Stop calling it "eve teasing". You are being molested, not teased.

Update:  


Last evening, I took my toddlers out to play. We stay out a long time because a) the outdoors are a great way to get healthy and find wonderful new things and b) I like to tire them out like that so they sleep well. Because, really, as a mum and a working one, there's only so much you can take in a day. But that's a different story.


It was a Friday (as you know it's the Arab world's Sunday). We usually play in a grassy little patch a bit away from my home. Today, as I saw it was really lonely there, I decided to stick around in the empty parking lot of a large government building near my home. I usually have my help or my husband with me because managing two toddlers who don't understand road safety very clearly yet is difficult. Today, it was just me and the kids. 


A while into play, a Honda Civic began to cruise up and down the road adjacent to where we were. I didn't pay too much attention because assholes like that usually drive away if they see you aren't interested. Soon I saw the car had turned into the parking lot we were playing in and had parked nearby. I calmly gathered the kids up and moved to the other side of the road, where there is a place to play but is pebbly. As soon as I did that, I noticed the car pull away and I decided that was the end of it. 


After a few minutes I noticed a man walking up and down the stretch of pavement we were playing on. He didn't pay us any attention so I thought it was a resident on his usual evening walk (I am new to the area). When it got dark, I took both the kids - carrying the younger one -- and walked towards home. Most of the area is pretty well-lit and busy; there's just one patch that's dark and dodgy. When I got there, my older child spotted something on the road and stopped to marvel over it and ask questions. I moved closer to the pavement as she started discovering more god knows what on the road. And suddenly stepped smack into this tall hulking guy standing way too close to me. It was the same guy who was walking. Silly as I am, and disturbed as I was by his closeness, I didn't quite realise it was the same guy who was in the car. He came forward to pet my son, who I was carrying, and I took a couple of steps back. He began asking them their names and the niggling warning bell got louder. Before I could grab my daughter's arm and head home, he had reached out again to touch my son's cheek and in the process brushed his hand against my chest. I saw red, gave him a hard shove and started shouting and charging at him but he fled and there was only so much I could do with the kids around. 


My blood boiled as I went home and told my husband what happened. He stepped out immediately to see what could be done and I saw the bastard drive past our house again. I don't know if he was keeping an eye or he just needed to go to the end of the road to turn around his car.


I most definitely intend to report this but I am getting feedback like expatriates will not be helped much in case it gets reported. I've been told to go through an Omani friend or colleague who is well connected. Have any of you living in Muscat reported any such incidents? I know a lot of women face such crap. But have you reported?


*****


Eve teasing


I don't know how many women can safely say that they have never been molested in their lives. If they've been out in a public space, it doesn't matter what they are wearing, whether they are in great shape, whether they're lovely to look at or just plain, they will have been grabbed. 

Very often, when the question of molestation comes up, everyone loves to label a city safe or unsafe, depending on what frame of mind they are in. I find it astoundingly silly and baffling that the basis for deeming a city safe (or unsafe, as the case may be) depends on incidence of reported rape and other attacks. In a city like Bombay, which I will vouch for as more or less safe for women, for the most bit, I was molested in more ways than one.

Once, I stopped to ask for directions and this creep, who would have been barely 20, said he didn't know what I was asking about, stuck his hand out, grabbed my breast and ran. Unfortunately for him, my reflexes are still in decent condition. Couple that with roar-inducing rage, I chased him down, got him by his shirt and beat him up in every way I know. Kicked, slapped and punched him with one of these in my hand. Not only is that a hair-ornament, but it's my most effective protection against molestors. He got away after a bit but I think I damaged him enough for him to remember not to touch a girl for a while, unless she wants to be touched.

On the local train, if I ever got into the compartment where there were also men, more often than not, I dragged an offender out with me. The thing with these guys is most of them don't start on you till the train stops at a station, when the crowd is moving and shifting. They grab you just as you are getting or they're getting out, hoping you don't realise what happens. So I usually am prepared for an attack; drag them out and starting hitting him and/or abusing him till a crowd gathers and takes over. Which is why I love Bombay. A woman's word is gospel. At least in my experience. As opposed to Bangalore, where the men look at you as if you've just offended them by even existing. What a hostile mean city Bangalore has been for me. 

Another time in Bombay, a friend sat alone in the first class compartment a little late at night, going towards Town (South Bombay). For those who have done that will know why it's a bad idea. First class is the perfect option during peak hours but a really bad idea late at night because it's practically empty. Also after 8 p.m. (or is it 7?) men are allowed in ladies' compartments as well. So there she was hoping to reach home without any incident, when a man comes and plonks himself opposite her, whips out his penis and starts masturbating in front of her. I can't remember if I have mentioned this here before but it is the most disgusting story of molestation I heard from someone I know. I am not including child abuse and incest stories because that is way beyond molestation. 

