Reading the paper on a Sunday is not as relaxing as one deems it to be. The newspaper is like a Sunday horror marathon, one gut wrenching story after another. It is hard to be cheerful or go one with your day after seeing headlines such as these.

Burying baby girls alive, abandoning children in railway tracks, it feels like we are living in the stone ages. Instead of moving ahead in society and leaving behind the terrible practices we seem to be taking many steps backwards. It honestly pains me to see that there are people who willingly kill their children for the big “mistake” of being born as girls. It doesn’t matter how much we’re educated, or how much money we have, it really doesn’t matter how much “awareness” we spread on issues like this. There will always be a certain sect of crazy that will not die down no matter how much we try.

Preventing situations like this is futile. The only part we can concentrate on is the cure. The proverb “Prevention is better than cure” does not apply to this context because it simply does not work. It doesn’t matter if we are the most forward thinking of induviduals with the the best of intentions in our hearts we cannot change a twisted mind.

Stories of girls being molested are printed everyday. These are just the lucky few girls who get to tell their story. But what they get in return is just some pity and perhaps two, three comments on how it was the girls fault for “encouraging” the molestor. Yes, girls wear stickers across their chests saying “I’m open for business so please feel free to rape me”. If revealing/western clothes seems to be the problem then what about the girls who wear Indian clothes and salwars. They get raped too. But the clothes aren’t the focus here. Isn’t the saree, the quintessential Indian garment previously considered the most modest form of clothing, now one among the most “sexy” clothes a woman can wear?

It is impossible to straighten a twisted mind. Burying alive your own child requires a kind of strength that I hope many of us don’t have. Molesting girls because they “encouraged” you is not an excuse. And making your wife drink urine? How absolutely sick in the head must you be to do something like that. This man was a dentist and what role did his education play here?

Abandoning girl babies in dustbins is the most common news item that appears in the paper. I read at least one such news item every week. It has become such casual news that they move these stories from page one to page four these days.

I don’t believe things like this will ever stop. Crazy is so well woven in to society that it is difficult to break the thread. Nothing is impossible, they say. Maybe here’s something that is.