In retrospect it may be nothing,but at the time I was petrified.It had been a regular day at office.Except that in my life,for two weeks in a month,regular means getting over after midnight.The timing is unusual for most but very usual in the mayhem of media that I inhabitate and so love...
It had been a tiring day that didn't allow many breaks so when hunger pangs struck when I was finally calling it a day I couldn't resist walking 30 metres to this guy who makes the yummiest food,bang outside my office.Its important to note the 30 metres and the fact that I was surrounded by my colleagues.While I placed my order and set out to wait the 5 minutes that it would have taken for the food to be cooked,a car zipping by on the main road stopped.Four men emerged to buy a pack of cigarettes from this same guy,and then were about to drive off but suddenly stopped.I'm guessing this is when they spotted me.Feeling uncomfortable with the incessant staring,I asked for my order to be delivered to my car.
I finally left my office premises 5 minutes later and not surprisingly they left with me.From the Noida toll road to the Lajpat Nagar flyover,we played a race that would have put any professional racer to shame..it wasn't how fast you could go,but rather how slow you could drive.My car was driving slow to lose them and of course they were driving slower so as not to lose me.I made note of two things at this point.One,as to how glad I was to have a driver driving me home.That leads me to the second point.I was glad because the streets save for the trucks that wouldn't have stopped for anyone,were deserted.I don't get the logic of having checkposts outside popular clubs,so that it thereby becomes easier to find and fine drunk drivers..but what about the few and far in between checkposts that are an elusive entity on the bloody main roads!!!
No one can understand this feeling of fear other than a woman..my heart didn't stop beating till I was on the right side of my main door.The sad part is that these problems have come forth numerous times..sometimes in the shape of eve teasing..other times in the heinous form of rape.And yet I can see the same fingers being raised,you know those morally right ones that make their presence felt when whatever unjust had to happen has already happened,ironically thats when these endorsers of justice zoom in.
So there's the usual 'why travel at that time and invite trouble' song(one that our Lady Chief Minister herself sang at an unfortunate incident involving another female journalist returning home at an odd hour)..but here's the deal,I am very proud of the fact that I work in a field where the name of the game is equality..equal stress,equal workload,equal physical labour and of course the same working hours.
Another accusation that keeps cropping up(and this one makes me see red) is the 'why don't you dress to deflect attention' advice.Now this I find the most vague.I'm not the pre-deciding clothes,shoes and bag a day before person.But I am one that gets it right and that also intentionally..simply because I want to.I like to dress up and last I checked the constitution hadn't entered it into its list of crimes yet.And one thing constantly eludes me..If a girl doesn't lose her senses,her virtues and her clothes at the sight of a skimpily dressed man,how can we be responsible if men are too weak to bear the same...
Amidst all these atrocities faced by women and yet the restrictions put on only women..It saddens me to realise how We've lost our right to not feel scared...
