Every bitch for herself

I used to be the proud co-care person for a little dog. When Janis first came to us in late 2009, I had just started a tough job and was living a rather chaotic, stressful life in Bangalore. The most wonderful moments of the day were after coming home to see her. Too soon though, it was time to be separated from her and she had to go live with our parents because I moved to a different part of the world succumbing to the lure of a better life in a foreign country. I missed her a lot but realized that she wasn't doing too badly for the move. At home with my parents, she had a lot of space and green lawns to run around in and my doting, overly indulgent Dad who took her on as a third daughter the moment he first saw her. But there is something else that I now observe in her when I visit her during vacations. She seems to have a brilliant understanding of my mother and a reverential respect for her commands. Janis is an exceptionally naughty dog when she's around my sister or me, with my Dad she seems to become a thug but with my Mum she is a bashful, shrinking violet. Like all dogs she hates taking baths, even warm ones and loves to roll around in the dirt in the garden every chance that she can manage following it up with rolling on our sofa in the middle of the night when she feels nobody is watching her. Nowadays, she doesn't roll around in the mud anymore and we found out the reason for this new found restraint, from our mother who casually mentioned to us one day that she managed to get Janis to obey her by simply dragging her to the bath after every adventure on the garden floor. Janis stopped her mud escapades because she dreaded the bath after and came to see my Mum as someone who had to be obeyed over everybody else in the family.

Ironically, my own behaviour closely resembles that of my dog though our 'adversaries' are not the same. As I have a great deal of idle time these days, I've been advised by my friends to make as much as I can of the opportunity to be outdoors because there won't be as much time to do whatever I like when I start work again. This advice seemed quite pleasant on the surface. For young people living on a budget, one of the cheapest ways to kill time is to take long walks. This might sound like a perfectly harmless way to spend time, except that it is not. I feel unsafe on the roads of Bangalore even in the daytime in a way that I've never felt before. The moment I step out of my house, I feel the staring, leering glances of everyone from young teenage boys to toothless old men boring into my skin. Their malevolent smiles make me want to curl up into myself so my body can't be seen. Taking a walk means meticulous precautions, wrapping up in baggy layers and scarves in mild, pleasant weather while trying to look confident in a hostile, threatening environment. It is such a paradox. On one hand, I feel that I should exercise my rights to enjoy and walk on the street and on the other I seem to have unconsciously trained myself to not make eye contact with anyone, walk very fast and try and shrink into invisibility when in a crowd of strangers and clutch my pepper spray tightly whether I'm walking on the road or sitting in an auto. I now go out only to reach destinations unscathed. I've done away with any expectation of enjoying the journey itself. How is one supposed to enjoy the fresh air or long walks if one is continuously on tenterhooks to fend off street harassment? A particularly unpleasant experience on Church street last week has triggered this post. My sister and I had just stopped our auto as we reached Church street near MG road when we saw a man outside give us a very revolting, lecherous look as he evaluated us from head to toe. He then proceeded to make gestures and sing a song as we got off the auto. At this point, my sister, couldn't contain her anger any longer and yelled at him to behave himself. The man promptly came uncomfortably close to us and started to abuse us loudly, even raising his hands as if he would beat us up. We ran for dear life as he yelled after us for the street to hear while not one passer-by came to help us. A few paces away, we saw a Constable stationed on the road and immediately went to him and told him about the man. The Constable beckoned to the man to come to him. Then something quite unexpected happened, the man walked up to the Constable in a huff and started yelling at the Constable to mind his own business. He asserted to the police that he could do anything he liked in the public space and nobody could stop him. Imagine how our confidence grew. After a few minutes of watching this, we were frightened enough to abandon our plans and quickly escape the area through a different route in case we were followed home by the man. We came home feeling rather miserable with ourselves, unsure if we should have done more or less, in this situation. People told us that we should have ignored this man from the start. But, we think, that the risk in talking to the police was not an unfavourable one at the outset because this happened in daylight and among a crowd. I didn't realize that molesters were bold enough to intimidate the police these days. I would never row in an isolated place, not that the crowd was any security in this situation.

