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This happened to me: Why this is no land for Nirbhaya

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Merlin Francis
Merlin FrancisMar 03, 2015 | 19:40

This happened to me: Why this is no land for Nirbhaya

It was the winter of 2002. The third day of a brand new year. Around 5am, I got off a train from Kanpur at the New Delhi Railway Station. I was back in my Karmabhoomi, post a Christmas vacation with my family.

The cold was unbearable. Despite the layers of clothing on me, I could still feel the chill in my bones. It was still dark outside; considering it was winter, daybreak was another hour away. I stood near the Paharganj exit of the railway station, unsure whether to head home or wait for daybreak. It was a Monday and I had to reach office shortly. At the time, I was working as a producer at one of the leading news agencies in the capital.

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As I debated whether to step out or not, I remembered my father's advice, "don't venture out in the dark". So I decided to wait. About 45 minutes later, as dawn broke, I slowly started walking towards the pre-paid auto counter, believing they ought to be safer. Midway, as I manoeuvred through rows of waiting autos, sleeping street dogs, filth, with barely any street lights to show the way, I tripped and fell, hurting my knee. It started to bleed. I had fallen on the gravel, my jeans got torn. As I tried to get up, wincing in pain, an autowala came to help. He asked me where I was headed. I said it was all right, and that I'd take a pre-paid auto.

He insisted, I go with him.

The bleeding knee, the daunting walk to the far end of the station entrance to the pre-paid counter and the cold, compelled me to take up his offer. The auto I noticed was covered on one side, with some dark coloured sheet, like it usually is during the monsoons.

I alighted the auto and we set off towards my house in South Extension, Part Two. Once we were outside the station, the auto driver, asked me to take a shawl kept on the seat and cover the left side of the auto too, as it was very cold. I said I was fine and asked him to look ahead and drive.

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The city roads were deserted and foggy. Delhi was yet to rise from slumber. The driver kept looking back and started talking arbitrarily: "Madam, shawl laga lijiye, aapko thand lagegi to mujhe achha nahi lagega." I began to get irritated. I asked him to look ahead and keep driving. At this he retorted: "Aapko dekhne ke baad, aage dekhne ka mann hi nahi kar raha."

I chose to ignore him. If it had been any other time of the day, I would have simply gotten down, but at that hour, there was no one on the streets and I could not risk being stranded in the middle of nowhere, so I kept quiet.

It was near Lodhi road that he suddenly stopped the auto at an isolated stretch. Although being a VIP area, there was not a soul yet to be seen around. I asked him, "Kya hua? Gaadi kyun roka?"

He said, "Woh aapke seat ke peeche music box mein se awaaz aa raha hai, check karna hai."

Before I could react he got down and came towards my seat. I moved away towards my right, but instead of the music box he pushed himself inward and held me by my shoulders. Holding me in his grip, ready to force himself on me.

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I froze in fear! I had looked him in his eyes at that moment and what I saw there had completely paralysed me. He came close, I could almost smell his fetid breath. I wanted to push him away, but my body would not cooperate. I could not breathe. I felt like dead meat.

And then it happened, my phone rang, its shrill ring piercing through the silence of the winter fog. Since it was unexpected, it startled him too. I suddenly found my courage back and kicked him hard, he lost his balance and fell off the auto, onto the road. I scrambled out of the auto, my bag in one hand. As I moved, he caught my ankle and tried to pull me down. This time, I shoved my bag onto his face, kicked his hand and started to run, screaming out loud. It was desolate. I ran some distance before finally stopping for some breath. I was lucky he had not pursued me. The phone was still ringing. I picked the call - it was my father, inquiring if all was fine.

I could barely speak and I did not want to tell him what had just happened, how he had saved my life, unknowingly. It seemed pointless, sitting far away in another city, it would distress him to no end.

I remember finally getting back home that morning and sitting under the shower, for hours, scrubbing myself again and again. That touch, it felt dirty. It felt as if it had burned my skin.

For a long time after that, that pair of eyes and what I saw in them haunted me. I was paranoid of travelling in autos in Delhi. I never filed a complaint. In my haste to escape, I had not registered any details of the auto or its driver. Also, I had survived the attack unscathed at a physical level and was more than eager to put it behind me.

Over the years, I have often tried to look at this incident objectively, especially in light of the various claims made by many learned people in this country, that a woman is solely or equally responsible for instigating an act of rape. That women who dress a certain way, or are outgoing, adventurous, and vocal are the ones inviting trouble upon themselves.

On that day, I was covered from head to toe, in layers of clothing. I was neither drunk nor out partying, thereby implying that I was a woman of loose morals, hence deserving to be raped. So what really made me a probable that day?

To this day, I believe, my fault was and is, that I was born a woman in this country.

When media publishes and publicises the skewed views of rapists like Mukesh Singh, every woman in every corner of this country who has been violated, squirms; because it validates the thinking of others like him, helps them justify such crimes, safe in their belief that a woman who refuses to follow the obsolete and oppressive rules set by the society for her, is liable to be punished. To be stripped off her dignity. To be sexually abused. To be raped.

Rape is the most inhuman crime against anyone. The wounds it inflicts go deeper than the flesh. How many generations and how many decades more does India need, before the women of this country can live, Nirbhaya?

Last updated: March 03, 2015 | 19:40
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