Hi! Do you recognise me? I am the girl who passed through that pan ki dukaan you were sitting at last night with your friends. You had looked at me and whispered something to your friends and all of you started laughing. I was scared, so I increased my pace to get out of there as soon as I can.
I took a turn and came to a much busier street, but the bus on which Nirbhaya was raped was also moving on a busy road. Taxis and auto-rickshaws swayed past me, offering me for a ride, but then I remembered the Uber case, so I preferred to walk.
It was only seven o clock, I had come out to buy some grocery, and I was scared.
Before leaving the house, I had inspected myself for about half hour in front of the mirror. I was checking if my clothes aren’t too revealing, but your sexual desires can be roused by a five year old too, so all that inspection in front of mirror went in vain.
My mother called me several times to check if I was okay. It was a nightmare to send her daughter out after dark. After all, bad things don’t always happen to ‘Someone else’.
I reach the grocery shop from where I had to buy some stuff that I was asked to bring. There are about four more men on the small congested counter. I take a step back and let them finish their work first. Pushing in through the crowd would have got me my work done faster, but I didn’t want those strangers to feel me up. I had to wait for fifteen minutes before the crowd eased up.
I started in the direction of my house. I could not see a single girl on the road. If I got into some trouble, would anyone on the road help me out? Maybe they all will take advantage of my situation; after all they’re all men. I move my eyes in search of police personnel, and I find a police jeep parked. Inside was a police man sleeping, and outside, another police man was sipping a cup of tea with some young boys laughing and talking. No, they won’t help me out, I can’t expect help from them.
I start revising some self defence moves that were taught to us in school in my mind. I see some boys smoking beside a roadside parked car. I clutch the pepper spray in my purse harder. All of them start staring at me. I feel uncomfortable. It felt like they were undressing me with their eyes. But I passed through that as well.
The closer I came to my house, the slower my heart beat became. When I reached my house, I had never been so relaxed. I took a long breathe. I handed out the grocery stuff to my mother and went inside my room. Before changing back into my pajamas, I checked outside the window. What if someone had followed me back home? No one was there.
After changing, I sit and stare into the mirror for a long time. Why is it so difficult being a girl? Will I ever step out of the house after dark unafraid? I just wish I could walk freely without having to be aware of my surrounding. I wish I didn’t have to worry about who’ll save me if I get into trouble, or I didn’t even have to worry about getting into trouble.
I wish those boys hadn’t laughed at me on that pan shop. I wish I could freely enter the crowd in the grocery shop. I wish the police men I met on the way seemed worthy of something. I wish that there was no need to teach us self defence. I wish those boys smoking on the road didn’t make me feel afraid. I wish I didn’t have to check outside my window.
I am that girl who stepped out alone in the night and for the half hour that I was out, I was also the most afraid girl on this planet.
