Yesterday, as I passed in front of the AIIMS trauma center, I was sickened at the sight of all the television news vans parked there. They were waiting for sound bites on the condition of the victim of the horrific bus rape that has had the city up in arms. When I neared home, a group of men and women, who worked as domestic helps and drivers in the neighbourhood, were gathered in the park, discussing the plight of the victim. I decided to hang around and see what transpired.
“Apparently, she had been watching a movie, that’s why she was out so late with a boy,” said an old woman, wealth of meaning and judgement in her voice. Some of the younger lot instantly bridled. “It was barely 8 p.m.! Often my employers ask me to stay on to serve them dinner, and I take the bus home after 9:30 p.m.. Don’t you do the same?” asked a younger woman. Most of the women nodded in agreement.
A male driver pointed out the worrying fact that the incident had taken place, even though the girl wasn’t alone. “So many times, I’ve been out with my wife and children till very late at night, and I thought I was protecting them. This incident has made me realise that by doing so, I’m putting them as well as myself at risk,” said another. Fifteen minutes later, the men and women reached the consensus that what happened to the victim could have happened to any of them. “It was just her kismet,” said the old woman who had begun the conversation. As they began leaving the park to go off to work, one of the younger women stayed behind to chat with me. She looked quite troubled.
“Every other day, when I take the bus from my house in Sangam Vihar, these two men leer at me, sometimes try to touch my body and sometimes stand too close to me,” she narrated. She said on many occasions, she had protested and asked other passengers to intervene. “Nobody has ever come to my aid,” she said. That morning, when she had told the two men to back off, some passengers cited the recent gang-rape case and advised her to keep a low profile. “What got my goat was this seemingly decent uncleji, who on the pretext of giving me advice, kept looking at me from head to toe, saying good-looking girls like me must be careful about not attracting more attention,” she recounted bitterly. For the first time that day, she said, she threatened to call the police and complain. Everyone backed off instantly.
Such incidents were routine for her, a distasteful part of her daily life. Yet she had no option but to continue taking the same bus every day. “I’m a wife, a sister and a mother but I guess for a certain type of men, all I am, is a body. That’s why I think it could so easily have been me lying in that hospital, battling for my life,” she said. Thrilled that she had managed to successfully stand her ground, she said she was never going to tolerate any eve-teasing again.
On my way home, I wondered at the ease with which the story of the rape was being spoken about in public. Apparently, one of the first questions that the rape victim asked was whether her relatives knew about the incident. But perhaps the only positive outcome of her harrowing experience has been that it has forced the issue of rape into the public discourse — and out of the closet. Finally.