Some of us who have been through a guided Brainstorming Tour know the rules of the game. Just think up of the wildest ideas, vomit them out. Anyone can do it, indeed anyone and everyone should. There is no hierarchy in brainstorming. There is no disdain, no disapproval of ideas. Nothing is too bizarre, nothing impossible. And so on.

Yes, brainstorming sessions are good. They are invigorating. And many a solution has evolved out of these mental calisthenics. But sometimes the sessions tend to meander from the limits of impracticality to the horizons of the impossible.

As a country, we seem to be engaging in the most vicious brainstorming in a long time. A few months back we had a momentary grasp of the Corruption Tiger’s tail and man, did we get taken for a ride?

One man declared himself to be the high priest of anti-corruption and we bestowed on him the status of a God. And once the walls of his bastion began to crumble (because the decay was too much already) we sighed our disappointment and went on with our pathetic lives.

Just imagine, corruption is no longer front page news!

A few years back the media grappled with the Jessica Lal case and bungled it so much that the voice of the people had to rescue it from the ruins. It was a touch and go operation but one that finally, fortunately yielded results. And the farmhouse elite of the nation’s capital were reminded that they were after all balloons and that they too could be pricked by a collective conscience.

Today the subject on the table is rape.

Strangely enough it’s not the rape of a woman that worries us. It is the rape of the system.

A system that allowed in broad daylight, the perpetuation of a heinous crime. A system that even now shows symptoms of clamming up even if only to protect the criminals.

Ideas are being thrown around. The Brainstorming Session is on in full flow.

Kill them, says one voice. Yeah, kill them echo a million voices.

Let’s protest, let’s make sure that Republic Day is not attended – is another idea being discussed.

Let’s cut off male genitalia before it can cause further damage – someone mutters.

The suggestions are many, And some of them deserve consideration.

But this is a brainstorm. And none can comment. None can dismiss.

But while we are all posturing with pen and bobbit sword, is the situation improving? Or does it continue as before, irritated with the slight interruption but fuelled just a wee bit more with hormonical frustration.

I read somewhere that most rape cases in our country involved family members. Uncles raped nieces. Fathers raped daughters. And so on.

Is anything being done to address the crimes that never get reported due to fear of reprisal or ridicule. Are we equipped to help people come to terms with Post Rape Trauma?

When do you think that we as a member of a disgruntled nation, will have the gumption to march to each of our MP’s houses and insist that they who have been elected by us, have to represent our views and take it up at the highest levels of Government. And that rapists should be categorised as people whose crime should be immediately punished, even if they are ministers or their cohorts.

A General Manager of a top hotel once told us of a horror story – of a film starlet who was a guest in his hotel, and how she was systematically raped by a Producer’s team of cronies…that she had to eventually be hospitalised with her insides torn apart and bleeding. Worse, he told us that rape was a common denominator in the industry.

Stories of women raped in Police Stations when they went to complain or testify are too many and it’s almost as if we have all accepted it as a part of reality.

Rape my friends, is a disease. A cure is available but dosages required are few and far apart. We need to treat this disease on a war footing…as we took on cancer, AIDS and cardio related diseases…

Can we start with the public decapitation of the accused. Can we bring ourselves to believe that in some aspects of justice we cannot expect mercy?

Can we for once, rape the rapists?

Instead of raping the systems and ourselves.