Groped in Public
It was a sticky afternoon. The sound of blaring horns and street vendors filled the air. The weight of my backpack tugged on my sweaty shoulders and arms. My sanitary napkin which claims “complete comfort all day” on TV, was soaked in just one and a half hours in a bus. Period cramps made me angry. The long journey from college would be so worth it when I hug my comfort pillow at home. I was almost there, a quick change-over to another bus and then I would be home to some cool lemonade. Fifteen minutes maximum.
The bus drove in empty, everyone pushed others around and tried to grab seats. I was given the customary yelling by an old man who asked me to not wear my backpack while boarding. I listened like I was used to — unquestioningly. No seat this time. There were men sitting in the seats reserved for women. That’s ok I thought. I was just a few minutes away. I kept my backpack between my legs and held on to the railing. The bus started but folks still kept boarding. Each human had about 3–4 inches gap between each other. The collective body odor made me nauseous.
Then I felt a man breathing down my neck. My instinct told me to turn around but I suppressed it. “Women should not make a scene”, I was taught. I could feel him move closer. He smelled like tobacco. I told myself, “It is just the lack of space on the bus”. I could feel his chest against my back. No backpack to protect me. A few minutes later I could feel his penis grow against my butt. “That is not his penis — I must be crazy to think like this”, I thought. He rubbed and rubbed and rubbed some more. I reached my bus stop and hurried down ashamed of myself. I was too scared to turn and even look at him. I had never thought of myself as a victim. I was a topper in class, I had no stage fear, I could even extemporize, yet I never found it in me to turn and look at him.
The courage to speak up against a man who violated my space and privacy was never given to me.
The same incident repeated several times, in different types and formats. Once it was at a popcorn stand at the movies when I was sandwiched between two men. Another, was in a train berth at night when I woke up to a guy crushing my breast from the upper berth. Each time my reaction was the same — flee and cry in shame at your powerlessness. I was scared that others would not support me if I opposed these men. I was scared if they would mock at me and say I had misunderstood the situation. I was scared if I would be blamed for wearing a tight kameez with a dupatta that did not hide the shape of my breasts completely. For years I struggled with this fear. Crowds made me angry and I avoided public transport whenever I could.
I had gone on to graduate and landed a job in a top-notch software consulting firm. One day there was a self-defense workshop for women at the office. The instructor was a retired police officer whose work had dealt with violence against women. He taught us some clever moves from Krav Maga. We were mostly laughing and having a good time. He then gathered us around and explained about the psychology behind groping women in public. It was no rocket science — these were men who were perverts and who wanted quick, free and easy sexual pleasure.
However, he made an important point which took me by surprise. These men target women who would endure it silently. It was my fear to speak out that empowered them. When I considered this, I wondered if it would really be true. I dismissed that this is just bravado of a male police officer, who knew nothing about being harassed in a public place. He then went on to say that a woman’s instinct about potential harassers is true most of the time. He encouraged us to have a strong and fearless body language when in public. He said that most of the harassers when caught don’t seem to understand the gravity of their crime since it entailed no consequence from the women who endure them. Some of them even believe that this act is pleasurable to a woman, like giving a compliment! I was disgusted at this thought and my own ignorance. I decided to give his ideas a try-out.
The next time I felt a man move uncomfortably close to me on a crowded bus, I turned and stared at him. The simple act of seeing the women they touched eye-to-eye discouraged them from proceeding. In other cases when the staring did not work, I cursed loudly at them, in no unclear terms, to step away without inappropriate touching. The loudness was to make sure the rest of the crowd looked at him, and this shaming discouraged most harassers.
My most empowering moment happened when I was working in a different city and taking a train home for the weekend. When I was trying to board there was a huge crowd at the doors, and I could feel someone’s arm grabbing my butt. Instinctively I grabbed his hand and turned and cursed at him. The platform was filled with thousands of people and so I did not fear for my safety. I was rage personified. When he saw it in my eyes, he took to running, I chased him to my heart’s content for a few carriages, before I boarded the train. I felt victorious, it was a quick and natural reaction, but it took me years to have the courage to do it.
Getting groped while using public transport in India is so common that most women have learned to bear with it as a minor nuisance. I was an educated, confident, ambitious and well-traveled young woman when these groping incidents which I bore silently happened. I did not see the need for feminism in my life up until then. I had a steady boyfriend who believed in equality and parents who adored me and wanted me to dream big. I was working for a company that strongly believed and strived for gender diversity. I was never treated as “just a woman” anywhere. The moment I opened my eyes to the psychology of these perpetrators I understood I was part of a system that could do so much more for women. Moreover, I could do so much more for my fellow women by being fearless.
Our silence on sexual harassment has been broken by a large extent with the #MeToo movement. Speaking up or acting against a traumatic sexual assault experience takes super-human effort. There are quick wins possible in the meantime — baby steps to proclaim that our bodies are ours to keep. We can start by flexing our muscles punching the petty ones. We can start by showing that we would not be intimidated. We can start by making fellow women feel silently gratified when we fight our harassers, hoping that they would fight theirs someday.
