During one of my pms-ing blog hopping routine, I came across this site - The Blank Noise Project and spent the next very disturbing two hours reading it. This was just after the shameful new-year eve Mumbai molestation that got all the wrong type of publicity. I continued to be disturbed for a couple of days after that, going through the day with sheer routine, with thoughts jumping between incidents that had been hitherto pushed to the dark recesses of the memory. Now with the dam opened, they flooded my entire being. I kept oscillating between writing about all that was shaking me up and burying the thing whence it arose. Terri's comment on an earlier post was the clincher.
I was all of seven years old. One day in summer, I accompanied by mom to Vishranthi, the old-age home that she served in. After a hectic day, I was tired. We returned by a public bus. There was no place to sit, and I stood jostled by the crowd. Suddenly I felt it. Something really hard against my shoulder. Why would anyone keep stones in their pant pocket, I wondered. And the stone rhythmically pressed against me. I had a feeling something was not right, but had no clue what it was. This continued for all of five minutes. I reached home, vomitted vigorously and burned 102 for the next week. Mom thought it was the strain of travel to and from Palavaakam.
Two years later. Summer holidays. We were on the train to Mangalore to visit my uncle and aunt. I was still naive, innocent and a child in body and mind. I slept on the middle berth. In the dead of night, I felt something move up my thighs. I first thought it was my blanket. And as it persisted, I opened my eyes to see a man feeling me up. I was too paralyzed to scream. Seeing me awake, the man quietly went back to his berth, lay down and went to sleep. When I got my senses back, I climbed down to my mom and hugged her as sobs shook my frame. Mom thought I had had a nightmare.
Five years hence, I had "grown up". Another vacation in Bangalore. The entire family in a theater to watch a movie - forget which one. Half way through the movie, I feel a hand move over mine. This time I knew what to do. With the nails that I had forgotten to cut the previous week, I pinched his hand hard for one whole minute. He slipped away silently, in the dark. During the intermission, I rushed to the toilet to wash the blood of my fingers. For a long time, I could feel blood in my nails.
One guy grabbed my breast once. One chap followed me through the ten minute cycle ride to school everyday for six months.
I fervently believed that I had sinned in my earlier birth for these bad things to be happening to me alone. And when we started talking in school about boys as teenage girls are wont to, I realized to my relief that I was not the only one. Every single friend I had had been through at least one form of sexual harassment. From then on, we developed a sort of antenna - an extra sensory perception to recognize a potential offender from yards away. We would be on high alert the moment we stepped out of the safe haven of our homes and school.
Those were the memories that tumbled out. But there are things that troubled me more than these memories. The fact that no matter which part of the world you lived, you were an object of entertainment. The number of people who talk about their experiences is no joking matter. SEVENTY people molested one girl in full view of public. SEVENTY sons, husbands, brothers, friends, lovers.
My knee jerk reaction to their latest post calling for volunteers for their blank noise project was to join it. But more level headed thinking warns me that it is one issue that involves enormous commitment. Of time and energy. There is no going half-way here. If I photograph a perpetrator in action, I MUST be willing to face the consequences - lose my camera to the perpetrator, be manhandled etc. I am not sure if I am willing to do it, and that worries me.
Another disturbing message I get from the site is this :
I am thankful to add that unwarranted sexual advances have not happened to me for the last ten years (touch wood, cross your fingers and do everything to not jinx it). Which is more than I can say about a friend of mine, who says she is being constantly harassed during all the travel that her job requires. Maybe the fact that I mostly wear saree in public and am rarely seen without my mangal sutra, metti and vibhoothi on my forehead adds to the stay-off-mom-type-woman image.
Terri, you are right. These thoughts DO bring out negative emotions and palpitations. But getting it out does help fight the devil.
I would strongly recommend all to visit the blank noise project blog and pass the word around.
Excellent post Lakshmi.