Yet another time, I've been kissed by someone in a senior position who I worked for. He had joined me and a friend for dinner, conversation went very well. I don't know if we had similar interests or he was just being polite and attentive. But the evening ended with him insisting he drop us girls. I lived really far off from where we were having dinner and after much protest (I really was perfectly okay with going home alone at 1 a.m. Still am.) we decided it would be churlish not to accept and so we were dropped back. My colleague was dropped off first and as I lived farther, I was alone with him till we got home. We chatted about this and that, I got told I was charming etc etc. And then, just as I said goodnight and was about to step out of the car, after a cursory, polite thank-you peck on the cheek, I was at the receiving end of a full-on adult kiss, with a little tongue thrown in. To say that I did not expect it at all is understatement. To my shame, I didn't report it. Don't ask me why. Maybe because there was no violence, maybe because he was always so polite and gentle before and after. Maybe because he did major damage control after that, but I didn't report it. I am still confused today as to why I didn't.

And I am not even talking about things like talking to my breasts instead of talking to me, exposing yourself to me or texting me to say when you are drunk that you want to "fuck me" (a colleague in Bombay called Manoj did this. And he found my number through someone else. Unfortunately, I forgot his last name. His poor wife had gone off to have a baby or something), and being hearing lewd things being said as I or some other woman walked past. 


My questions are these: 


1. What is it that makes some men violate a woman's personal space and touch her? Who gives them the right to do that and think it's bloody okay?
2. What is it that separates a molester from a regular man? What makes two men look at a woman and react in two different ways: One checks her out, finds her appealing and stops with that, while the other one reaches out and touches her? What is that essential difference? Lack of control? Lack of decency? Bad upbringing? A disdain for women?
3. Do they also look at the women in their home with the same filth in their eyes with which they look at my breasts or butt or thighs? I mean to ask do these men who touch women without their permission on the streets also touch their women -- mothers, wives, sisters -- at home? Are these, in effect, perpetrators of incest? Or is it just other women they feel comfortable grabbing?
4. Are women responsible for these men having absolutely no fear to touch, grope, or expose themselves to women? Have years of "just ignore him" behaviour emboldened these men to do as they please? Would a man think twice if he had been beaten by a woman for touching her or passing a lewd comment at her?
5. If I have some male readers, can you please come out on this and tell me what treatment -- extreme or otherwise -- would deter a man from molesting a woman?
6. Is this restricted to developing countries and others such as Oman alone or do developed countries see molestation in such a daily, on the street, everyday manner?


A blogger friend recently told me that one of the reasons he likes Muscat is because it is safe, that things like the above don't happen here. 

Fact: The first time I saw a man's penis: Here in Muscat, when I was about 13-14 years old. A man close to where we were playing was hanging around exposing himself and trying to get our attention
Fact: The first time I saw a man masturbating: Here in Muscat. Late evening I was hanging out clothes to dry on a stand in the balcony and this guy was parked perhaps 20-30 meters away from our home, jerking off. I didn't realise what was happening till I almost finished with the clothes.  
Fact: The first time I was grabbed: Here in Muscat, in Ruwi, while walking with my parents when I was nine years old. A man walking past grabbed my then non-existent right breast.
Fact: The first time I got surrounded by a bunch of guys and seriously groped: Here in Muscat. Age 12, cycling home from my dance lessons when a bunch of tween-to-teenaged Baluchi boys surrounded me and brushed their hands against my butt, my chest, my legs while saying things that to this day I haven't understood, in Hindi. 
As a result, when I walk alone, I walk with all my senses on alert. I walk with aggression and hold a bag or something protectively against me, with my elbows ever-ready to shove someone in case they touch me. Do you know how stressful it is to walk like that, protecting yourself constantly, without letting your guard down? Do you realise how painful it is to think that you can't enjoy a good walk alone for the fear of being touched by a creep? Do you realise how restricting, how rage-inducing, how utterly defeating it is to be that way every day? Do men understand why some women in countries where roadside molestation is rampant hold on to their men tight? Why they ask their men to ask for directions, buy a pack of cigarettes or walk half a step behind, very close to their men? 


Edited to add: A friend wrote in to tell me molestation is an issue that needs to be told again and again and again. Men, just ask the women in your life how it makes them feel, even better, think about how you feel when one them is attacked. Women, the more we talk the more courage we can instill in those who won't retaliate. Will women who read this please take two extra minutes to just comment and not leave before they do? Only for this post, please. If the men (if there are more than three) also can take the time I'll be very grateful.


Edited again to add: If I have any Omani/Middle Eastern women as readers, could they please tell me their experience; anonymously is just fine? I am just trying to understand if India, because it is so varied, has such elements and because by and large we don't have dress codes, that this happens to women. Does wearing an abaya, being brought up in a mostly segregated society and not having as many freedoms as women from other places have its advantages as far as molestation is concerned?

