing that

could happen to me

Their anger is misplaced,

their logic faulty,

But can I complain

if in theory they believe in my freedom

But really just act out of concern for me?

I should be grateful for the sunny patch

that I’m allowed

For men who feel responsible for me

even though I’m better endowed

For

everyday that I follow the schedule

and

come

home

unraped.’