Priti Narayan
Of course it has happened to all of us, a few thousand times each. It has happened to me too, and I remember. Let’s talk about it.
***
It was my first time. I was 13 then, walking to a friend’s house in my own neighborhood. It was a bustling street. I was weaving my way among many other pedestrians, cyclists, parked and running two wheelers, when suddenly I felt a sharp pain on my chest. It took me a few stumped moments standing in the middle of the street to realize that a man on a fast cycle had groped my breast. He was gone, but the pain remained. I tried to continue walking to the friend’s place, but the tears and the shivers wouldn’t stop. I went home, straight to bed.
Many years passed before the next time I was groped, although a lot of things happened in the meanwhile. Like the time I was told to wear a longer shirt, or I would go home without a shirt. (In my outrage and confusion, I remember simply screaming back to the boy to mind his own clothes before I stomped off). Or when a boy “in love” with me relentlessly followed me on his white Scooty begging me to talk to him (and I remember how my stomach used to clench in fear whenever I saw him around).
And then I was groped again. This time, I was a lot older – 21. I was walking to the bus stop at 5 am to head to journalism school and its crazy deadlines, when again a boy on a cycle honked my boob and cycled away. That early in the morning, my reflexes were slow, and I stood there staring in the dark, before I continued ahead to the bus stop. Less shame, more outrage, followed by a terribly emotional argument with a guy friend, who told me I should just protect myself, and take the bike to college.
Followed by the triviality of having the back of my neck tickled in the bus, by a bunch of rowdy college boys who laughed when I screamed at them. The conductor and co-passengers paid no attention, and I got off, fuming. All in a day’s commute, huh?
And then Strike 3. A few months later, I was walking back home at 6 am after an all-night turtle walk. This time too I was groggy. But I noticed a boy inches shorter than me walking towards me on the same side of the street. This time, instinct kicked in; I wondered if he was the boy on the cycle from a few months earlier. I hugged my bag to my chest and walked on ahead. And as we crossed each other, I held my breath, and there. I felt a light brush against my thigh. This time I stopped, and shouted at his back, as he continued to walk on. I walked behind him, screaming all the way, when suddenly he broke into a run, and I did too, pelting stones at him. I chased him for a few hundred metres, but he did prove too fast for me. But my screaming had gotten the attention of the milkmen, and the few residents out on the street at the time, who all asked me what happened. He was gone by then, but I have never seen him around since.
The crazy thing is, every one of these incidents happened in my neighborhood, where I have lived most of my life. You would think I live in the seediest part of the city, but no. It is a purely middle class, residential area centered around a big school, which makes matters worse. It means that the bastards who got me, have probably targeted other young girls in the area, who are up and about at odd hours to go to tuition classes and what not. I remember the shame-faced 13 year old I was after the first incident, wondering if I was wearing something too tight and whether I should tell my mother, afraid to even step out alone for the next few days. Since then, I have learnt to deal with it and know better than to let a desperate creep scar me for life for no fault of mine, but young school going children can hardly be expected to handle it with the same adult equanimity. Hell, they should not have to “handle it” at all. Having a kid sister myself, I am quite anxious, and have brought it up with the local official in the police booth. And got in reply, a “What to do, ma? You must be careful, the world is a dangerous place now.” Yeah right. Try saying that to someone whose house has been robbed.
***
OK, we have all been harassed before, much as we like to believe that our own experiences are unique. And sure, it is good to talk about it in lurid detail, at least to vent our anger, because in the thick of things, we are often too shocked to react effectively. No one in their right minds would defend street sexual harassment, so why keep pointing to the wrongness of it all? Quite a case of stating the obvious, is it not?
But the thing is, the obvious is usually that which is most often overlooked or taken for granted. That street sexual harassment is a reality is obvious (its ubiquity is frustrating, really), but it is yet to become an ever-burning issue that is not brushed under the carpet. Sarika of the famous 1998 case died and the whole country was livid for a few months. So would more of us have to die everyday, to emphasize the gravity of street harassment beyond the fickleness of public memory? Is it not heinous enough to have to live with this everyday harassment, when these little incidents are what lead to bigger consequences? Forget consequences: do we not all deserve the same dignity, the same feeling of safety when we walk on the street, irrespective of whether one is a man or woman, irrespective of time of day, irrespective of what one is wearing?
For these reasons, street harassment needs to be addressed in civil society and public forums more often. It needs to be included in intellectual conversation without being dismissed as “trivial in perspective”, “urban feminist” rhetoric. Worse things happen to people, but that does not make being groped particularly enjoyable, or more acceptable. In fact, street harassment is rape-lite, also a violation of personal space and dignity without consent. Let’s talk about it.
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