Yes, we've all had our share of nightmares and sickening experiences. Blank Noise project is good for creating awareness and I suppose that's what most women need. To know that we aren't alone. Many men Ive spoken to are apologetic and disgusted with the stories, and hold themselves a bit responsible though they themselves have not participated in such lewd acts.
I wrote about this too when the Project was on initially.
Posted by: rads | 01/25/2008 at 10:15 PM
Lakshmi, I think it's sheer luck and not the way you dress that's keeping you safe. If clothes alone were the culprit, little girls would be growing up unmolested.
Isn't it weird that we never told our parents? After all these years, it continues to baffle me why I never breathed a word to my parents, not even once.
I'd like to think I'm bringing up my kids to be more aware of unwanted advances by talking about good touch and bad touch periodically. I know I would be shattered if they put up with abuse silently and never let me know.
Posted by: Terri | 01/25/2008 at 10:32 PM
Great post.
I have fond memories of an Assamese friend running after a bottom-pincher, attacking him and kicking him where it hurt.
Instead of those useless PT classes, we need to teach our kids self-defense.
Posted by: Purplesque | 01/26/2008 at 07:28 AM
Rads, could you please link your blog entry on the project here?
Terri, I agree that clothes have nothing to do when it comes to perverted bastards. But it helps to be inconspicuous to ward off eve-teasing. And yes, the thought crossed me too - why I never spoke to my parents about it. Perhaps I believed that it was MY fault that this happened and I was afraid to own up? I hope my own daughter is more open with me than I was.
Purplesque, we all understand how to handle sex-offenders when we have grown up. And usually harassment when we are in our teens don't quite affect us too much. But child abuse is something else. And it happens, it seems every woman I know has been through sexual abuse as a child. We just don't talk about it.
Posted by: Lakshmi | 01/26/2008 at 07:43 AM
[this is good]
FIRST THINGS FIRST.NANDANARUKKU KOVIL KADAVU TIRANDADU! HOW?I DON'T KNOW.JUST SIGNED IS AS I DID ALL THSE DAYS AND LO AND BEHOLD!
Accusing a woman of being provocatively dressed is skirting the real issue. Just as saying a sex worker cannot report a rape by a customer. Your cleavage was not showing, your knickers were not flashing when the men groped you. I'm not sure if I take a crowded PTC bus ride in a maami costume of vibhooti and those terrible madrasi salwar kameezes that show next to nothing for a couple of days I could come back unsullied. I'm doubtful. As informed people we say be practical, be inconspicuos and avoid them and then you are safe. We have to work on protesting. On new year eve those women were molested and no educated, upper class man came forward to protect them by the Mumbai hotel. Our parents were uninformed, they never warned us; we are protective moms so we keep an eagle's eye on informed.Most importantly we never protested but fell ill because we were never nurtured in an environment of speaking up before grown ups. We had very oppressive upbringing of obedience, subservience and confomity as young children. Fear ( bayame ellai kazhudaikku was the line many of us heard from toddlerhood).
And please don't heckle "those bra burning" feminists of yesteryears. Why are young, privileged women who are successful in life and career today say they don't subscribe to "those feminists" dismissing them as militant, aggressive. "Naanga appadi illai pa, we realise women can't be equal but we must be given our space that's all" is a sanctimonius way of rejecting an important social battle. A bit like saying "I don't like those freedom fighter types who went to jail burning clothes".If they hadn't done those things because the oppression was much greater in those times, we wouldn't be enjoying many of the liberties that we so casually enjoy.They were elder sisters who lived in other countries protesting for us to enjoy many things today like education; right to work, to choose, to travel alone; to use our money earned.
We are all feminists who reinvent it to suit our cultures, our contemporary settings; yours may be different from mine or hers but each is a way forward we are fashioning to hold our heads high.One is no less or more than the other.
