Is India a nation of sex-starved perverts?

Every Indian woman grows up under a severe male gaze – that starts from her childhood and follows her till she dies… disappearing into a sort of silence.

The same gaze that demands docile subservience – what to wear, what to cover. What time to return home. Which type of boys to avoid in college. The right age to marry. To not have sex before marriage. How watching porn is a sacrilege. How masturbation is dirty. The legend of the good girl – the sati savitri shuddh bharitiya nari. Morally upright. Sexually uptight.

Scared of shadows.

Streets deemed dangerous after dark. Cities advertised as "unsafe". A puritanical, purdah of moral conduct. A self-imposed lakshman rekha supposed to guard us from buri nazaar.

Pepper sprays. Self defence classes. Hockey sticks in the car's backseat. Papa and bhaiyya’s number on speed dial. Along with the Delhi Police's. Long-sleeved tops. No tight jeans.

No touch. No cleavage. No desire.

And yet, everyday, in almost every Indian metro, there is a shocking case of a woman’s sexual honour being violated, in the unlikeliest of places, by the men you don’t categorise as rapists – at first. Take for example the recent case of an Uber cab driver, who forcibly tried to kiss a woman passenger in Gurgaon, barely a few months after a 27-year-old finance executive had alleged that another Uber driver had driven her to a deserted place, after she fell asleep in the vehicle, and raped her. The latest victim’s brother took to social media to vent his outrage.

Knowing it is the sort of silent shame that she will be forced to let go off. In time…

Like our erstwhile neighbour Potol, a middle-aged, pot-bellied man in Kolkata with hair sprouting out of his ears and nostrils. The man who leched at our maids washing utensils from his terrace. Scratching his bare chest and touching his privates. The way we always kept the window of my study closed – the one that faced Potol’s squalid bedroom. Peeping tom.

His own wife childless.

Was this a punishment of sorts? Hushed whispers that I heard daily. Some maids whispering that his wife was possessed by spirits, that she could not give him what he wanted.

What does a common Indian pervert really want? Was a sex-starved Potol justified in his everyday lecherous behaviour? Why did we let him off the hook so easily? Why were maids always leaving his household? Had he tried touching them, inappropriately? Was touch a gender-sensitive domain? Did touch have a class barrier? Was a poor maid’s body not her own? Is rape only an urban phenomenon?

Actress Preity Zinta recently claimed in an interview, "I must smile all the time, be perfectly behaved. I’m admired like a trophy. I cannot have a pimple, put on weight or cover my face when photographers aim bright flashes at me in the dark and scare the hell out of me. Big crowds make me nervous and men grab me to touch me, yet I cannot react because after all they are my fans! Agreed… But am I not a woman too?"

Can we ever justify Zinta’s inner demons?

Discount the libido of most Indian men who are not a part of an organic and healthy sex education that starts at homes, before continuing in schools and colleges… a sexual equanimity at the workplace? Are we the byproduct of a hypocritical cultural prudishness that doles out Khajuraho and Kamasutra to blue-eyed tourist and yet boxes character with strict self-control? Where parents hardly ever hold hands? Where a young, married couple can’t even get the license to delay children, enjoy sex for what it is. A normative physical need. A healthy, preoccupation. A process of mutual discovery that is not synonymous with first night, virginity, and all the arranged marriage gibberish. Sex, a state, not a condition. Tongue, breasts, vagina, scrotum, lips, arms, fingers…

Are we producing a whole lot of perverts, everyday?

Most adolescents secretly downloading triple X-rated information off the internet. Sunny Leone lending a hand to a generation of horny, sexually-charged Indian boys… making them mards. Pun intended!

In a way, their own sex fails to do, at times. In a way a woman is never allowed to, here. Even as armchair feminists cry foul with the quality of films that she endorses.

I was relatively new to Bangalore. It was 2004. On day two of work, I boarded an auto from Lavelle Road where my office was, wanting to be dropped at Brigade Road for an assignment. Our car from Delhi had not reached. Throughout the journey, the driver kept stealing lustful glances at me and speeding on purpose. I kept covering my arms. After a few sharp turns, I requested to be dropped off at once. The driver shrugged his shoulders, as if to indicate he did not comprehend Hindi. Battling an extreme squeamishness and being completely new to the city, I prayed we somehow reached Brigade Road. We did. Staggering out, I promptly dished out Rs 50, not wanting to take back my change.

The man stared at me with a deadpan look. I met his eyes, asking if the fare had exceeded what I had paid. He licked his lips. Then raised an eyebrow suspiciously. I glanced down. And literally jumped out my skin seeing his fly was open, his member in full public view.

I ran. Never looking back. Feeling disgusted to talk about this incident to anyone.

How safe are we as a sex?

Which man can we trust?

Drivers? Dhobis? Delivery boys? Watchmen? Maalis?

Is popular culture in India being allowed to get away without really stereotyping eve-teasers, peeping toms, horny middle aged men? Haven’t we seen scores of mainstream Bollywood films where the hero and his friends sing songs to girls as they enter college? Where a comic sidekick who usually accompanies the hero clicks pictures of a woman bathing at her hostel? Where the villain always rapes and sexually abuses the heroine? Is sexual twistedness a part and parcel of Indian homes where nobody is taught or trained on how to behave with respect to sex? Where boys grow up seeing their fathers taunting their mothers, openly. Raising voices. Then hands… Are Indian women destined to remain sexually servile in the societal power structure? Recipients of pleasure? Never answering back… in the end.

Are all Indian men closet rapists? Wanting to punish a woman who is liberated and outspoken?

In their heads?

When the truth is out there…

Our greatest strength actually based on our deepest, darkest fears.

How long will we be scared of a man?