A young man in his earliy twenties is studying mechanical engineering in a private engineering college in Tirunelveli. The only son of a BSNL employee and his homemaker wife, the only brother of two young women, one a graduate, the other still studying. According to his neighbours, he was always a silent, well-behaved fellow, fond of herding his family?s goats and going for long walks, dreaming, quiet, a loner. He had some arrears in his course so he didn?t graduate, contrary to what various journalists spouted later. His father had allegedly given him Rs. 40,000 for fees, but he chose to spend it on a smartphone.

A young woman in her early twenties, working with Infosys in Chennai. She had finished her B.E. but had taken some extra courses and qualified for the Infosys exam and cleared the interview. A cheerful girl, say her friends. The younger daughter of a retired ESIC employee and a homemaker mother, sister to a woman who was married but still close to her younger sibling to be told about things that bothered her.

Somewhere along this line of events, their universes collided in Choolaimedu, where she lived and he too came to reside as a paying guest in a cramped building near her place. Some accounts say he befriended her on Facebook, chatted with her on Whatsapp and came to stay close to her and stalk her. Other accounts say that he came to Chennai to look for a job, some say in Kollywood, and happened to see her near his place and THEN he accosted her. He states that he got a job in a textile shop but told her that he was earning about a lakh per month, in a bid to make himself look good in her eyes. After all, women want financial security, right?

But she saw him in the textile shop and realised that he was lying. He followed her to the railway station on different occasions, studying her routine, watching her, sometimes accosting her to confirm his feelings for her. Life imitates art, art imitates life. If all these heroes he wanted to rub shoulders with could get the fair, pretty heroine who earned more than the struggling hero in the beginning, why not him? After all, one day, he would take care of her when his luck came in. Online too, he stalked her, watching her post photos and comments. He advised her not to?go wasting her devotion, but to lay all her love on him?.

He did not like the mirth with which she moved among others, while giving him the cold shoulder. She, like all the heroines in the first third of the movie, told him to lay off and mind his business, he meant nothing to her. He hung in there, convinced she would see sense in the end. But she continued to give him the cold shoulder, pointing him out to friends and fellow passengers but never giving him the recognition he?deserved?. She told him off in front of everybody when he declared his feelings again and again?said he looked like an orangutan, how dare he think he could be with her. When she saw him doggedly pursuing her as she traveled to work, she asked her father to drop her off at the station in the mornings. But no matter, predators must study their prey to be able to attack at the right time. It?s the thrill of the game.

So he decided finally, if she did not mend her ways and see that he was her true mate, she did not deserve to live. Surely, the stupid girl would see the light. So he planned very carefully?his uncle had a sickle that could cut through the hardest of shells. He stole it and brought it with him to his room. He knew that if he had to use it to silence whatever harsh words she would use against him, he would be marked with her blood. He packed a shirt in his backpack along with his sickle. He made his way to the platform from where she would board her train. She was dropped off by her father and made her way to the place he had correctly chosen. He approached her and tried to reason with her again to make her see his worth and love for her so she could reciprocate. But she was too stubborn. She turned away from him. She sealed her fate.

He took out his sickle and hit her jaw, that mouth that spurned him. She cried out but couldn?t do anything else. He knew that she connected with so many friends through her phone. He grabbed it as he moved away. He knew commuters would either be mostly in shock or would not bother to do much about events around them. Two men called out and tried to give chase, he easily sped away from them, having mapped his escape well. He changed his shirt and strode away. Meanwhile, her body lay sprawled on the platform, people milling around to avoid stepping on the body and clicking photos as they boarded their trains. Maybe two hours later, the family arrived to identify the body, and the postmortem took even longer. The young woman would never know the delays that dogged her family in spite of the early start to that horrible day.

Cameras, though absent inside the station, were marking his progress as he strode down the road confidently. He switched her phone off, making sure there would be no disturbance and no way for her friends or family to track it. Smartphones are only as smart as their users. He made his way back to his room, dumped his bloody shirt there and grabbed a few belongings and money and made his way to the station. He boarded the Podhigai express to his village the same day. The prodigal son shed his urban stress and slipped into his comfortable silence with his goats and the peaceful countryside. He watched the news and tracked the progress, and lack thereof, of what he?d left behind.

