As I am counting down the days till I reach Delhi, I am
enveloped with a feeling of dread. When I read about the girl from Guwahati being
attacked, my mind took me back to a few years, to Mumbai, where another girl
was attacked by a mob of men on New Years Eve. A shiver runs down my spine
every time I think about these incidents. I can feel the gnawing helplessness,
the agonizing and paralyzing fear that numbs your peripheries. Has this
happened to me, you wonder? No.
But I am in an Indian girl (woman?) and this is what my
nightmares are made of.
I haven’t lived in India for three years now. Living without the fear that someone
will come around and purposefully ram into you to get a feel of your bosom,
comes slowly. Even now, when I walk down the streets of Madrid at night by
myself, I look over my shoulder to make sure no one is following me. It’s summer now, and careless abandon
is in the air. Girls wear whatever they damn well please, and admire the warm
spirit of the city at 11 pm. This can indeed be uplifting. The independence,
the ability to wear whatever you want when its 40 degrees outside, the safety
that no one curious eyes will undress you as you cross the road, it can be
uplifting. But only till the moment you realize, this is not reality. My reality
is my country, which scares the living day light out of me for being a woman.
And that will stay with me for eternity.
Growing up in Delhi, a girl learns that she can not go out
by herself at night. . For those of us who do not have boyfriends, brothers and
fathers handy, this can be a problem. Ofcourse, some of us do venture out anyway.
To hell with the world, we think. The few times that I had the temerity to do
this, I remember sitting in the drivers seat of my car, at a signal, silently
urging the gods of the colour green to beckon the signal. I looked to my left
and there was a car full of men, looking in my direction, smiling, laughing
even, and smirking. No they didn’t do anything; no they didn’t say anything
that I could hear since the widows were forced closed. But my heart pounded,
and as the signal turned green, I sped across the road, looking in the rear
view mirror time and time again. Making your way home at night, Delhi Girl, you
know, is worthy of an accolade. The adrenaline is nothing short of what you
would have generated in a battle.
As I sit here writing this, I feel angry. Not that boiling
rage which makes one want to throw stuff around but that kind of systematic low
range rage, which makes you want to write this. I want to be able to talk to
those men, that driver from a licensed motor training school who felt
comfortable enough to graze my thigh while teaching me how to drive a car. I
want to say yeah, I would like to slap him. But really, I want to know his
psyche. What was he thinking? What made him do that? Was he pathological? Was
it the first time he did something like that? Did he know it was wrong because
I was uncomfortable? And ofcourse, the 17 year old me didn’t know what was
going on and rationalized by saying hey, maybe it was a mistake. Well, if it
happens every 5 minutes, it is sure as hell not a mistake.
I did tell the management and they refused to believe the
word of this 17 year old girl. And I didn’t drive till I was 19 because I was
afraid to take lessons. One day though I decided it was enough, and I picked up
the old family car and my best friend and bumped away into the horizon, in
second gear, with the hand break on.
Maybe it was the guys background, maybe he wasn’t educated
enough, I would tell myself thinking about what happened. Well, I was wiser
atleast. Or Was I?
What about the gentleman in the business class seat on the
flight to China? Did he think the small of my back was a mitten he could use to
warm him hands on this warm August night as our flight took off? Was his
unapologetic nature when I shrugged it off and ran with my bag to the back of
the plane, induced by drugs and alcohol? Or was it just him thinking that a
helpless looking girl tucked in on the window seat would make for a good story?
I didn’t say anything to him either. I just sat in my new seat, mortified,
thinking about what happened, writing a blog! So I guess I vented by writing, and ofcourse I always book an
aisle seat when flying now, but hey, everyone has baggage right?
How do we change this mentality? This brazen nature of
accosting a woman and getting away with saying and doing anything. What do you
call these men? Hooligans? Maybe the mob, yes. But the guy in the plane or the
car guys? Are they just regular men like we know or there is something
different about them?
I want to know. I have questions. Conjectures and guesses
are not enough anymore. It is easy to say that he must be illiterate/ignorant/a
criminal or other such justifications. So girls, next time you meet someone who
whistles at you. Please stop him, and ask him. Why. What gave him the liberty
to do this. Maybe we will get an answer. Maybe we won’t. But we need to try and
get to the genesis of this behemoth of a nuisance.
I have many stories to tell, which would be the same as the
stories of another Indian girl with only a few details changed. The man in the
bus staring at your ankles, the man on that motorcycle shouting profanities in
your direction, or those boys in that car, circling the street you and your
friend are parked in, waiting for someone. That trepidation which makes you
crouch down in your own car to lose the stalkers, the fear which makes you want
to wear jeans when its 45 degrees outside, the dread which makes say, Girls,
wake up. We need a revolution.