Posted by: maami | 01/26/2008 at 08:25 AM
Maami, you got me wrong. Perhaps I did not communicate it right. I am NOT derisive about feminists. I can blog today because of their fight and I am grateful to no end for it. I am just not one of them. I personally choose to take the safer way out. It takes all kinds to turn the world.
And as for your other points, Amen.
PS: Welcome back. Miracles DO happen.
Posted by: Lakshmi | 01/26/2008 at 12:09 PM
I also faced twice in my school / college days. It is difficult to erase these from the mind. It keeps coming back once in a while.
Posted by: Vijay Ganesh | 01/27/2008 at 12:27 PM
[this is good] I must say it is comforting to see VG's comment above in this extremely thought-provoking if a little oestrogen-charged post.
I've seen my fair share of eve-teasing, though on a much more small-town scale in my college days in Coimbatore, which in those days was just an overgrown village.
Rather than commenting on this, I'd like to ask a question to all you ladies:
Do you think that a properly thought out and implemented sex education (or the politically correct Adolescent Education) programme in our schools would work as a solution to this increasingly grave societal evil?
Posted by: Vijay | 01/27/2008 at 08:16 PM
Vijay, eve-teasing is child's play. It is the physical abuse that is scarring. Especially when an innocent, unsuspecting child is involved.
Sex education will do nothing to stop the bastards. What it WILL do is make the potential victim more alert. I know that I started carrying pepper spray in my uniform pocket after our sex-education course in school.
Posted by: Lakshmi | 01/28/2008 at 09:36 AM
I don't find it comforting, like Vijay does, that men go through it too, although I am tempted to gloat over it with the "I hope all men realise through experience what it feels like to be felt up". But that is unfair.
Man or woman, each has control of his or her own body and any encroachment is an act of crime.
Posted by: Lakshmi | 01/28/2008 at 09:38 AM
Vijay, maybe you asked a rhetorical question, but here are my thoughts.
One of the ways to combat the problem might be to encourage the concept of dating and finding your own mate, as they do in the West. This would help relieve some of the pent-up sexual tension among hormonal youth. Once the cherished “betas” realize that mummy-daddy aren’t going to arrange a marriage to a nice girl who will overlook their roadside Romeo reputation, it might goad them to clean up their act and find out the hard way that the way to a woman’s heart is not through harassment.
Parents, especially fathers, need a wake-up call, as well. Sons usually emulate their fathers, and if men show scant respect for their wives, the cycle will continue.
I say it’s time we brought sex out of the closet and into the open. Encourage freer intermingling between the sexes and teach our sons to be accountable for their actions.
Posted by: Terri | 01/28/2008 at 08:25 PM
I agree that "Sex education will do nothing to stop the bastards" as you so elegantly put it.
But I was thinking more in the lines of your next sentence. The victims need to know if/when they are being victimised. I remember a good cover story in Outlook or India Today on child sex abuse a few months ago with a lot of helpful tips to teach youngsters. It is good that this is at least being talked about by some people now. Previously we would have gotten the standard 'head deep in sand' answer that such things don't happen in Our Culture.
Indeed!!
It's the same culture that still encourages child marriages and teen pregnancies in large areas of the country.
I think you misunderstood my usage of the word 'comforting.' What I meant was I felt less conscious being the second male commenter rather than the first one here.
I guess you are right about sexual harassment being gender non-specific. Some of the things that we had to undergo under the guise of ragging in medical college (this was pre-court ban times) still make me cringe.
Posted by: Vijay | 01/28/2008 at 08:44 PM
I thought child-molesting, sex offenders were just an American thing. I guess I just figured other countries were far too cultured. I can't believe this is global. What is wrong with people who find children attractive?
I don't get it.
Posted by: Karen Lynn | 01/28/2008 at 10:07 PM
Karen, people are people, no matter where they live. The West is better in that such issues are accepted as very real and victims are not stigmatized. In the east, most people turn a blind-eye to such issues and there is a huge stigma attached to sexual molestation, ironically, on the victim rather than the perpetrator.
