The article Sad Sunday by Kalpana Sharma in 'The Hindu' on International Women's day made me write this piece. The last line in the article is what caught my attention - "A day after International Women's day, celebrated these days more by companies selling consumer goods than by women, we must pause and reflect." and made me think. Come Woman's day, we see so many advertising and marketing campaigns targeted towards women, one of which said something like, 'As a woman, you need to feel special on Woman's day'. Damn...what about the other 364 days? Don't they need to feel special on other days? I don't understand the logic behind such foolish campaigns. Why do we indulge in self-pleasing tactics, when the realities around us are far different? (My company actually went ahead and hosted a dinner party for all women employees at a star hotel in the city.)
Sadly though, as the ground reality stands, its not just a Sad Sunday for women all over, but each day, Monday through Sunday, is the same repetition of the sad events. News channels vie with each other to bring to our drawing rooms the gory brutalities that unfold around us. Daily we see and hear events in which women are at the receiving end of things - news channels competing amongst themselves in this regard, to bring these news. A week before that I actually was witness to an incident of eve-teasing and harassment in the public transport. Though I have heard that such incidents occur often, I never was witness to one earlier.
Time: 0945 hrs, TNagar bus top. Boarded the bus 5B to Mylapore to get to office. A nice looking young lady got on along with me at the TNagar bus stop. As usual the bus was a little crowded. She was wearing a dress which bared the mid-riff slightly, when she stretched to reach the overhead support. Two men caught note of it and made their way through the crowd and approached her...standing there they were constantly staring at her and continuously kept falling on her. They even had the balls to grope at her mid-riff constantly. But why was this girl not raising her voice? Prob she did not know the local language...I wanted to step-in but did not, to not embarrass the girl. This incident was replaying itself in my mind time and again and questions such as 'What was her reason for not raising her voice?', 'was I right in showing restraint?", 'Should I have stepped-in?' keep coming back. Frankly, I don't have an answer for them.
2 comments:
It feels gud to know that you have given a serious thought about how to handle these situations.. It is a bit complicated considering the fact that a stranger being molested might not appreciate it if you raise your voice.. But if a girl cannot protest against such misbehavior in the safety of public presence, she should better stay at home (or maybe wear a veil?)
if the girl was aware of it and not doing anything to protect her dignity, then it's none of ur business.(that holds only for crowded places. if a girl is in a lonely place, it's best to stay quiet, unless she knows martial arts. otherwise worse things can happen. sad but true.)
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