Its definitely not something new to most of the girls especially living in Delhi to hear something that compels you to rethink your situation in the society!
It happened with one of my friends the other day, rather at 12 at night, but not in some secluded far off place, but just below our own flat. Like the end of any regular day, she finished her studies in library, her male friend accompanied her till our small gali, so any guess what wrong they did afterwards?
They stood there, right there in the gali and started talking to each other for sometime, this drew attention of a senior citizen in our neighborhood who looked like an experienced, old and respected person of the society. But then he started speaking to them, starting with “Chalo chalo idhar se chalo, do not spoil the environment by standing here”. To their surprise, there was so much of confidence mixed with arrogance in his tone with which he continued to shout at the duo, exclaiming that he can do whatever he wants to if they don’t follow his advice.
Inspite of the polite words by them, he continued his slang language to threaten and frighten the two just because he thought if a girl is standing in a gali with a male friend at night, something is definitely wrong and they do not care for the environment they live in. More because, they dared to stand just near the Uncle’s home, of course he considers he owns the road as well, because he believed he could do anything to those he considered immoral. This means a lot many things, like the students were not serious for their studies, they are wasting their parents’ money, they are doing all what is immoral in the society. And he continued with things like “You are here for studying, what do you think you are doing here, go to home” and all what he could possibly think of from his narrowest mind.
And like any other sensible person, the duo decided to ignore and not waste time answering to such people. But yes, they had to bid goodbye immediately and leave for their homes, so to avoid any more assumptions and strange accusations from the neighborhood uncles and aunties. But it doesn’t end there, my friend had a sleepless night, full of frustration, anger and an undying will to prove it to him and everyone else that she was not doing anything wrong, and she had every right to talk to anyone at any time she liked to. And that it doesn’t spoil the environment or the society.
I’m sure many of you must have faced such incidents at different points of time, even though these are small happenings but they leave an impact, they make you rethink your open minded decisions and it might even create a trauma for some.
Is this where our society, our culture, our country is heading towards? While we talk about women empowerment, equality, justice, open culture, focus on women entrepreneurs, increasing percentage of working women but why we do not focus on the independence of thoughts as well? Why we leave out one of the most important aspects of freedom? Not sure, how many of you see this as a concern, but it affects a lot of us in our everyday life.
