Living in a world, where rape and molestation have become an everyday story, it is only the women who can tell as to how it is feels to ditch a rape everyday they step out of their place.
Bravo! If you managed to ditch getting molested! Because that is rarely the case, once you step out of the house, especially without a vehicle.
We often see the elderly reinforcing the curfew hours on us – especially on women – as if, there is some real-life monster, who walks the roads in the dead of the night. As scary the stories of a monster lurking around, keeping an eye on the children, who did not sleep on time at night. Little did we know that as soon as we grow up, these stories shall materialise in perhaps, the worst versions of themselves.
Varanasi – the city of the Lord himself, witnessed something that many would now term, ‘common’ – a bizarre, and yet the most, ‘common’ word invented for the atrocities against women.
The incident took place a few months ago, and went unnoticed.
It was 7:45 p.m. Yes, you read that right. 7:45 p.m, when a young girl, who had just dropped her friend was coming back from church, when some guys jumped in front of her scooter. She applied the brakes, but inevitably she hit one of those guys a little. Scared, worried if she had hurt him, she got off the scooter to ask him if he was alright. Little did the young soul know that the monsters on the streets do not get hurt so easily!
As soon as she got off the scooter to ensure that the guy was okay, all those guys grabbed the girl. She screamed, tried to let herself free, shouted at the top of her lungs, but to no avail. They touched her everywhere they could, she screamed in disgust, tried to save herself. During the attempt, one of them slapped her.
She couldn’t. She just couldn’t. It wasn’t just one monster walking the streets today. There were several. Those monsters did not look scary. They never did. Those were the familiar faces! How could she not see the monsters within?!
No, she wasn’t raped. But, her soul was butchered.
“How could this happen to me?,” she might have wondered. “How could those screams not break the slumber of the Lord himself ?” she might have questioned her belief.
Petrified, the young girl texted her friend, as soon as she got home. “Can you please call me. Sab bohot gande hain” (the world is a bad place) – she sent.
The most astonishing statement by the woman was that, if she narrated this incident to her family, they might stop her from stepping out of the house.
Narrating the story to her friend, the woman clarified that she wasn’t in the condition to think of taking any action against those guys. The friend of the woman has narrated the whole of the incident on his Instagram handle. The guy – her friend – maintains that the woman is now fine.
Yes, that is the society we live in, where, as, ‘late’ as 7:45 p.m. could be the hour when the monsters walk the streets. No, not to hunt the kids who are awake, but vaginas.
Maybe, just maybe, soon enough, as soon as the clock would strike 7:45 p.m. in the night, the mothers shall start narrating the tales of the monsters roaming the roads; and maybe, just maybe, soon enough, the young princess may give up on leaving her castle altogether.