The world might not have ended yesterday, but the world as we know it appeared to be ending for some among us. Amid calls for everything from incarceration to castration for the perpetrators of New Delhi’s shocking violence, my daughter found her freedom being cruelly vetoed by her brother. “She is not to go out anywhere alone,” he read me the riot act. “So, tell her yourself,” I suggested. “I can’t,” he retorted, “it’s hardly fair to her.”
I’d already, of course, had a word with my daughter who had been shaken enough not to outright dismiss any objections to being policed a little. She’d taken to driving to work and there had been talk of getting a car of her own — so she now chafed at the possibility of her future independence being curbed. She attended client meetings alone — were her ambitions to take a back-seat to criminals at large? Her work sometimes required her to be late — should she be excused merely because of her sex?
“Don’t listen to her,” my son advised me, “just lay down the rules,” which, in all honesty, I couldn’t. No rides on the metro, no trips to the parlour or gym, no going off to stores? “She’s just the same as you,” I told him. “She isn’t,” he insisted. She was entitled to her own comings and goings, I explained – her mother having warned her of the likelihood of harassment when away from home – and it now seemed too late to subscribe to another, more subservient way of life. Going to the movies with friends she’d meet there, the neighbourhood café, their favourite lounge? It was her choice.
“Why must safety mean installing a GPS,” her friend reacted to her father’s suggestion. It did seem preposterous that half the population, from squalling babies to drooling geriatrics, none of whom appeared particularly safe, be confined because of fear of victimisation. What of Sarla’s daughter who was off to Goa for Sunburn? Was such liberty the privilege of only the male? “No,” I said to my son, “I’m afraid I cannot bind your sister down.”
Because my son can be relentless, he wore down my defences. At first, my daughter was agreeable to a little restraint — the city was still shaken in the aftermath of the crime. But surely we didn’t mean she couldn’t go out in the evenings any more? “You could stay home and read instead,” I suggested. “Or watch television,” her mother added. “Or, I could get a life,” our daughter argued. We all knew that any safety-net was likely to be conditional and unlikely to last long. A friend suggested carrying a can of pepper spray in the bag; another voted for safety pins kept open and carried in both hands. Everywhere, girls were being asked to simply “stay in”. The city seemed under siege — for women.
After moping for a bit, my daughter came back to me. “It’s like this,” she said, “my friends and I don’t cause trouble when we go out.” “True,” I agreed. “It’s the men who do,” she continued. “I can’t argue with that,” I said. “So,” she said, “my friends and I have decided that it is the men who must be made to stay at home, not us.” While I don’t see her brother buying that view anytime soon, I suspect it’s at least helped him come to terms with the futility of trying to build a life for women that’s any different from that for men.