The Family Room Drama
Ruchira Darda
I don't even know where I should begin.
Every morning, my trainer asks me if I slept well the previous night, his intention is to check on my health parameters. Every morning, I reply I was woken up by the sound of the door or the awareness of carefully placed footsteps, by the creaks of the furniture or even the loud gushes of wind outside our window. Every morning, he advises me to sleep soundly. Every morning, I control my urge to reply, you don't know what it is to be a woman. To be cautious in your own space is the ultimate example of how much fear is stamped in us. I sleep well on days Mr K lies next to me.
From childhood, even before you understand the intentions of the world, you are touched in places you hold sacred to yourself. You learn you have to be wary forever. I don't need to repeat the pain of always being cautious in public spaces, in family gatherings, in streets and in homes. If you are a woman, you already know, if you are a man, you probably don't understand the intensity of this. Today, social media is burning with rage, it’s trending I would say.
Everyone is saying we should be ashamed, we should teach our boys. But this problem is far more grave than we are addressing today. While we are trying to free our women, these cases are caging them. Tell me, wouldn't you as a parent now warn your girls a little bit more? How many parents will ask their children to step out of professions that require women to work at night? If I had a girl child, I would have definitely advised her to stay home and be safe. That makes me think that instead of progressing into an independent and free India, aren’t we regressing into asking our women to stay home. We were just beginning to see women Uber drivers and night shift staffers at hospitals, airports amongst other spaces. Do we need women in these places at night? Of course we do. And women were beginning to step out and find the courage and strength to fend for their families and pursue their passions. What now?
Almost everyday, the newspaper is full of sexual assault cases. Incidents around the country leave the question of women’s safety unanswered. Rape is a crime for control and domination. A desperate attempt to establish superiority. A handful of cases find the wind and get noticed, most are buried in shame and fear. The more we hide, the more we will suffer. It is a vicious cycle. What is the way out? How do we tell our men that ‘the vagina is not a victory stand’?