We Have Had Enough.

This is something I wrote six months back but I believe that it needs to be up here as well, especially in the light of recent events.

You know what is messed up?

Last night I decided to cut my hair as I was bored with my old look. I booked an appointment at the salon for 1830 hrs and since it’s summer and so abominably hot, I was wearing a pair of shorts. ( *gasps*) After I got my new haircut done, ate some dinner and ice cream and finished window shopping,it was well past 2030 hrs when I got into a rickshaw and since there was a massive traffic jam in the usual route I took to get home, the rickshaw wala suggested; and I agreed that we should take another route.The said route runs through an area of the city I’m not familiar with, but it IS a city and it IS my right to expect to feel safe so I wondered what was the worst that could possibly happen?

A couple of kilometers into the journey, I was dying for a cigarette and I couldn’t find my lighter so I asked the  rickshaw wala if he had matches. He said he didn’t and that was that. A couple of minutes later he got off the road and stopped the rickshaw at this really shady half deserted place and told me he’d be right back. I panicked.

Here I was, all of 23…dressed in the way that the police and politicians are telling me is “asking to get raped”. To make matters worse they’d say ” She asked the poor rickshaw wala for matches to light her cigarette. She deserved what she got, she was after all a girl with dubious morals.”

So I sat there, thinking about if I should call someone or if I should look for something sharp or if I should try remembering how to throw a punch or how exactly it is you blind an assailant using your fingers.

Soon, the rickshaw wala walked back and handed me a box of matches. I then noticed this tiny little tea shop in the distance where he probably got them from and then we were on our way. I got home without incident.

When I was 11, I sprained my ankle one evening on the way to the basketball court in my colony. It had stopped raining after a week and I was dying to play and spend time outside the house. I was disappointed seeing no one on the court and while turning back to go home I tripped, fell and sprained my ankle.

An old man on the road helped me to a dry place because it had started raining again and told me he was going to check and see if my leg was sprained bad and I should take my shoes and socks off. Me being the naive 11 year old idiot I was, listened. Here was this old man, old enought to be my grandfather, in one of the safest colonies you can live in India trying to help me, that it never crossed my mind that I should be more careful. After my shoes and socks came off..his hand moved to my crotch to undo my fly. I kicked him ,nearly had a panic attack and anything could have happened if a senior from school hadn’t come along and found me and took me home.

The point of this is ANYONE can get raped.

You don’t have to be dressed in a certain way, or be a certain age, or be in a certain place at a certain time, or look a certain way, or  be a smoker or a drinker or a girl who has had a thousand boyfriends or a thousand girlfriends and it is about time the people in power, the people making the laws and executing them, the people in charge of justice for the survivors of rape as well as the police to realise that.

We do not want excuses, we want results.