How would one rank the tragedies in Aruna Shanbaug’s life? What are these tragedies?

Undoubtedly, Sohanlal Valmiki’s brutal assault on 27 November 1973, which left her in a permanent vegetative state, is the first. The second is the Supreme Court’s 7 March 2011 ruling in which the judges held passive euthanasia to be a legal right, but denied it to her, although she was the cynosure of that litigation. And I am aware of wading into a bitterly contested domain by naming the third one. It was the “iconic” (the Supreme Court’s words, not mine) dedication with which teams of nurses who worked in KEM Hospital over the years looked after her, nursed her and tended to her. This dedication, it must be said, was without a smidgen of selfishness. But to call it selfless would be a disservice to both facts as well as Shanbaug’s rights to dignity and autonomy.