Things that make me mad

Can you believe this supercilious crap?

I don't get this woman AT. ALL. And for those of you who are wondering why I read it in the first place - here's my explanation for now and eternity. I read everything I can about Bombay. Even by someone as unfortunately popular as De. God!

Because I like the time for an involved, neatly written post, I doing the easy thing. A list of completely random things that really annoy me. If you happen to read this, please feel free to add your own.

1) Complaining about work. Well, not really complaining about work but doing it for three years. And still not doing anything about it. Get up. Get out. Just stop complaining.

2) Making me answer your phone. Your cell phone.

3) Telling me to do something 3.5678 nanoseconds before I am about to do it.

4) Blaming the traffic for everything every chance you get -- your rhinitis, your divorce, your burnt dinner, your sneaky domestic help.

5) Sending me emails. Calling to tell me you sent me an email. Then calling back in half an hour to check if I read your email. I will say this only once: I. CHECK. MY. EMAIL. 20. TIMES. A. DAY. If you've sent it to me, I'll get it.

6) Looking at my monitor for more than two seconds of I-am-not-sure-where-to-look-as-soon-as-I-say-hello, when you stop by my desk for a chat. What the $%$^ do you care if I am looking up how to baste zombie eyeballs or crochet peonies??!

7) Trying to pronounce 's' sounds like Sean Connery. There is only ONE Sean Connery and you are not him.

8) Excessive exclamation marks. However surprised you are, one will do nicely. If you insist on detailed expression, limit it to three.

9) Talking to me in French. I have never learnt French. I don't intend to. So don't try and impress me with it, because I won't know jack. And if it IS impressing you are after, try Italian or Portuguese or something -- at least it sounds sexy.

10) Constantly twitching to see if you are being checked out. And then pretending that you don't care.

11) Jeans/skirts/dresses and bindis. Not cool on anyone. Not Madonna, not Gwen Stefani, not you.

12) Not giving.

29 going on 15

It took me years to fit my own age. At age 16, the world went around saying how mature I was for my age. That probably went to my head. Because on the threshold of a new decade in my life and I still feel 15.
Working in the real world, experimenting with relationships, living alone, living in, having a baby -- all that has got to take a toll on you right? Like a mango tree that stops being weighed down by too much fruit with each passing year. But in my head it doesn't feel like I've gone and lived an adult life.
I am still shocked when I meet really tiny kids and they tell me they are in class 12of the school I studied in. I still think monthly facials are for older women. I look at number 30, and it's just that to me -- a number. I don't see the big fuss.
What does drive home the point these days is when people expect grown up things from me. Or when I put myself in my mother's shoes -- which I have done very often since Shyama arrived -- and realise damn, at my age she had an 8-year old daughter. Or when I fill out restaurant suggestion cards that put you in a whole different bracket.

*****

I don't know if it's all the frosty windows and super nice warm clothing that you see in the movies (if you live in India, that is) but Christmas season anywhere is truly magical. (Even in Mauritius where it comes bang in the middle of summer and therefore the Christmas trees there are mostly golden. Yum!) I even imagine the smell of baking when I put on my Sinatra CD of Christmas carols.
This season I hope to recall all the people in the last year that have meant something to me. I plan to write them a note telling them how much I appreciate them or the thing they did for me. My list gets longer each day and I suddenly thank god for giving me such magic in my life.

*****

Ever wonder what happens if you had made a different decision from the one made when you came at a crossroad? I do. Of course I can never see the answer but it's a nice a journey. I see 20 kgs less, I see higher heels, I see more money, I see a different language, I see the sea. Other times I see an empty house, addictive behavior, I see cigarette hair and voice. Both seem romantic, but at the end of that little mind-detour, Shyama smiles and I love being where I am.

*****

I don't know where Bombay is going to go from here. Or India. I hate to think we won't all have normal lives but I hate it even more to think that we will go back to our lives when this mess is cleaned up. That's not indomitable spirit, that's freezing over. For good. That's death.

*****

For me, Bombay will always mean the sea.

Yes.



A sea of all that is new and varied. A sea of people. A sea of experiences. A sea of smiles and a sea of people coming and going by constantly. Sometimes, these people last and sometimes they don't. But for me, Bombay always means change and constancy in one solid, paradoxical pack.

So, I had a good 10 days in Bombay. Apart from hitting the joints I love the most and sweating like I was dissolving (this is not a whine - I love sultry weather), I met a few interesting people, among them a completely undignified dog called Dara. For a shih tzu he's remarkably quiet. And that still doesn't give him an air of being a dog. He needs lessons to be one! All he gets excited about is the bell ringing. Also, he's a slut. He'll go snuggle with anyone as long as they let him sit with him touching their thigh or hip or whatever's the body part that's currently facing his old face.

