Its been a long time that this blogspot has been inactive, and I have only myself to blame. Well, life after getting back to Bangalore has been pretty busy. I have been getting work almost everyday, and being forced to show 9 hours of work per day, and having to satiate the need to orkut, chat alongside , the week runs off pretty quickly.
So, when I found myself without work one fine morning, the immediate thought was to blog. But what the hell do I write about? My creativity and imagination sucks at best! And I am hardly a consummate writer, which has made me think about scrapping off this blogspot most of the time. But at such times, I have a magic formula: there must be atleast, one single soul in this planet who sucks worse than me at this writing stuff. :P Hence, this blogspot stands till now!!!
But coming back to the topic of this particular post, I had been wanting to write about this for a long time now. Better late than never! Yes, I am talking about the very commonly found species in the Indian roads, trains, crowded buses, drunk in cars, bus stops...well, anywhere a female species can be found. The road side romeo, the eve teaser, the can-i-offer-you-a-lift ers, the part time letchers, the full time body feelers...well the names are many. Their acts - all same.
But then again eve teasing is something, and outright harassment is something else. I have always felt that I am hardly the right person to be writing about sexual harassment of women, because I had never come across any such incidents personally or so I thought. Until two weeks back. It was late evening, Sunday. Mukund and I were coming out of Forum, the popular mall in Bangalore to go for a cup of coffee, when we saw crowds gathered near the autos.
And like everybody else, we too joined the crowd and craned our necks to glean information about what was going on. From what we made of it at first, there were what looked like a middle aged father and his two daughters with the auto drivers all clutching a youth with the word 'rogue' stamepd all over his face. Now one of the daughters was about my age, and the younger one looked like a kid, younger than my sister. We both thought the road side romeo, finding hard to resist the pretty elder daughter must have done what he is best at.
Well, these sorts of things happen all the time and we hear about it all the time and thought we would leave, when we saw the younger daughter crying. We found out to out shock that the bugger had touched the poor's kid behind. As I stood stunned to to the sight of the poor girl crying, consoled by her sister and the father screaming at the rogue, "What is your age? And What is her fucking age?..."
As we moved away from the scene, I realised that although we do hear about such incidents frequently we do not tend to realise the effect it has on the victims of such acts. The trauma faced by the victims is something which we cannot realise unless when we are in their shoes. I am not going to write any further on the subject because I feel I am grossly inadeqaute to do so. But there's something I feel, and that is - every father, brother, cousin or male friend of a girl must be aware of how traumatising the whole experience can be for the victim. And I call the girl a victim here, because that's what she is: a victim of a shameless act of crime.
I also realised something else. The incident caught my attention and wanted me to write about it because it had happened to the kid. If it had happened to the other daughter I would have most probably walked away, though a little shocked, saying these things happen everywhere. Now, where does that put me? I honestly do not know.
I am not writing any furher about this. But I am certainly going to link you up with people who have.
Blanknoiseproject is a public forum, where people have come together to fight against this social evil. Do check it out.
I also came across this post.Blatantly honest and thought provoking. This is an article translated from the page article in the Shiv Sena's mouthpiece - Saamna. Now don't take that article seriously. I am sure the fellow who wrote it has never even thought of letching at a woman. Or may be he did, but it was all right becuase he was influenced by the remixes vidoes shown on Channel V!
Do check out this article by Preity Zinta. And finally, when a woman does respond to such a crime, she is invariably made to feel guilty, patronised for all the wrong reasons and the law itself with its inane beuracracy and red tape makes the trauma only more severe.
India can have true freedom only when the woman of its society can walk the streets with their heads held high even at midnight, said the Father of our nation...when our nation got its independence. And 59 years have come to pass. Where do we stand? God alone knows!
And yes, Happy Independence Day.
So, when I found myself without work one fine morning, the immediate thought was to blog. But what the hell do I write about? My creativity and imagination sucks at best! And I am hardly a consummate writer, which has made me think about scrapping off this blogspot most of the time. But at such times, I have a magic formula: there must be atleast, one single soul in this planet who sucks worse than me at this writing stuff. :P Hence, this blogspot stands till now!!!
But coming back to the topic of this particular post, I had been wanting to write about this for a long time now. Better late than never! Yes, I am talking about the very commonly found species in the Indian roads, trains, crowded buses, drunk in cars, bus stops...well, anywhere a female species can be found. The road side romeo, the eve teaser, the can-i-offer-you-a-lift ers, the part time letchers, the full time body feelers...well the names are many. Their acts - all same.
But then again eve teasing is something, and outright harassment is something else. I have always felt that I am hardly the right person to be writing about sexual harassment of women, because I had never come across any such incidents personally or so I thought. Until two weeks back. It was late evening, Sunday. Mukund and I were coming out of Forum, the popular mall in Bangalore to go for a cup of coffee, when we saw crowds gathered near the autos.
And like everybody else, we too joined the crowd and craned our necks to glean information about what was going on. From what we made of it at first, there were what looked like a middle aged father and his two daughters with the auto drivers all clutching a youth with the word 'rogue' stamepd all over his face. Now one of the daughters was about my age, and the younger one looked like a kid, younger than my sister. We both thought the road side romeo, finding hard to resist the pretty elder daughter must have done what he is best at.
Well, these sorts of things happen all the time and we hear about it all the time and thought we would leave, when we saw the younger daughter crying. We found out to out shock that the bugger had touched the poor's kid behind. As I stood stunned to to the sight of the poor girl crying, consoled by her sister and the father screaming at the rogue, "What is your age? And What is her fucking age?..."
As we moved away from the scene, I realised that although we do hear about such incidents frequently we do not tend to realise the effect it has on the victims of such acts. The trauma faced by the victims is something which we cannot realise unless when we are in their shoes. I am not going to write any further on the subject because I feel I am grossly inadeqaute to do so. But there's something I feel, and that is - every father, brother, cousin or male friend of a girl must be aware of how traumatising the whole experience can be for the victim. And I call the girl a victim here, because that's what she is: a victim of a shameless act of crime.
I also realised something else. The incident caught my attention and wanted me to write about it because it had happened to the kid. If it had happened to the other daughter I would have most probably walked away, though a little shocked, saying these things happen everywhere. Now, where does that put me? I honestly do not know.
I am not writing any furher about this. But I am certainly going to link you up with people who have.
Blanknoiseproject is a public forum, where people have come together to fight against this social evil. Do check it out.
I also came across this post.Blatantly honest and thought provoking. This is an article translated from the page article in the Shiv Sena's mouthpiece - Saamna. Now don't take that article seriously. I am sure the fellow who wrote it has never even thought of letching at a woman. Or may be he did, but it was all right becuase he was influenced by the remixes vidoes shown on Channel V!
Do check out this article by Preity Zinta. And finally, when a woman does respond to such a crime, she is invariably made to feel guilty, patronised for all the wrong reasons and the law itself with its inane beuracracy and red tape makes the trauma only more severe.
India can have true freedom only when the woman of its society can walk the streets with their heads held high even at midnight, said the Father of our nation...when our nation got its independence. And 59 years have come to pass. Where do we stand? God alone knows!
And yes, Happy Independence Day.
4 comments:
It truly appriciate the your concerns and a forward educated thinking over the issue.. esp when Mukund was around ;P
nice post! havent read the linked up articles, but will do it in the near future.
good one battan... but, to be quite frank, dint expect one such outta you!
i really think u need to update this spot!
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