The Elephant in the Room: Misplaced Misogyny

Kajal as Armor in a War Women Didn’t Start

Accusing and grieving, the kajal lined eyes in my collage stare back. Torn headlines scream "women related cases" (The Guardian, 2013). Meanwhile tape transferred texts bleeds into the page like fading memory. This is India’s shame: a nation that worships goddesses but sets its daughters on fire. The 2012 protests shook the world (Swarthmore Nonviolent Action Database). Then what? Silence. Complicity. Repeat.

Pink as Protest, Black as Mourning

The soft pink background mocks the brutality it frames. "SAY NO UNITE" begs from a postcard, while newspaper clippings metastasize like untreated wounds. Six men raped Nirbhaya on a moving bus. Millions marched. Laws changed. Yet in 2024, a woman is raped every 16 minutes (National Crime Records Bureau of India). When does outrage become habit?

Text That Won’t Stick: The Text of Trauma

I used clear tape to lift words from newspapers..."justice," "protest", "verdict" However, they hover ghostlike, half-erased. Like India’s promises. Like global headlines that move on (BBC, 2013). The collage’s chaos mirrors the cycle: violence, outcry, inertia. Even the kajal, meant to protect (Ayurvedic texts, Charaka Samhita), becomes a grotesque joke. What good are warding symbols when monsters walk in daylight?

Your Complicity Is My Collage Material

Every clipped headline, every smudged "ACT NOW" is proof: you looked. And then? You turned the page. My art weaponizes your indifference. The system isn’t broken. It’s working exactly as designed to exhaust women into silence (UN Women Reports, 2023). I paste your apathy next to Nirbhaya’s autopsy report. Admire the composition.

Reflection

Men of India... no, men of the world: Your mothers wore kajal to protect you from evil (Rig Veda 10.85). Yet here you are, the evil she feared. Until you burn down the system that breeds you (Amnesty International, 2024), this collage is your mirror to stare into.