The conductor’s monotonous drone broke my train of thoughts. I gazed at my watch and went into panic mode! I had to reach my class in less than ten minutes. Have I completed all the assignments I was supposed to, was I supposed to read something, I started ticking stuff off my mental checklist, all the while gazing out of the window. Suddenly I felt uneasy, something felt horribly wrong, I looked beside me and realized...Some random guy had placed his hands on me. For the next two seconds I froze...Then I gathered my wits and started protesting...the guy had the audacity to gesture me to stop screaming, and then he kept quiet for a period of three minutes. I moved afar and before I could relax, he did it...again! I’d had enough...By this time the conductor who had been a silent spectator motioned him to get down...This whole incident left an ugly footprint on my mind and put me into perspective.
As I confided in my friends, they confirmed my worst fears - that this happens on a regular basis and was not a one-off incident. I was aghast. I started wondering why hasn’t anything been done about this, why do girls have to bear this humiliation day in and day out. More importantly what makes a guy think he can get away with it? Was it just our male-dominated society which puts him on a pedestal and justified all his doings to be blamed? What they justify as ‘fun’ – the catcalls, the stalking, the not-so-accidental brushes, do they even have an idea how deeply it leaves an impact on the girl’s psyche and leaves her wounded for life?
It is not only the so-called thugs, who resort to such acts. Guys hailing from supposedly ‘decent’, affluent and well-educated families are no less. Buses, malls, temples - are girls safe anywhere?! Can a girl even walk from her home for ten feet without that perpetual fear of name-calling, getting ‘accidentally’ brushed by a bunch of guys hanging like a invisible noose around our neck? While the moral outfits continue to blame the girl for ‘revealing’ and ‘attracting’ the guy, I can just say it is a case of kettle calling the pot black, because I have come across married women in traditional attire who were also not spared.
So I would just like to say one thing to such guys out there, ‘We are not your property. We don’t belong to you. Most importantly, get this straight, we DO NOT like being touched by YOU!! Remember that you have a sister too. You have a mother too. Is this the way you want them to be treated? Do you want them to live in perpetual fear? So please spare us and TOUCH-ME-NOT!! Don’t you dare!
(This is a plain, simple, succinct article about eve-teasing by my good friend Bhuvana.)
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