After patiently waiting for 20 minutes, I get a chance to board a Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus with route number 500, from South Extension. The sight is familiar: hardly any space to 'adjust' yourself among the?commuters who are already present in the bus during the peak hours.
I buy the ticket to Jantar Mantar, pay Rs 20 and frantically start searching for a place to sit. All I can think of a man who is seated on a place reserved for women. To my disappointment, there's none. Most women have already done their job and are seated with content, looking at other standing women with a look of triumph on their faces.
With much effort, I try to make my way through a packed atmosphere to the front of the bus and decide to stand next to the driver's seat, where there's usually less commotion.?
It's a relatively warm morning. I take a quick glance at the homo sapiens in the bus -- men and women dressed for offices, students dressed for colleges, some travelling to a hospital with their sick and some to banks with lots of paperwork in hand. I thank God for sending an AC bus just on time, otherwise who wants to deal with so many people with all that stench early morning?
After close to 15 minutes have passed, I feel something on my left upper thigh. I ignore it, thinking it must be someone's bag. A few seconds later I feel a little more uncomfortable. The 'thing' touching my upper thigh is getting 'harder'. My heart races. I turn back and see a man who appears to be around 40-45 years of age standing facing me. He doesn't move or even blinks. With a blank face, he constantly stares at me. I get my discomfort noticed by pushing people around for more space. He doesn't move. I finally decided to give him a death stare, hoping it works.
Well, it doesn't. A feeling of disgust runs down my body. The man, that sick man, got off at the next stop. I still have close to 10 minutes to reach my destination. I feel blank, I feel nothing. I just want to wash myself so much that even the faintest memory of this goes away.
These were the heaviest 10 minutes. I alight at my stop and try to put forward a brave face and be jovial, just as I am around friends. But the disgusting memory doesn't leave me.?
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It still hasn't left me. I am a 27-year-old woman now and this incident happened when I was just 21, freshly inducted into senior college in 2011.
Cut to 2018, nothing has changed. As I was scrolling through Facebook updates two days ago, I stumbled upon a news piece reporting about how a college girl was masturbated at in a DTC bus and that onlookers just remained bystanders, perfectly pulling off what they are expected to do ¨C basically doing nothing. The girl captured the sexual harassment that thousands of women face in public places in its most graphic and sickening form.
The Delhi University student filmed the man masturbating right next to her on a crowded bus.?
In the video, which the student has posted on social media, a middle-aged man was seen exposing and fondling himself, a bag shielding his depravity from all but the young woman sitting next to him. The woman has alleged that he also tried to touch her in the incident that took place on February 7.
Shockingly, the man was unfazed, even after being shouted upon, possibly because none of the fellow passengers responded.?
The report brought a fresh bout of filthy memories. From school, from college, from simple hangouts with friends to travelling in public buses and metros. I, just like, millions of other women in this world, have faced the same exasperating experiences.?
This one happened some four years ago. It was like any other evening. The sun was setting and a cool breeze was flowing, giving a breath of relief to hawkers around the bus stand. I boarded a DTC bus from Nehru Place to Malviya Nagar, bought the ticket, and being true to my nature, somehow managed to get past everybody and stand near the front seat reserved for women. I had my earphones plugged in, but having a first-hand experience of what all could possibly go wrong in a public bus, I had my guard up.?
After looking outside of the window for a while, I noticed a middle-aged man who was quite indiscreetly fondling himself. A college girl, standing fairly close to him had an uncomfortable look on her face. She was trying to move but the crowd in the bus gave little respite. Without wasting another second, I asked her to come and stand right next to me and rebuked him for such vulgarity and the way he treats women in his house. I could sense that the man was alarmed for once but was soon emboldened again. Once more, because nobody, fucking nobody except for me, raised a voice. I realised that though I did rescue that poor girl from the tormenting experience but how little I could do to hold back a man from doing what he wanted to do. I realised how little voice a lone woman has in this patriarchal and phallocentric world. But I made it a point to not let the thought deter me from doing what was right ¨C calling out men for all the repulsive things they do, inside and outside of the house.
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This one happened not so long ago. In September 2016, a friend of mine and I, after spending two days in the blissful Rishikesh were travelling back to Delhi. We reached Rishikesh bus station, boarded the 5 pm bus to Delhi and took our seats.
The journey to home began.?
By the time we reached Roorkee, I noticed that a man seated in the right row of the bus was continuously ogling at the two of us at the left. We were alarmed and asked him if there was something wrong, or that if he had a problem or if it was impossible for him turn his face back to normal. He didn't reply. Instead, taking a brief halt and giving some relief to his neck he turned his face back again. I was infuriated and asked him if he can not bother us and let us sit peacefully. Once again, he didn't reply, instead had a stupid, repulsive grin on his face. I decided to confront him and walked up to him in the moving bus:
Ą°Bhaiya bahut der ho gayi. Kya dikkat hai aapko? Aapko do teen bar pehle bhi bol chuke hain ki seedhe ho kar baith jao lekin aapko samajh hi nahi aa raha. Kyun pareshan kar rahe ho hum logon ko aap? Tab se non-stop dekh kar reh gaye ho, dimaag kharab hai kya?Ąą
He was embarrassed and I had made my point clear. But what bothered me again and the most was the fact that despite the two of us confronting that fellow, no one else in the bus packed with close to 60 individuals raised their voice. All of them chose to sit quietly because it did not happen with the women they were travelling. I became fully aware that it was easy to witness something wrong and not speak a word against it in this country, especially when it is about women.
I have experienced innumerable incidents like these just like any other woman in this country. The question is till when should we face all this? Why can't our public transport become safer for women? Not every woman can afford a private vehicle and be safer on roads than most.?
It is a fact that most women feel unsafe in public transports and that urban environments are not gender neutral. The apparent differences between how men and women travel around cities can be attributed to the gendered power hierarchies deep-rooted in our society.?
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Public transport systems have become the most obvious places of sexual harassment. Buses, taxis, trains and ride-sharing services give perpetrators a guaranteed and anonymous proximity to their targets. Women also feel more at risk in areas near to public transport like subways, bus stations, bike paths, etc. Unwanted touching, obscene gestures, voyeurism, unwanted sexual comments or jokes, sex-related insults, pressuring for dates or sex, indecent exposure, being forced to watch or participate in pornography, stalking, flashing, ogling and even masturbating at having become rampant.??
Installing CCTV cameras buses and metros, quick redressal of complaints and segregated public transport or taxi service is important but it does not address the larger issue -- teaching men to respect women.?
According to a 2014 Thomson Reuters Foundation survey of some of the world's largest cities, Bogota, Mexico City, Lima and Delhi have the most dangerous transportation system for women.?
Having lived in New Delhi for more than seven years now, I can personally vouch for these results. I never feel safe travelling in a taxi alone in Delhi, no matter what time of the day. It's a pity that harassment of women on public transport is still seen as a minor offence and not sexual abuse. When it comes to transportation policy-making at the workplace, women's issues are often conveniently ignored.
Women's safety cannot be seen in isolation but the fact that the intrinsic mindset must be change for good. Greater involvement of communities is needed to understand individual needs and gender sensitisation in the transportation workforce.