Being a woman
This post is dedicated to all the females out there. No I haven’t yet become a feminist or anti-male but after hearing ridiculous reasons, this post was long due.
The alarm rings and marks the start of a new day. She struggles in her fights with the neighboring noises but then finally gives up and greets herself to a good morning.
She then gets up with a smile on her face thinking of the dream she had. And the very next moment she realizes that she is late. So she again struggles, this time with time, runs out of her bed still thinking about that dream and still smiling and then after blushing a little, she forces herself into the reality. She does her daily chorus, takes a bath, and then dresses up for that special date in evening after work. She finds herself in best only after changing 3 dresses. She runs to the kitchen and hurriedly makes a cup of tea for herself and then leaves her house for work. She, like always, adorns that special smile and prays to God to let her have a nice day today!
Its 7:30 in the morning, roads are not crowded and she is walking towards the nearest bus stop, ignoring a group of guys on their bikes who are saying things she doesn’t wish to hear. She just walks faster towards the bus stop.
As she reaches the bus stop, she finds another group of guys sitting on the footpath. And the moment they saw her coming, one of them starts singing “babuji dheere chalna” and everyone of that group stares at her as if they have X-rays in their eyes. She simply tries to ignore them and jumps into the next bus that arrives even though there was no space.
She fights hard with the crowd to go towards the “ladies seat” area of the bus which, by the way, is considered to be “safer”. She stands there adjacent to an old man who cannot keep his hand to himself and hardly misses any opportunity to grope her whenever the driver applies brakes and as she rebuke him, he says, “Madam jagah nahi hai.. Ab kahan jaon? “
She now squeezes herself a bit and tries to move away from him just to find a school boy trying to press himself on her. Shrugged, she moves away from him too and just prays to get a seat to sit. And when she does, another man comes and stands besides her. He is holding the rod from one hand and holding his office bag in the other and that “other hand" is touching her again and again. She offers to hold his bag and he readily agrees keeping his “other hand” in his pocket. And now he touches her from his pocket and when she yells at him to keep away, he escapes by saying “Madam aap kyun chilla rahi ho? Maine to pocket mein haath rakha hua hai.”
She doesn't wish to get into an argument and is just relieved with the fact that her destination is just two stops away so she now gets up from her seat. Fighting herself out of the bus, she passes all the “uncles” and a group of guys hanging at the foot board of the bus, getting groped by at least 10 pairs of hands.
She jumps out of the bus, takes a deep breath and is feeling so dirty that if she could, she would have spend her entire life below a shower or somehow get her skin changed. She hates herself at that time and curses the day she was born. But then leaving those thoughts behind, she starts her day trying to remember her dream again and thinking about her date in the evening, a smile comes back on her serene face.
Walking towards her office, she is caught off guard by a guy on a bike who pinches her in a lightning speed as he zips by. By the time she gets over the shock and the pain, he has sped off and she is left feeling dirty and filthy.
She speaks to herself, “You have had enough! You need that shower. You need to rub that feeling off your skin. Now!”
But she can’t. She wonders why this discrimination. After having her day started like this, she still needs to go for her work, and can’t even discuss this with anyone or just laugh it away so as to start everything again. She sees her father, brother and several male friends around everyday and thinks that if they have a little “something wrong” in the morning, everyone who comes across them during the whole day is blasted badly. And after everything she goes through, nobody even cares what happened because she hides everything deep down inside her and sometimes might even cry alone.
And after working in the office, with same competence and dedication, she goes for her date. Talks non-stop and giggles; goes back to her house fighting again like that in the morning; reaches home and helps in the kitchen; talks and gossips on phone with her friends and then smiling as ever, she sleeps again wishing to see that same dream again and praying to God to have a “better” day tomorrow.
Good Night!
In case you are saying that she was at fault since she didn't talk about it then let me add up a little more. Even I would say the same words but when I do, most of my female friends ask me, “what should I talk about and to whom?” “Do you think its easy to discuss all this shit? or even think about it?”And if you think it’s of clothes, then this harassment happens with a girl in a “salwaar kameez” and even with a 50 year old woman in a “saree” Once a very good female friend of mine asked me, “Ever wondered why girls talk so much?” and then said, “Its because they don’t wanna think about themselves. They just want to convert all their pain and sorrows in laughs and gossips and become as normal as ever.”
After all it's all about being the woman!