I also had the chance to see my friend Anita who gifted me something precious while I lived in Bombay. A wonderful way to get people together. On any odd day, she'd just sms a random bunch of people giving details of a film, theatre and timings and within an hour everyone would get back with their responses and she'd head out and get tickets. This, in a city where everyone says "You know, we should get together more often," and meet a year later, was a wonderful way to get a whole bunch of people together to get them to have a good time. Sometimes, the movies would be rotten and Anita would be the only person enjoying it or getting into some involved discussion about it and sometimes we'd all leave the theatre completely enthralled and satisfied. More often than not, depending on the show we were getting in for, a few of us would end up getting dinner, go for drink and sometimes, disappointingly, head to our individual commitments.

But it NEVER stopped being fun. I don't know how many of us actually came for the film and how many just for something to do on an otherwise regular evening. There was also the prospect of meeting someone interesting in the group. And you would think people would make a fuss about getting to Wadala or Andheri or places like that from where all of us lived but come 10:30 and there'd be a joyous Anita, tickets in hand, and incessant messages to late comers whose tickets would be left at the door.

It was simple, effective and great way for people to just get together every once in a while and enjoy themselves. She still does it once in a while I think but mostly someone else has taken over the role of active movie-goers' gatherer.

Keep it going, Ants.


*****

It was nice to be among friends who either completely forgot that I was pregnant (Hi, Suresh!) or who constantly fussed around me because I was (Hi, Shri, Neeta!). Touching the bump, feeling for baby, asking me all sorts of involved questions that I had no answer to. Somewhere in my head, my primary identity is still of an individual. Not of a mommy to be or a wife or a whatever else I should be. Which is why I suppose it's a wonderful surprise, a tremendous joy when complete strangers take extra care to be nice to you -- a cab driver who drives carefully without being told, a completely strange woman (who, I admit guiltily, I was observing and making mean comments about her clothes in my head) who wishes me all the best.

Of course, then there's this lovable bunch who decides to smoke up while I contently have to find a smokeless spot in the house so they don't get in my way. It's not so much that they were smoking up without me. I think it was more that I couldn't even take a single drag! Oh well, baby joy is a little more lasting than grass high, I always say.

*****

I am alarmed at the amount of people I've met and heard from in the past week who have been divorced/going through one/contemplating one. About 20 people in the gap of five days. And mostly women. Hell, ALL women. I didn't meet a single guy who was getting out of a marriage.

I don't know what to think, primarily because of the fact that after my own divorce, I've found something I treasure deeply, with someone who has given me all that I could want from another person and a relationship. But the other reason is also that it is just bewildering to see myself in so many of these women. All getting married when they aren't ready and then that world crashing around them.

Having said that, I have truly found that the best way to make a marriage last happily is to do it at least twice. It could be marriage-divorce-marriage or just live in really long with the significant other (which is a marriage anyway) and then move on if it doesn't work. Honestly, the wealth of experience that living with a person you are in love with gives you is something else entirely. And it's not just brands of toothpaste and picking up wet towels off the bed.

*****

What does it take a person to say that he or she is by no means a happy person? What kind of deep self-knowledge or misconception or deep pain (or self-pity, perhaps) does it take for a person to say that she or he is unhappy? I read someone like that. I don't know the person but she states very matter of factly on her blog that she is 'by no means a happy person'.

I think this is an astonishing confession. In a world where it's absolutely essential that you come across as happy and positive, in a world where most of us develop a psyche that demands happiness of us or at least a pretence of it, how does someone put it out there that she is an unhappy person?

Our jobs demand we be happy, positive -- it is only then, they say, that you can be a good worker. Our parents demand our happiness, if only so that they can be happy. Our friends demand we be happy; they'll lend you a shoulder to cry on for a bit -- after that friends usually try and avoid you because they don't want to be stuck with an unhappy whiney person or they tell you straight out to get on with life and stop feeling bad for yourself. Why, we ourselves demand happiness of ourselves -- isn't that why we look for people, jobs, vacations and clothes, a host of other things that makes us happy?

So in a world where there is such great pressure to be happy, is it liberating to say one is unhappy?

Besides, from what people tell me and from my limited experience, isn't being happy a choice you make? Yes, there are those irrepressible among us who will be happy no matter what (thank god) and there are those who will, in the face of great tragedy and pain, will make a conscious effort to choose happiness over feeling miserable. But is it always possible to choose?

*****

Thanks to youtube and Savita (Hi, Savita!) I found the ek anek video. It brings such glorious memories of my childhood summers spent in India. I remember each line, each lyric, each rhythm, each sketch of that video.

*****

Josef Fritzl. I don't know what to think of him. I am disgusted, aghast, puzzled, hurt for his family and filled with rage. But I still don't know how it all happened. All I hope is he gets his due and more in prison.