The Utterly Butterly Girl is shedding tears today..

An early riser, with my cardamom tea in hand, I behave like an addict, showing all typical symptoms of restlessness, involuntary shaking of leg in anticipation of morning newspaper.

Yes that much is the addiction! Those just few minutes of steaming tea, crisp newspaper with ink still fresh, sure makes a heady mix. After quickly glancing through the headlines and other news on front page, I hurriedly search for the Amul ad of the day, the utterly butterly girl.

The day almost looks incomplete without having a look at this creative masterpiece. I can vouch that even if you skip headlines or even the worthy editorials, the Amul ad tucked in a corner is sure to give you a complete and most sattirical view of the latest news which is the flavour of the day. The chirpy cute like a button, Amul girl, with her signature blue hair tied up in half  pony and dressed in polka dotted frock, no matter how deep the sattire is,  certainly brings a smile on just woken up face.

But not today! For the first time, I saw the bubbly girl is sitting shedding tears…and it immediately sunk me into an astute feeling of despair, helplessness, agony and anguish, probably brewing inside since last few days.

So it’s not only Kathua, Unnao, Surat or Etah. It’s probably ten other such news printed inside or even worse hundreds of similar other cases not even reported. What is spine chilling is to know that every 5th girl child faces sexual assault in some form, rape being the most brutal of them. So crime against women have stooped to this horrific new low. What was eve teasing or verbal abuse, say a decade back, has transformed itself into full blown sexual assault. One very alarming trend is girls and that too very young girls, being made the scapegoat, with the age group of 5 to 9 being most vulnerable.

Noble laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s foundation has carried out this research, which cites changing social relationships, increased level of independence and changing pyschology due to the influence of social media to be the key reasons. However, the reasons could be more complex as well.

A recent UN report states that latin America is particularly very dangerous for women and girls, with sexual assault being highest in the world. Femicide, the killing of women, occurs on a devastating scale there. Are we following the notoreity prevalent there?

My happy go lucky blog is featuring this extremely barbaric and heinous crime against girls. I never thought I would be writing on such a brutal topic. I was naive to think that such a crime could be committed by pychologically disturbed few. The situation is alarming and can have serious social and demographic consequences.  The chirpy little girl is sitting and shedding tears so writing or the hidden anger had to flow….