A couple of days ago a few purposeful young women gathered
at Carter road Bandra for a peaceful protest in support of Delhi and that poor
girl who was raped and is now battling for her life sans her intestines. It was
not a big group, 8 of us to be precise and while we elicited some curious looks
from evening joggers and aunties out for a walk no one joined us. One uncle who
stonily gave us the once over proceeded to tell us “kuch nahi hoga beta..
dekhna… nothing will happen. Those bastards will get away… Nothing will change.”
We smilingly, quietly told him that we sincerely believed
things would change, that they had to change but he continued to heap his
preciously preserved cynicism all over us in generous measure. An aged lady
maybe about 70 years old came up to us and told us to carry mirchi powder and a
small blade or knife all the time on our person. She told us that she had done
the same when she and a couple of other women had traveled alone by train 40
years ago. Cynical uncle immediately seized the opportunity and roared, “dekha…
kuch nahi badla 40 saalon mein..” and then proceeded to finish his evening jog.
Over the last few days we have been in the middle of a
storm. Debates have raged left right and centre (pun unintended) morchas,
protests dharnas have all occurred in full force, comments sensitive
insensitive and of course the inevitably moronic have been flung around… the
word Rape has become part of our everyday conversation. I watch young women,
students, old ladies protest on the streets of delhi braving lathi charges,
water cannons, tear case and general callousness on the part of the government.
I have read countless beautifully worded articles everyday by women who know
what they want… by women who have had enough, women who are courageous, strong,
who wont take anymore…
As a teenager and as a young woman every time I would step
out of the house my grandmother would say ‘Jaagratuya iru…’ later she started
saying Take care… For some reason the extremely well meaning ‘jaagrataya iru’
(also translated as take care) would annoy me to no end. It sounded ominous…like
I was expected to watch my back all the time. Like I couldn’t take care of
myself if I wasn’t issued the warning… all she meant was look on both sides of
the road before you cross and return home before its too dark.
But jaagrataya iru irked me…consciously subconsciously… and
now I know why…
Dear aunty on Carter road who told me to carry mirchi powder
and a knife on my person all the time… here’s the thing… I don’t want to…
It makes me very angry that I have to live in a world where
I must carry pepper spray in my bag. It makes me angry that I must know how to
punch a potential rapist in the balls so I have time to run. It makes me very
angry that I must now download apps that will send out SOS signals to people on
my speed dial in the event that some men have pinned me down and are trying to
molest me.
It makes me angry…
It makes me angry that I am not free. That I must watch my
back. That my back must be covered appropriately. That I have to be afraid of
shadows, of empty buses and local trains. Of groups of men laughing in corners.
Of vehicles that slow down as they pass me.
It makes me angry that I live in a world that doesn’t make
me feel safe.
That it has come to this… pepper spray at all times in my
bag.
I come from Kerala… the most beautiful place in the world.
The state with the highest percentage of literacy. Also a state of pathological
eve teasers or as we want to call them now verbal molesters.
I went to a college where I was pulled up every day for five
years for wearing ‘western clothes’. And speaking English. And leaving my hair
loose. Yes leaving your hair loose is considered a sign of being wanton…
apparently. I survived those five years of extreme misogyny…. And ran away from
that small town only to realize that the world is but a mirror…
There is no such place as a safe place for women. I have
been groped on trains on long distance journeys, stared at remorselessly even
at a time when I didn’t even have any breasts to speak of, brushed against by
people familiar and unfamiliar and called all kinds of names… I have one
brilliant memory of my mother whacking a stalker and verbal abuser with her
umbrella. I must have been five or six. Which makes her around 28 at that time…
an unarmed young woman who whacked an asshole with her umbrella so she may
protect herself and her daughter. No one else came forward I remember.
And that’s how I knew subconsciously that I have to watch
out… watch out from as early as the age of five…
And when I say I, I also mean you… this is my story… your
story… this is OUR story… it’s a dark sad fact that no one I know has been
spared any of this… some less some more…
And it makes me angry…
I don’t know what the future holds… I don’t know how we will
erase attitudes nurtured and cultivated over centuries. How we will be
respected, loved and nurtured without having to demand any of it? Without
having to fight for something as basic as safety on a bus or a train, or on a
walk back home from work? How there will be absolute safety from dangerous
chauvinism and misogynistic attitudes both from men and women.
All I know is that I hope… I hope against hope that this
world will be a safer place for my children. Who I hope will be born in to a
world better than today. That when I tell my daughter to ‘take care’ I will not
telling her to come home safely having escaped molestation of some sort that
day. That when she goes to school or college I won’t have to remind her to
carry her pepper spray and pocket knife along….
I am willing to be responsible for myself. But I am not
willing to be responsible for someone else’s misplaced misdirected misinformed
attitude towards me… of someone else’s calculated attempt to assault me… I
shouldn’t have to! This is my world as much as yours. I demand my place in it
without having to worry about being raped in a bus.
I don’t understand why I have to MAKE my world safe… why it
is only up to me… why isn’t it safe already? Why?
