Of old Pickup Lines and Unsolicited Advances

Weekends, they are the expression of pure ecstasy. The anticipation of a lazy weekend catches you like bad cold. So like so many others, I started home a little early from work to begin my weekend a little earlier. As I started my 15 minute walk towards home from the station through the crowded bazaar, a guy accosted me with the ostensible request for time. I don't claim to be naive but in the hurry to reach home, I didn't bother to catch the tone and failed to recognize the pickup line. So I gave my genuine reply and that was "Sorry, I don't know since I don't have a watch." (I seriously do not wear a watch and Who in this age asks for the phone number just like that to girl and using the oldest pick up line?)

No sooner it registered that this guy was not interested in time but in me, made even more obvious by the slight brush and small talk and desperate attempt to get my mobile number, I literally ran from there in the fear that he would have enough guts to follow me home. Believe me a girl knows the difference between a genuine attraction and a lechery, it was the latter though in a milder form.

In a crowded area, at the time say around 8.30, if he can make unsolicited advances and ask for a girl's number, I can only imagine what the cousins had to go through in the village of Badaun, around the same time only there was no one around. Only then it wasn't the phone number that was asked but it was their dignity and life that were taken. Encountering the leering though not something new, that one minute, all one could think was getting away from that place as soon as possible. And like so many other women, I just would have brushed it off like I had done in the past if not for the wake of unabated rapes. Even while penning this down, I have half a mind to just forget it and move on because these are pretty "normal" occurrences a woman has to face when taking a public transport. This is exactly where we go wrong. Things as small as these tend to give birth to bigger ones that ultimately claim the life of our sisters or should I say children.

Perhaps we women need to be stronger than to just run away.

May be time has come for us to redefine what is normal and what isn’t!