The Scare of “Being Scared”
I am scared. Very very scared.
Mostly I am scared to be a woman in my country’s capital.
Then I am scared for the fear that I am slowly but surely losing my independence
which I am fighting for everyday since I was a child. I am scared to get on a
public transport – at any time of the day. I am shit scared of travelling alone
at night even though I feel angry @ feeling so. I am scared of trusting the
autowallah I wave to stop on the road. I am scared of even driving my own car!
I am scared of wanting to enjoy a normal life – the life
which most men take for granted. I am scared of the fear and anxiousness I see
on my family’s faces every day when I kiss them good-bye for office. I am
scared when I hear the same anxiousness growing manifold when I tell them I’ll
be working later than the day-light hours. I am scared of the uncertainty that my
every step brings – to myself and those who care for me. I am scared of opening
the newspaper everyday – for fear of the number of new rape stories that I
shall read – each of which depicts the woman as the one “shamed”. I am scared
of trying to argue with the world why I should not have to put a full-stop to
my life ‘cuz of the animals roaming around.
Why? Why should I have to think a zillion times before
planning a late-night movie? Why should I be questioned for wanting to save my
hard-earned money and not splurging on a cab-ride everyday – which again isn’t
safe? Why should every time a rape case happens, the whole world questions the “circumstances” - the girl might be travelling alone, she
might be with a male friend, she might even be “alone” at her “own home”, she
might be coming late from office working hard to meet deadlines, she might have
been coming back from a drinking spree with her friends. Why should the girl be
questioned at all?
And what right does anyone have to question a girl’s “morality”
– her wearing jeans, her being educated, her befriending people of the opposite
sex, her even drinking and smoking, and something which all of us read but
chose to ignore – her being put on the same pedestal as a woman who indulges in
sex for money – and even she doesn’t deserve to be raped! Is it “moral” for
people to refuse to see women as people of the same race and giving her the
well-deserved “Right to Live”? Is it “moral” for the people to even THINK that
a rapist might EVER be justified for any God-damn reason?
How low have we gotten? As a nation? As a society? As the
human race altogether? And inspite of such repeated acts, I read about the
police officers and politicians and courts asking the people to pat them on
their backs for “quick action”. Excuse me? But isn’t that something that MUST
happen – not just this one time – but rather ALWAYS? And what use will that be
when the “guilty” might never be punished – a case in point being the Aruna
Shaunbaug case among many others where the guilty went scot-free after years of
trial?
We are not safe on the roads. We are not safe in the malls. We
are not safe in the moving vehicles. And we are not safe even @ our homes. What
exactly are we supposed to do? And why should me or the million other women in
this city be scared – EVER - of wanting to live their lives as a “normal free woman”
living in a so-called democratic and
free country? I am still not FREE and I shall not be till I know that a rapist might
not be lurking at each and every turn I take. And he might just take “offense”
and try and hurt me even more if I refuse to accept his sexual advances?!
I so hate, despise
and am disgusted of this feeling of being forced to be “scared” when I take
pride in being anything but?
