Saying that India is no more the fabled "safe country" for women is probably the understatement of the year. In a country where people are so delusional that they still wrongly and very, very shamelessly call themselves god-fearing and goddess-worshipping, baby girls and adolescent girls and teenaged girls and adult women and old women, so basically every thing and every one that has breasts and a vagina and a pulse, are being brutally and very mercilessly assaulted and molested on a regular basis. No matter what you wear and no matter how you behave, the Indian ‘men’tality these days is “Rape those bitches! Let’s put them in their rightful place!”
And I’ll be damned if I exaggerate about this. We are ruthlessly elbowed and nudged, by men old and young, copping a feel of us like we’re their property, manhandled beyond your nastiest imagination. You know the situation has gone from bad to worse when lewd young men, barely in their 20s, reach inside the rickshaw and wildly grasp at girls’ privates. So much so that it physically hurts, so much that crying out of rage is the only thing left to do. So, what are we supposed to wear when we have to travel in the confines of a rickshaw, then? Please do enlighten us, dear Ministers and others who really are dumb enough to think dressing up a certain way will help us not be molested and raped.
Reading about the recent Guwahati tragedy I shook with uncontrollable anger which I wrongly vented out on my mum, who was only reasoning with me about the how’s and why’s of time constraints for girls. I do not blame her; but since when has time got anything to do with the sudden animalistic want of certain men to defile a woman? Has time got anything to do with marital rapes? Has it got anything to do with a father raping his own daughter, his flesh and blood? If a woman can be regularly touched and felt in full public view in buses, and railway stations and rickshaws and basically on every street and corner, time really does not have anything to do with it. The only thing time restraints can do is maybe, if you are lucky enough, minimise the chances of you being molested.
I once had my hair pulled by a man from a men’s compartment in the afternoon, while the train had started pulling out of the station and I was naively making my way toward the ladies section. I was a FYJC student then, just out of school. Now what was the need to do that? What fun or satisfaction, exactly, did that vile ass of a man get from pulling a young girls hair? Since then, I never ever walk close to the trains. I also hold my bag to my chest and hold up one hand in front of me to ward off any attempts that men might make to touch me. You only have to imagine how comfortable it is for us women to walk, be it on the stations or on streets. Oh, it fills my heart with joy, is what it does!
Must say, men have got really, really bold these days. In stead of using their strength to protect and cherish women, they’re out in full force, strong as ever, to hurt and defile them. And here we are, still worshipping our various goddesses, whilst either murdering baby girls or raping them. Men, for some reason have come to relish the idea of using their strength to control and manhandle women. Sometimes individually, and sometimes in groups. But every time hurting a woman to an extent that she can’t bounce back and start her life anew. A woman has to hide her face behind a veil after being brutally raped to protect the last shred of dignity she has left, whereas the man who raped her roams around with his chest puffed out of pride.
I have had men leering at me, whispering nasty, unspeakable things, undressing me with their eyes, so really, no matter what I wear, this mentally sick tendency is not limited only to women who show off their bodies. Please, for everything that is pure and holy, get it out of your heads that dressing up head to toe is going to save us. I am sure all of the women reading this right now have at one time or the other been subjected to such sick and twisted incidents. I empathize.
Really, where there are some men who value and protect women like they’re delicate, lovely flowers, there are those who crush them as effectively. This is the category of men, who spoil the characters of all real, kind gentlemen.
I abhor this, and I say this for all women. We long for a day when we could walk with our chins up and our purses at our sides like they’re supposed to be. We long to be in a country where men learn how to keep their hands to themselves and their privates in their pants. When we say no, we really do mean no. How hard is a simple “no” to understand? How can a woman’s screams of protest and pain be mistaken for affirmation of a man’s ghastly acts?
If they can’t treat us like respectable women, can’t they at least treat us like human beings?
PS - Girls, please stay safe. x
