27 December 2012, 01:01 PM IST
Some of us might remember a TV reality show, the Indian adaptation of a hugely successful US daredevil stunt series, which tested (male and female) contestants' endurance of various phobias, like that of heights, bugs, snakes, spiders, you name it. The Fear Factor tested the primeval instinct, which rules all human minds, sometime or the other.
There is one primeval fear, however, which women across the gender, have in common, and that is the fear of rape or molestation, which even while being inflicted on the body or the mind or both, leaves the soul and one's core, most scarred.
While the New Delhi protests by students, politicians, fashion designers, besides other ordinary civilians, against the rape of Nirbhaya (as the victim is named by TOI), and the retaliatory police action, threatens to resemble the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising (hope it doesn't end that way), we have yet another senior politician shooting off insensitive and uncalled for remarks. What was APCC (Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee) president Botsa Satyanarayana thinking when he announced at a press conference a couple of days ago in Hyderabad, "Just because India achieved freedom at midnight doesn't mean that women can venture out after dark. They should ensure that they do not board buses in which there are few passengers." Huhhh? A young girl cannot board a private bus, and that too with a male escort at 9 pm, (much before midnight, by the way, Mr Botsa)? Instead of reiterating the minimum assurance by the government of citizens' safety and security, blame the victim, who has been sodomised and her internals mangled out of life? Which means, if you board a bus late at night in Delhi, be prepared to be first raped, and then murdered.
Like other women, who have been students of Delhi University, and who have traveled in 'U-specials', chartered and non-special buses, I will testify to the rites of initiation, as a hostel fresher, into the art of self-preservation as a woman in Delhi, (the umbrella handle held so, the can of pepper spray…also the words of advice from well-meaning seniors, "don't let the @##$** get away with it, always make a hue and cry in the presence of co-passengers")! Making a noise or just loudly and politely suggesting, "Do you mind moving your elbow or your good self", usually worked, most times at least. But there was always a sneer-laden smile thrown at you, as if you were the wrong-doer, instead of the leering male.
Like most other working women in Delhi, I have also been a sitting duck for "Aati Hai, Kya?" propositions from young and fairly-avuncular-looking gentlemen, while waiting, alone especially, to pick up someone from the railway station, or the airport, or to board public transport. As a hosteller, so many times even on the DU campus, one has been naïve enough to think that the man in the car who stopped by and rolled down the windows was asking for directions!! Haaaah!
But is the fear factor more rampant in Delhi than in other metros? I have worked and lived in different cities, like Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and now Hyderabad, and I am not a rocket scientist to say a resounding yes…Delhi, indeed, even from personal experience, is the worst city for women!
When we moved to Bengaluru from Delhi, what impressed me was the soft-spoken and genteel manners of an average Bangalorean, compared with the ebullient 'Jat'-laden manners of Sada Dilli.
In Ahmedabad, I was even more conscious of the fact that eve-teasing is perhaps an unheard of concept. On one occasion, I realized, closer to midnight, that I had left my cellphone behind at a restaurant in Ahmedabad. I had come back to the hotel, where I was staying, working on a Diwali assignment for the women's magazine I was then with. I remember checking with the restaurant staff, and they confirmed that it was in their custody, and they would not close until I came, so could I please come there quick?
Without batting an eyelid, I boarded an auto outside the hotel gates, and don't remember feeling the slightest twinge of fear, while going out so late, and searching for the hotel staff under the half-shut doors. Would I have dared to do that in Delhi? Perhaps not, at least, I wouldn't have been so cavalier about it and going alone past midnight?? Definitely not!
I have a friend in Hyderabad, who doesn't think twice, before dropping anyone who stays anywhere in town, even after a late night concert, movie or event. She loves to drive around Hussainsagar Lake on the quiet, deserted roads late at night, especially when she is trying to collect her thoughts, she says. No safety issues, so far, she says. Would she dare do that in Delhi? Doubtful, even though I haven't asked her about it!
Metros like Mumbai are also no longer as safe for women as it used to be earlier, when Mumbaikars would assert that women could travel alone at night, do as they will, like sit on the Marine Drive sea wall late at night, and nobody would even bother them.
Quite recently, ad guru Alyque Padamsee launched an organization Izzat Ki Fauj, along with Benjamin Fernandez, the brother of Reuben who was stabbed to death while protecting his female friend from being molested in Mumbai last year. Izzat Ki Fauj was a spontaneous response to an eve-teasing episode involving Alyque's actor-daughter Shahzahn at a multiplex in urban Mumbai. He emphasized that, as a father, he felt extremely helpless when she recounted her traumatic experience.
Will Nirbhaya survive? While the nation prays for her recovery, she has become a living symbol of the country's dogged resistance to evil, and that surely is a healthy beginning.
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