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We girls didn’t grow up in fear. But things have changed

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Koel Purie Rinchet
Koel Purie RinchetJan 07, 2017 | 17:12

We girls didn’t grow up in fear. But things have changed

Everyone has that chic, single aunt or cousin they think are so dope. Mine, let’s say, was called Neera, because that really was her name. She was a ubiquitous presence in my childhood home. She came from a small town at 20 something to live an independent life in the big city. I remember her as fierce, sexy and full of beans. It was always fun to be around her, it still is. Officially, she lived in the working girls hostel but, more often than not, she skipped the 9 pm deadline by pretending to stay with us. It was a pretense because all she really did was hang with her boyfriend in a car outside our gate. She ended up marrying him but that’s neither here nor there.

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Every morning she would lie flat on the guest bed sucking in her slim tummy as one of us pulled up the zipper of her excruciatingly tight jeans. Then she would strut to her bus stop, light a fag, flick her hair and wait for the bus that would take her across town to her job in Faridabad. Some evenings she’d be home before our bedtime and getting her to tuck us in was gold. Other nights she did extra hours and wouldn’t be home till very late.

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Neera was a ubiquitous presence in the writer’s childhood home. [Photo: Mail Today]

Apart from leaving an extra plate of food for her, no one seemed anxious about a pretty, young thing taking public transport on her own after dark. One night my sister and I covered her cheeks with glitter stars as she slipped into her sequinned, off-shoulder jumpsuit and went to the disco. She was crowned ‘Miss Ghungroo’ that night and at breakfast there was much celebrating and retelling of the stories from the night. Why does looking back at the ’80s feel more progressive and chilled than living in socalled liberal India of 2017?

We girls didn’t grow up in fear. Yes, there were groping and eve teasing incidents but they were not an epidemic. Violent chills run down my spine thinking of my daughter on the streets of India. I want her running wild and carefree as I did but that’s not going to happen. My heart weeps for the girls that will grow up learning to play it down and blend in rather than shine and be larger than life.

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There’s this day from my childhood when we went to play Holi with Lord Krishna at Vrindavan. In the ugly, unruly throng of the religious masses some hideosity felt up Neera (yes, the dope Aunt), and without a beat, she turned around and slapped the first man behind her. It was a hard, powerful slap of a violated tigress that came with the fierce warning that this was the first of many. It turned out it wasn’t the right guy but the slap had caused enough of an impact to bring the Holi stampede to a kind of halt and everyone started looking for the offender, even the poor chap who had been mistakenly lashed at.

It hardly mattered if the crowd was only pretending to care, it was the right thing to do. Minutes later, another fellow was presented as the culprit and thrashed till he folded his hands apologising. Once again the pandemonium picked up where it had left off, the women felt a little freer and safer in the knowledge that at least for a while they belonged to a group that would protect them.

This was back when it was considered offensive to touch a woman without her permission. Think of the horror if Neera had turned around and slapped the guy who had groped her today. She would have been attacked by all the men in the crowd while the women hid for cover. The men would probably gang up and mass molest (a heinous term for our vocabulary) her and us pre-pubescent girls. Then the high priests and local authorities would defend these monstrous actions by claiming that we shouldn’t have dressed in white which tends to get provocatively wet on Holi, besides what’s a little unwanted groping on a happy festival. Sick (no I don’t mean it in the millennial sense of the word).

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Every class of society has to start raising girls and boys as equal entities. [Photo: Mail Today]

Neera wouldn’t be cool, sexy Neera as a 20 something in 2017. For starters, she couldn’t be disco queen because there are no night clubs safe enough or worth going to. She couldn’t sit out in the car chatting and kissing her boyfriend because doubtless some passing unemployed thugs would smash the car with metal poles, pull out the guy (who may have been a dancing king but no match for armed goons), and beat the crap out of him and then I’m loathe to continue…

Are the men more frustrated today? Or has the bubble we privileged urban lot live in just burst? With democratisation in the true sense and removal of the feudal mindset — where the upper class was out of bounds — has everyone become fair game? Why is the anger so palpable? The big difference is — the inequality between the haves and the have-nots has become bigger, flashier and more in your face. If we want to control people’s raging resentment on one side and the moneyed sense of entitlement (even to a woman’s body) on the other, then this grossness of wealth has to be checked and controlled.

These crimes against women are angry men feeling at liberty to vent their frustrations. The authorities, society, families and NGOs have to stop justifying and empathising with their anger. More vents for testosterone release and such frustrations have to be provided and encouraged — cheap video game parlours and entertainment centres, free open-air gyms in parks, safe dance clubs, jobs that don’t demean and more. Most importantly, every class of society has to start raising girls and boys as equal entities.

Last updated: January 08, 2017 | 22:41
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