a pepper spray free world

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?