As expected, no one approached the police and it took some time for the police to get the case from the impoverished railway police. The media screamed out live updates of what was happening, what the police knew, didn?t know. Mobile phone usage of people in and near the train on the days he?d followed her and the cameras tracking him on particular roads made the police zoom in on Choolaimedu where the young woman had lived. As they zoomed in on places near her place, looking for someone who had seen her often, they made their way to his paying guest accommodation. Once there, his room mate and some others told the police that the person the police were chasing was him. The police found his bloody shirt, his diary, his village address. They alerted the police of his village who quietly scoped the village and his house.

They confirmed he was in the house and the police moved in on his street late at night. They cut off the electricity before they knocked on his door. His father came to the door and seeing the police, alerted his son. The police ran in to see the young man cut his throat with a blade, of course, with none of the force he used to silence the young woman. The police took him to the hospital where they stitched him up. They ascertained that he was fine before he was moved to judicial custody. They fed him idli, idiyappam and juice so that he would gain strength soon. People had always taken care of him well. Something to do with good karma from an earlier life? How else can you justify such treatment for a cold-blooded killer while his victim lay untended for hours? People's stupidity, of course.

He told the police why he did it. He couldn?t help it. He had laid his heart in front of her and all she was interested was in money and degrees and prospects. Foolish girl rejected him, HIM! Whatever he didn?t do when he was studying, he certainly showed a remarkable level of planning and study of his prey and had a very clear understanding of the environment he moved around in. Just like the juvenile in the Nirbhaya case who has allegedly come out with radical connections, this fellow too will find appreciative mentors in jail. They will look after him well and his planning and cunning will be very useful to help advance to high positions in the underworld. As I scour the comments in the many news articles online, I see so many different opinions.

Such as:

these days, girls are very arrogant. They think they can be involved with anybody for as long as they want without any consequences.

All they want is money, they are cruel in their dealings with people as they begin to realize their earning power. City girls are all like that.

It?s these movies, they are teaching youth that they can stalk and molest girls who can be convinced to overcome their initial, natural diffidence to fall in love with these heroic characters.

But movies only imitate life so you cannot blame movies.

Probably nuggets of truth everywhere. One of my grandmothers was a good student but she was pulled out of school when she reached puberty because it was not proper or necessary for females to get educated after "becoming women". Maybe their heads got swollen and exploded. Many would agree. My other grandmother was already married by the time she reached puberty and was sent to her husband?s place to start her married life when she was a young teenager. The women of that generation learned responsibility along the way and their place was in the home. Most of them could not speak their minds, at least not in public, no matter what they had to say.

Boys were prized possessions. The birth of a boy automatically elevated the status of the parents. He would earn, he would light his parents? pyre and burn their way to heaven. I am sure other religions have their version of the same logic. Generations later, girls? lives have changed dramatically. Most study, most of them go to work until they can figure out whether their in-laws and husbands will allow them to work and where, they bring home additional income, they use technology, many travel unescorted to work/college/school and back, and many mingle with the opposite sex. ?Friends with benefits? and casual relationships rule the roost in the urban landscape. They probably do in rural areas too but they probably end soon as marriages happen earlier. I refuse to believe that human beings improve with location.

But boys are still prized possessions. They are still indulged and pampered and their demands still splatter the matrimonial pages and sometimes the city affairs pages as they throw acid on and stab their paramours to give them an education after encountering rejection or lack of appreciation. The progression of the urban and semi-urban female citizen with the regression of their urban and semi-urban counterparts has resulted in a lot of aggression. Ulcers need symptomatic relief and have to also be treated for their cause. Similarly, CCTV camera installation in public places, increased security arrangements, greater vigilance in public places to facilitate movement of both sexes(and of course, the third sex also) are all necessary. But also needed is a major overhaul In public attitude and morals.

As Pastor Martin Nielmoeller said in his poem,?First they Came for the Jews?,

First they came for the Jews

and I did not speak out

because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists

and I did not speak out

because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists

and I did not speak out

because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

And long before that, John Donne(1572-1631), Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII: Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris:

"Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."