DON'T BLUR HER FACE

Don’t blur her face with your two-bit pixels.

Don’t. I need to see it. I need you to see it.

Not the photo where her purple kameez is burnished like velvet, her eyes like bright black orbs and her smile like Monalisa’s.

No. Not that picture.

(By the way, have you seen that one?
In it, she’s a little girl, only a poor, undernourished, tribal shepherd girl. But still, she’s alive in it. All bright and alive and her face shines. A Purple Girl!!!! 

This picture was taken just before she went into the forests to graze her herd. And was abducted and raped and killed.

She was eight.)

An after-thought: Shouldn’t she have been in school, instead of in the forest with her herd?

Or was it a chutti  day? 
Perhaps it was.

Every Sunday and on other school holidays, Gungun comes to my home. To play with Mimie, my plump white Labrador. They are great pals, Mimie and Gungun.

Gungun is not yet eight. She is my colleague's daughter and a chatterbox to the hilt. She lives only a few blocks from my own home here in the hills. She is not yet eight but looks just as tall.

They sit in the sun, Gungun and Mimie; Gungun combing the dog’s soft, silk-like fur with a broken comb and the dog’s eyes droop with the pleasure and the comfort and the camaraderie.

Then she asks me, “Aibee Auntie, toffee?"

So I climb up the stool in the kitchen and reach behind the forest of jars and packets and baskets in my pantry to extract a tin full of ‘toffee’. Chocolate filled.

Now, we both sit in the sun, chomping on the toffee and watch the noon turn into evening. Mimie sits at our feet, head resting on front paws as Gungun takes to gently patting her head again. Orange speckled brown butterflies flit around us, sparrows chirp, the sweet pea is fragrant, the tulips bloom happily and the calendulas are brighter than the sun. I watch and think: What a wonderful gathering of life around me : a living doll, an adorable dog, bright flowers, brighter butterflies, pretty birds.........

All God’s creatures, Her most beautiful creations and some of the reasons that make life worth living.....................

The toffee is done and Gungun wants to go home. She looks at me. “Auntie, ghar jaana hai.” 

The sun is setting and it’s getting dark. I take her hand and walk her down. These hill roads are as safe as a baby’s crib; yet.....I cannot convince myself to let her alone.  I hand her over to the safekeeping of her nanny and still wait, watching until they are both within the safety of their home’s gate. Only then, do I turn back.

Did anyone watch the Purple Girl’s back as she left for the forest to graze her donkeys? Maybe not. And today she lies face down on the hard black earth, her purple kurta splattered with mud, her Monalisa smile erased and her face blurred with your two bit pixels and their easily hurt sensibilities.

Don’t blur her face. Don’t.

We all need to see it. 
Me- Gungun’s Aibee Aunty. 

Gungun’s Mumma. 
Gungun’s Papa. 
Sana’s Mummy. 
Aisha’s  Dad. 
Naheed’s  Apa.  
Tanvi's Di.
Cheryl's Ashish Bhaiya. 
Chomchom’s Thamma.
Mehak’s  Mum. 
Sofia’s Daddy.
Paramjit's Virji
Neelu's Physics Sir
Sunita’s Ma
Adira's Principal Ma'am................................

We. Each one of us.

Unblur her. Now! Right now!

Then splatter her face all over this amnesic, aphasic country. Strew it all over the World Wide Web. Fling it over the prime time debate on television channels. Splash it on the newspapers and the bill boards. Let it suspend from grim thunderclouds over our villages, towns and our cities.

Unblur her face.

Let us see that death-swollen face without the shroud of your pixels. Let us see the vacant eyes stopped forever in mid blink. The bloody lips, rodent scratched. The excoriations, the dried phlegm, the rusted blood on her cheeks. The mouth frozen in a distorted O, the remnants of a silent dying scream. 

Force our denying heads to turn back and look upon that death mask of the little doll.

And make us keep looking till its dreadfulness churns up our indifferent stomachs and we puke with the horror of it all. Let it remain in our line of sight till ire roils our apathetic blood and it boils up and over. Let it remain, un-blurred till we rise up- we, mothers and fathers, teachers and neighbours, aunties and uncles, brothers and sisters and together, shout from the tallest roof that no longer can the perpetrators: these monsters, these fiends, these mutants lay claim on their own right to Life.

PS: The Purple Girl is Asifa, an eight year old Bhakarwal tribal girl from Jammu who was kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered over issues over land.