Shiv Kumar Yadav, a 32-year-old driver working for Uber in New Delhi, has been accused in the rape of a 25/26/27 (?) year old woman.  Frankly, we don’t know how old she is.  Her age fluctuates between  25-27 in all the reports. It’s amazing how even in such dire circumstances, women will lie about their age.  HEHE. Yeah. My sense of humour is lame.

She had used the Uber smartphone app to book a taxi home on a Friday night but said she was taken to a secluded area and raped.

On Monday, the company described the incident as 'horrific' and said it would do everything 'to help bring this perpetrator to justice'.

Yadav has confessed to the crime.

The government has banned Uber to provide any transport related services in Delhi.

All other transport/ taxi service providers through web-based technology, who are not recognised, are prohibited from providing such services... till they get licence/permission from the transport department. Which sounds fair enough. Until we remember that most govt. employees are corrupted twats, pardon my French. 

They’re not all bad. Some of them are really hard working individuals, but they can’t make up for their mercenary counterparts. Govt. officials have a bit of a reputation here in India. Most people think they’re blood sucking bastards.

Personally, I think Uber provides a far safer experience than India’s traditional transportation options do. Unlike the vast majority of rape cases in the country, the alleged perpetrator in the Uber case was arrested within hours of the incident. Uber’s procedures guaranteed that there was considerable information available on the suspect. They provided the police with the name, age, and photograph of the driver, along with his bank verified address, car details, and trip and route data. Can you imagine things going this smoothly if the cab in question had been hailed off the street? Rapes in buses, especially trains, are not uncommon, and yet, I don’t see anyone banning either.

Moving on, the Delhi Police have termed Yadav  a 'master of lies' and a 'highly deceptive' person. In the light of recent reports, I can see why they’d say that. The Uber cabbie has come up with the very compelling argument of being the reincarnation of Kamadev, the Hindu God of Human Love and Desire.

Oh, I’m compelled all right. Compelled to punch him. Hard. In the balls. After before I rip them off. Guy’s either lost touch with reality, or is an unrepentant moron who thinks making a mockery of the police and judiciary is going to earn him brownie points.

 

Yadav was out on bail in a rape case in 2013, besides being involved in a similar case in 2011. He has been named in at least eight different cases at two police stations, including charges of molestation, theft, chain snatching and two cases under the Uttar Pradesh Goonda Act — all of which are pending trial. With a track record like that, you might wonder why Uber hired him at all. Turns out, he had procured a fake character certificate issued in the name of an Additional DCP of Delhi Police from a finance company agent.

Police have already recovered two of the three phones used by Yadav, including the iPhone which was provided by Uber to the driver accused of raping the finance company executive on Friday night inside the cab which she had booked through the company's App.

Okay, hold on! This guy has three phones? What does he need three phones for! And what’s this about an iphone! I want an iphone! I wish I’d bought one when Steve Jobs was still alive. Ahem, ahem.

 I wonder if Uber will hire me if I promise not to rape and kill people? But then again, I am a girl. With things being the way they are, there’s a high possibility of me getting raped and being left to die in a ditch.

Earlier today, when I first found out the guy was calling himself Kamadev, I laughed and laughed until I was in stitches. I couldn’t seem to stop, because how else can you possibly react. I went from convulsing with laughter to having a screaming match with my mother about the same topic within the hour.

She said , and I’m paraphrasing, that it was the girl’s fault for getting piss drunk that late at night and falling asleep in the cab. I exploded. Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I realize that even if she didn’t say it in so many words, she meant that it was a dumb thing to do. Which I’ll admit, it was. Because we know just how despicable people can be and it is best to always stay on your guard. But the thing is, the word ‘fault’ carries a lot of weight. If you think that even a tiny fraction of the blame lies with the girl, then know that a much, much bigger part of the blame lies with you for propagating such a vile mentality, that tries to justify victim blaming. Is it a good idea to travel alone at night? No. But it is inevitable that someone will find themselves in a situation where they HAVE to travel in the nightime. You expect them to put their lives on hold because of some psychotic Neanderthals that can't keep it in their pants?

When most people hear about a rape case, after a moment of being horrified and sympathetic as is expected, their first thought is that the girl should have been more careful. She knew it’s a bad world out there. Why was she travelling alone? Why was she travelling at night? She shouldn’t have gone out wearing western clothes. If only she’d done things differently, huh? A thousand random things could have gone differently, that would have prevented the rape from happening. But the fault lies only with the disgusting mongrel that committed the act. He alone is responsible. It’s that simple.

We can’t live in constant paranoia. We can’t always assume the worst of people. Keep thinking of possible escape routes on the off chance that something might go wrong.  What kind of life would that be? I’d drive myself crazy within a week. ‘Being careful’ shouldn’t entail staying hoarded up indoors and leaving with a security detail every time you need to make a grocery run.

I have heard people making jokes about how candle marches and running our mouth won’t bring about change. What else would you rather we do? Don a cape and become vigilantes? Look for a high vantage point and stand guard over the city? Neither am I Bruce Wayne, nor is this Gotham! Also, I would look stupid in a cowl.

In our times, pen trumps sword. Our best bet is to keep pushing women’s issues, until the rigid Indian mentality yields.  It will be a slow process, might even stretch over a generation or two, before there’s real change. But we have to keep at it. 

We stand by each other, tall and proud, fearless and composed.