Jun 08, 2016 09:54 PM
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Sometimes in middle of nowhere you find a book which keeps you pondering and questioning the basic believe in human benevolence, the society in which we live and it transfixes your mind around the characters as if they are part of your own life.
With her debut book “#Iam16Icanrape” -The War AGAINST Rape Culture, Kirtida Gautam has not only picked a very sensitive and contemporary issue of today’s society, but she has done a great just with the topic by delivering such an outstanding work.
The book starts when a 16 year old Aarush Kashyap is in a rehab, accused of being part of gang-raping a 25 year old software engineer Subhangi Tyagi with his fellow accused Vijay, a bartender at a 5-star hotel. His lawyer Meghana is hell-bent on turning each stone around to make sure her innocent client is set free.
The legal battle catches public attention when Subhangi reveals the name of the juvenile culprit in her open letter. The media gets divided in two parts, one in support of the victim and the other supporting the accused juvenile, by claiming his innocence and blaming the victim for her careless behavior and framing the juvenile. Story takes its first turn when we are introduced with Aarush’s family, his attachment with his grandparents, his lady-love, Pihu, his friends. We also witness how Aarush helps the people of lower strata. Rudransh Kashyap, who is known as RKji, is an IIT coaching guru and a self made billionaire, who cultivates only one dream ever since he started his IIT-coaching center to see his prodigy, his star, his champion, his grand kid Aarush to come study under his wings at institute. Gayatri, who is grandmother of Aarush, is a simple homemaker, a traditional Indian woman, who has raised Aarush as a mother and loves him devotedly. Aarush’s parents stay in USA with his younger sister Navya. It is a family like any other Indian family. But the sky falls on the Kashyaps when Aarush gets arrested two days after his 16th birthday. His family, specifically RKji, does everything in his power to bring justice for him. But as the case proceeds, he starts questioning the innocence of his champ and digs deeper to find his level of involvement in the crime. And then we witness the devastation of the family. This psychological thriller takes us in its grip as we discover the psyche of real culprit layer-by layer. Story takes it’s a major twist when Rudransh goes one step forward in his own way to bring justice for his grand kid and save him. The rape survivor Subhangi fights with her life and with the whole society to unearth the taboos around rape. What happens at the end? Will Rudransh be able to save him? Will Subhangi be able to fight against our two faced society to get the justice? Will our juridical system see its responsibility and role as parent patriarchy for juveniles? To know these all. Pick up your copy of #Iam16Icanrape-A war against the growing rape culture.
