Eve-Teasing

That's a truly STUPID word: eve-teasing. The very phrase is a misnomer; what women are subjected to in India is no form of teasing - it's more a form of subjugation, of abject humiliation.

Dilip D'Souza links to an anguished post by Mumbai Girl:

...but I don't have a single Indian girlfriend who hasn't been groped or sexually assaulted in one way or another. Not a single one. It happened to my mother, it happened to me, it happened to my sister, it happened to my friends. It continues to happen.

This sort of reminded me of another post on sexual harassment (this is not just another sexual harassment post; Mangs had the guts to have the perverted bastard jailed). Excerpts below:

At 3:30 a.m., my Upper Berth neighbour reaches and touches my breast. I don't know what he was expecting. That I would simper coyly and turn away? That I would ignore him? Encourage him? Mind boggling possibilities.

I was up like a shot; my mind blank in my half-sleep and all I did was scream. It was strange, thinking back on it. I wasn't angry, I wasn't yelling expletives, or hell, even sentences or words. It was just like an animal-in-pain screaming. Shrill, loud, repetitive. No words, just screaming and screaming till the lights were flicked on, people hurriedly woke up, the TC came running.
...
Upper Berth man was yanked down, the Railway Cops (they had come by too, by this time) grabbed hold of him, and the TC told me to come down and write out a complaint.
...
The Man began begging for mercy. "You are ruining my life," he told me in Hindi. "Please forgive me." Then, in English, "I could not control myself."

This is back from June, when I did not have a blog. However, I did email the article to several friends because I appreciated what Mangs had the guts to do. All of them - every single girl whom I mailed this to - had similar experiences to narrate. Which is downright pathetic.

There's a school of thought that says that in situations like these, the girl should ALWAYS react - scream, slap the guy, hand him over to the police etc. I used to subscribe to this doctrine, until some of these friends told me of their experiences when they reacted. One was called a whore; another had a bottle of Pepsi emptied over her. And - you guessed it - nobody reacted.

And then we have incidents like this (link from the daily DNA India). Excerpts below:

...they ejaculate in their hands and then brush their hands against girls. It is disgusting.

...When we go to the cops they ask us questions like why do you dress like this? There should be helpdesks attended by policewomen. I and surely most girls feel awkward about going up to a policeman and telling him that there is a guy masturbating outside my college. I don't even know how to explain this to a cop.

...Once when my friend slapped a guy, he and his friends carried her and threw her on the footpath and no one did a thing.


You know, stuff like this makes me feel that movies like Zakhmi Aurat do make sense. Such men deserve to be castrated - without anaesthesia, and with a numb saw - slowly, with the intent to inflict maximum damage.

I do not know what's an ideal answer to this. I do feel that girls ought to react more and more, especially when in public places where they are likely to get support. No pleas of mercy by such men should be heeded. Policewomen stationed near colleges would be a big help too, as a girl opines in the article above. And most of all, we - the men who condemn so easily - ought to express our outrage more publicly (and, it has to be said, it's not much help if the victim herself tells us toforget it, after the guy gets slapped a couple of times).