Only recently has there been some sort of vocal protest, in the form of feminist groups and bloggers. I hope the awareness spreads and our children will not have to face the humiliation that we did.
Posted by: Lakshmi | 01/28/2008 at 10:21 PM
Vijay, I have never thought of "ragging" as a sex offense before. Thanks for enlightening me.
Posted by: Lakshmi | 01/28/2008 at 10:25 PM
Reproducing, with permission, part of the contents of an email from SS in response to this post.
I have a son and a daughter 11 and 9. I find it my responsibility to educate and protect them and I talk to them about such things. I even shared with them my experiences to let them know that it is really not your fault if something like that happens and they should seek the help of their parents or a trusted adult rightaway. I love my country and my culture but not to the extent that I am blind to its short comings. This is one the things that I am most ashamed of...I grew up in Chennai and now live in San
Diego. I too have experienced sexual assaults a few times while growing
up in India and was ashamed to talk about it to my parents or friends.
This is such a common phenomenon for young girls in India. As an adult
it has shocked me for years how our so called righteous society totally
ignores this pandemic. Isn't it important for the parents to educate
and protect their children from such evils. Only the most violent
sexual assaults get publicity. Shouldn't our press be writing about
these perverts to bring about awareness among the people. The Kumudams
and Thina Malar's are the one's that need to bring this awareness to
the grass roots....so girls and women have the knowledge and courage
and tools to deal with these atrocities...and their fathers and
husbands and brothers will start watching out for such perverts...and
the perverts know that people are now watching for them.
Posted by: Lakshmi | 01/28/2008 at 11:34 PM
nice thought provoking post!!
thinking from the molester's point of view.. i dont get it.. how dare
are these guys?? i mean what will be running on their minds..?? what
makes them do this keeping in mind that they will be let out unnoticed??
is it due to the lack of proper laws?? is it because of those tolerant
females?? is it because of those ppl who watch this happen and do
nothing??
Posted by: gOOpi | 01/29/2008 at 02:56 PM
[this is good] Lakshmi, thank you for telling me about this post, and please forgive me for taking so long to get here. I'm literally drowning in school work in last month.
I broke my heart to read what happened to you - over and over - as you were growing up. Along with you, I believe that this is a problem that happens across the entire world. Men descending to the level of animals, destroying the innocence of little ones, or otherwise taking what does not belong to them from unwilling victims.
Again, I agree with you about what women wear. Caution is always a good thing. Men should be able to control themselves whatever a woman is wearing, however she should use a bit of common sense, and realize that if you dress like a toy, you invite people to play. To be respected, respect yourself.
Lakshmi, my friend, I will try to get into my blog to link to this over the next several days.
Thank you again! Great post! It took a lot of courage!
Posted by: moofie | 01/31/2008 at 05:19 AM
[this is good]
Very courageous post.
I too have had harrowing experiences. Unfortunately, it is the very omnipresence of these happenings that makes people ingore it. Remember what the Mumbai police commissioner said after that molestation incident - "It happens everywhere, don't make a mountain out of a molehill?"
I am currently making an animated film on Child Sexual Abuse as part of an academic project. While I was doing research, I was shocked to hear people casually say "Yeah, I was abused too. Happens to everyone." The point is, WHY should it happen? Especially to children? I think that is an experience people can live without!
I've never understood what makes most men (and a few women) sexual predators. And you are right, sex education is no deterrent to abusers, but it goes a long way in keeping youngsters safe.
I've articulated the need for sex education in my blog. Sometimes I'm loud and shrill, but I know I'm right!
Posted by: Brown Suga' | 02/12/2008 at 01:29 PM
Thank you for your comment and for introducing me to a site that is rightfully loud and shrill about the issue.
All readers to this blog, especially parents of young children, hop over to the Monsters in the Closet, especially this post.
Posted by: Lakshmi | 02/12/2008 at 01:50 PM