Jekyll & Hyde

Of all the fictional novels that I had read in my childhood, this story had fascinated me the most. As you all know, the story relates to a doctor named Jekyll and his evil alter ego Hyde. The doctor invents a magic potion that lets him transform into an evil man Hyde, who goes about trampling and killing people. The story of Jekyll and Hyde is relevant now more than ever, as the horrific stories of rape of young defenseless girls emerge from different parts of India.

We humans have become the evil Hyde from Dr.Jekyll. No incident displays this fact more clearly that the horrible rape of 8 year old girl, Asifa in Jammu and Kashmir two months ago. The horror story had even my father choking. There is no running away from the fact that our generation is corrupted. The problem also trickles down from the fact that man to women ratio is the worst in recent times, which causes these societal imbalances.

The compass of morality has swung many times in different directions in the past. But our beautiful country and its people stand at the fulcrum of history. Is this how we would want to be known to our future generations? The world’s leading country for human rights and regulations, United States of America, rightly puts so many under the lethal injection to infuse the sense of law for its many citizens and immigrants.

Perhaps, we should follow their lead and plead to our court/judges to do the same. Alas, there are as many holes in the law as there are in the lawyer’s gown. However, I do hope that with increased social media awareness, laws around rape would be tightened and the guilty would be punished with nothing but death sentence and that too, after castrating them. This I believe, would send the right message to our current and future generations and help protect our women, for without them there is no life.