For your eyes only

There is all this talk about rape. I am surrounded by stories about what happened to this person, how that guy touched this girl, what ensued…her feelings. I am mostly proud of what I read and hear. At least there is a voice to this outrageousness. I am prouder to read so many Indian girls saying they have had enough and acting like it.

I have been going for a walk up and down the busy Tank Bund road in a sincere bid to get back into shape post-baby. I usually get my dad to tag along. However, he walks too slowly and talks about politics. I end up leaving him behind and walking on my own, earplugs on and music blaring. I am aware of the dozens of eyes staring at me - men conjuring raunchy images that will come handy (pun intended) to them at a later point (again, intended). It feels strange. I have left the days of feeling naked while performing the simple act of walking to the shops behind me. I have forgotten what it feels like to be silently, lasciviously stared at. I couldn’t recall the last time I felt like someone….something was trailing me. I remember how awkward I was the first couple of months in Britain…should I wear shorts? Is this skirt too short? Do you think I can walk back home with deep cut top? Is it safe? And then, over the years, I stopped being so acutely aware of my body. I felt secure about showing a bit of this and that…I knew it was just contoured skin because people around me thought the same way.

Funnily, I got back to India two years ago and never felt any different. Sure, I felt conscious wearing too short shorts or too deep necks on nights out with certain friends, but I felt that way willingly. For the best part of these two years, I was protected by tinted glasses, fancy road names, shielded behind elite dinner tables. I was so safely cocooned that it never occurred to me that there was still a part of the world that thought my sexuality...or for that matter my functionality lay simply in one spot. I never felt that the random passerby would spare the second to genuinely stare and think that my buttocks were for banging and my breasts were for bonking. 

So when an auto (tuk-tuk for my Western friends) guy signaled to me on one of my walks, I very innocently swayed my hand to indicate I did not need a ride. A moment later, I understood he meant a very different ride! He harassed me with strange almost dog-like behavior while some men sat on the benches smirked and women sniggered. It took me a while to understand what was happening. I felt scared. I was flooded with the unpleasant, rank experiences of my younger years. It took this guy only two minutes to make me feel like my worth was centered somewhere on my body. After recovering from this, face flushed with anger and embarrassment I looked up and to my absolute horror the auto guy was waiting a few yards ahead. I walked over to the corner of the pavement, picked up a few rocks and walked over. He got scared and drove away. Some of the men stepped away from me. I didn’t feel safer or better. I didn’t stop completing my walk that evening either.

I feel ashamed that this guy was able to take my innocence and inject it with his ugly thoughts. I feel ashamed that other women rejoiced this. I feel ashamed that my genuineness, niceness and innocence could be violated. I feel ashamed that for a while there he was able to shake my trust in the world. I am ashamed that I did not react faster. But mostly I am ashamed  that I am ashamed.