I took my notes, I made a mental outline, and I put it in pile of to write things where thoughts gather dust and eventually get buried somewhere deep inside of me.
And it would have been the case if this morning i didnt wake up to @Shehzad89 talking about sanitary napkins, women, social embarrassment, oppression and patriarchy. And I felt I needed to add another keyword to all of this, "fear".
And I write this as an expression of coming out coz it makes me as vulnerable. And I share it for the sake of all 13,14,15,16,...32 (and still counting) year olds who have felt and not expressed the intense fear in that, out of nowhere, sudden moment that shakes you down to the very core of you regardless of how strong you are.
Here goes....
Its 9:30 am, I am driving to work. I have just dropped Adiyah to school and am almost at work ready to start (hopefully) a productive day. I am passing through a residential lane, that I often take to avoid the traffic on the main road to work, when I hear a honk behind me.
A biker, first thought "Double to nahi hai" cant be snatcher. I move to the side thinking he wants to pass. Looking in the rear view mirror I see him fiddle with something on the patrol tank. "Probably a pack of biscuit", I think to my self.
The man parallels with me instead of passing, looks at me, I am now confused thinking, "I didnt offend anyone while driving today why is he trying to communicate rather than passing". Then I see him make an interesting eye contact.
He looks at me, gestures between his legs and gestures back as if saying, "wanna have some".
I am often surprised at how much thinking human brain can do in nano seconds because it couldn't have been more than that. I think simultaneously, "why is he offering me a biscuit?" "oh no wait! thats not what he is offering" "fuck why the hell is my heart sinking, I am 32 God damit why am I shaking like this?" "Oh let me teach him a lesson" "no but what if it goes the wrong way" "aisi ki taisi womens bill zindabad"
He crosses me still looking at me while he cuts into an alley on the left I look at him, my mind made up... I gesture him "Yes". I want him to turn around, I want to somehow get back at him. I reverse my car which by this time has moved a bit further up from the alley in which he went. He turns around, in my effort to reverse I am standing perpendicular in an alley; he comes behind me I confirm, "Kia de rahe thay" He understands that I will cause trouble, I reverse further in an effort to scare him (oh wait a minute in that moment I wanted him to fall) I miss... I turn... he runs.... and I chase him.
Hoping, only hoping, to catch a glimpse of his face and to click it with my awesome always available camera, my phone. I dont get it, what I get instead is this
Defeated... once he disappear after chase of good 4-5 minutes into a random alley, I head back to work. Still shaking, now trying to justify my shaking being caused more because of anger than fear. But I keep thinking about it, I kept thinking about it for the whole day but I didnt think of what it did to me only.
What I thought more about was what it would have done to a 14 year old me, it would have caused me trauma at 14. How do I know? because I have been through a less intense version of a similar story when I was 17 and it was traumatic even then, because I have heard similar stories friends (who didn't feel as vulnerable to come out at that spur of the moment in our 30 year grown up talk) and what it did to them at that time.
My first instinct was to think how I will protect my 4 year old from such traumatic experience that she might face in next 10 years or so. My second thought, what about all the girls I have taught or I still teach?
And it sucks that I can probably not do much to protect any of them in real sense.
All I can do is come out and show them that it happens to me too. That they are not alone, and if they see nothing wrong with me (hopefully) then there is nothing wrong with them. And most importantly I want them to know that It gets better. Not that it changes but your response to it has the capacity to change.
I dont get dysfunctional when I am intimidated like this, I instead almost on autopilot stand up for myself and fight back knowing that when I stand up they run away like coward little wussies.
But I thought further, and what I could not get my head around was "why". Why is it that some people would do such useless things that lead to nothing but instead just makes the other person immensely scared. Like what is it that one gets out of casually touching the opposite gender in the wrong places at a crowded bazaar? or by cat calling or by touching or pointing to your genitals to scare the shit out of someone.
It cant be for any practical reasons, I am yet to meet a woman who felt aroused by any of the above gestures let alone be attracted. So while it is sexual in connotation it inst really part of the mating game. So then what is it? I guess I should thank @Shehzad89 for giving me the right word for it, and from now on I will use it everytime #brownbagging :).
So heres what I am gonno do, I wont feed further the cycle of social control through intimidation on my end. Instead what I will do is try to fight back. I will fight back with vengeance and with a tool I carry with me everyday, my phone.
Ever since I acquired a phone with a camera I used to have a funny little trick to get rid of guys who fancy following women around. I would pretend to click their photo and talk on phone with someone.
Now I tell you the following lot is not a very intelligent one coz without considering the mp size of my mobile camera they would all steer away after diligently following me for a few miles as soon as they saw me pretending to take their photo.
Anyway so once I got the current phone I have which actually can take high res photos that can be zoomed for an outcome I actually started clicking. I dont know to what outcome I took their photo but this incident had motivated me to bring these individual out in public who will hopefully be "Baap-Bhai" of someone.
And I invite all the girls who have ever felt intimidated by these scoundrels running around on our streets to next time take their photos and publicly share them. Hopefully some of them will realize what they do when publicly acknowledged. Here are mine...
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| Mr Biscuit guy |
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| Mr trying to find something between his legs guy |
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| Mr Half Face |
Now I would love to make a facebook page to allow a portal for all to share photos of their perpetrators but am not the page maintaining kind, so please feel free to make one and tag me on it so I share future trying to scare me idiots!
... yes I know you can almost smell the yumness of Mcmuffin and and hear the crunch as you almost chew into that goodness called hash browns but let me get back to my story which offers more than a juicy borrowed bite from the company me and my daughter jointly love to devour under the disappointing stares of our health and nutrition continuous beloved friends and family members.