India's Daughter

I was thirteen and was done with my eight grade final examination! A few of my friends and I decided to celebrate by going out to a movie. We decided to watch a matinee just so that we would all be back home before dark. As we all stepped out of the theatre after the movie was done, we laughed and joked around as youngsters typically do.

The crowds outside the theatre were massive. Suddenly out of nowhere I felt a hand creep up and grab me. I was shocked, I could not trace the hand back to the face of the person who had dared to touch me and as such I could not slap him as hard as my skinny thirteen-year-old hands could. 

I felt deeply ashamed and somehow violated! I felt reluctant to speak about the incident with my friends feeling that I might be judged. Neither could I speak about it with my mother, as I feared that she would curtail my already scanty freedom.  Somehow I bore the blame! I was angry with myself for not being careful enough. I was pissed at myself for allowing myself to be distracted. Then again this would not be the first time such episodes were to happen. 

As I got older I grew wiser, I was always acutely aware of my surroundings, I avoided streets that were vacant at all times of the day, I paid close attention to my instincts and always obeyed them, I was forever prepared to push back or hit back offenders and in heavy crowds I used safety pins to make sure that no one came too near. 

It was burdensome! Being a woman in India is not easy and it never was!  The prevalent mind-set is sickening! More episodes are hushed and silenced than brought out into the open because if something is wrong then the blame gets easily shifted onto the woman. What saddens me the most is that the culture encourages such silence. A woman with a voice is and has always been unwelcome, provocative, controversial and shamelessly bold be it inside or outside the house. 

There are several suggestions on how we can mitigate such problems and opinions are aplenty. But how is a dialogue possible without honesty, without admitting even to our own selves that we have a problem that needs to be dealt with. If we are to go about our lives pretending not to notice the elephant in the room, then how are we to even imagine sitting down with an open heart for a conversation. 

My own child turned thirteen yesterday and I sure hope that she will have the opportunity to live in a more safer world than I did!