Gradually, Janis has evolved a mechanism to stay away from my mother's path when there's cleaning going on in the house. She doesn't go out in the lawn without permission anymore and seems to have consciously or unconsciously chosen to stay in her little box when my Mum is about to clean the place so she doesn't get noticed and called for a bath. She is quite happy when my father returns home from work and roams around wherever she pleases in his company.

Between the two of us, Janis obviously has the safer life in a home where she is loved and is actually safe though she voluntarily takes certain measures to be in the good books of the mistress of the house. Her world is small and the only 'challenge' in her life is to avoid her weekly bath. I promise I am only slightly amused by this strange parallel and by the realization that I have unconsciously developed almost the same kind of shield to protect myself in my bigger world where I feel constantly unsafe, objectified and the weak prey for whoever may decide to harass or molest me on any given day. It is the cold, stinging shower I am forced to take everyday. I cannot stop in a street to look about me at the sights or talk to strangers or even help people in need. I have once been stopped on the road by a school boy who addressed me as 'Didi' and asked for directions. After I'd given him directions, he grinned at me, flashed himself and thanked 'sexy'.

I know I'm not the only one who suffers this. I have seen girls walking alone or in big groups get molested, stalked, harassed, groped in so many millions of ways and by so many different strangers that after all these years my first reaction is that of fatigue. After the fatigue comes virulent, blinding rage, when people,especially, women come and tell me and other girls that we should have been more careful. More careful. I refuse to take any blame or responsibility for the weakness of a man's mind and yet I choose to do everything I can to protect myself by limiting my own freedom and my wishes.

There's much to write about on this issue. I wrote once before that we'd probably be a more peaceful race if we saw each other as humans first instead of as genders or sexual organs or spoils to be conquered. The future might not become worse for young girls if a little care could be taken in our homes now. It is entirely upon young parents today and what they teach their little boys and girls about how much and what they are entitled to in the world. Please do your daily bit to not unleash another young creep upon the world over time so young girls do not feel compelled to hide in boxes.

The Gender Handicap

As our civilization grows older, our lives have become easier than ever before but it seems to me that all this growth and innovation is only one dimensional for most people, even the educated ones. One thing I've recently learnt from my sister is that as you advance and improve your life and accumulate new things for your comfort, it is also important to dispose off the old, non-functional things to make your personal space orderly and clutter-free (in other words house-cleaning!). I think this extends to the mind as well. I find it's very important to purge your mind of rubbish, especially most of the rubbish passed down over generations. In the last few days, looking about me makes me feel that in an effort to be male and female, we frequently forget how to be humans.

Human values apply to everybody but gender values differ for every gender, are usually unfair to the those involved and I believe are very limiting. A scene I once observed on a crowded bus comes to mind. It was a rare, blistering hot day in Bangalore. A large family boarded the same bus as me, it consisted of a set of grand parents and their two sons and wives with their small children. All three women, young and old were wearing sarees with a ghunghat or veils drawn over their faces. Their obvious discomfort in this situation made me realize how our established gender related obligations have no regard for human vulnerabilities. If your life is difficult already, then be sure that it could become worse if you live around members of the gender police. If you're a man, you'll be ridiculed if your likes/dislikes are not manly enough, if you don't establish your masculinity through random acts of machismo, if you'd like to leave your job to look after the children while your wife works, if you participate in house decoration, and don't you dare cry in public or dress bright or 'girly'! If I started the strictures on how a woman ought to behave, this post would never end and I have garbage to throw out early in the morning.

All I'm trying to say is that things would be so much better around us if we looked at people around us as humans first before throwing the gender book at them. If everybody was human first empathizing with each other for wanting the same basic things in their lives, we wouldn't be thwarted by our genders while trying to pursue the same basic goal. People wouldn't have to suffer in the heat on crowded buses because their father-in-law shouldn't see their hair. Everyone could make a comfortable journey to the end.