THE DAY MY INNER ‘SHE’ LAMENTS

THE DAY MY INNER ‘SHE’ LAMENTS

“It was a weary day today”, I sighed. So, now here I am waiting for the bus to return home and jump right into my bed. I don’t know what makes me feel so tired always when I know I just attended two of the classes wanting the least amount of joules from me. Every time I walk those few countable steps between my campus and the bus station, it makes me feel that I just went through a whole advanced session of curl-ups to lose some calories. By calorie, I just realized that I have eaten nothing this entire day. Bhatbhateini Supermarket is obviously with a purpose, just turn back and face that blue building, enter the ground floor, turn right through frozen meat section and then a left and there are your taste buds goals waiting to ruin your fitness goals. But I better wait for the bus and not wonder about those beautiful fantasies I shouldn’t be thinking of (at least for some weeks or maybe some days or how about for a while). I don’t know why waiting alone for a bus is equal to some random enigmatic thoughts for me.

To my goodness, the bus is here finally. Now, one steady push to a man on my left, another heroic lifting of my bag over a lady’s head in full exertion and then the final Ardha-chandra aasan (yoga posture) between two giant shoulders and there I make my way through a heavily crowded bus; I feel accomplished. I see a girl getting the student’s ID out of her purse, I look around to see if anyone saw that and I guess no one did. Let me just slowly get near her. You know, how you have to put an eagle eye on that one seat that is likely going to be emptied when there are a lot of others waiting for the same. And hurrah, she, along with a woman sitting beside her is getting down and now that temporarily precious window seat is mine. A guy hurriedly takes the next seat beside me. An hour long trip is definitely boring and can make you fall asleep with strangers staring at you hence, my phone and earphone had to come out and play me some good music. And here I shuffle all the songs on my playlist but eventually I end up manually tapping only my favorite songs. This shuffling feature on player is definitely not my thing, I guess.
“The snow glows white on the mountain tonight, not a footprint to be seen…A kingdom of isolation and it looks like I’m the queen….” and here plays my song in repeat mode. The moment I was about to feel like Frozen Elsa with that song on my mind’s backdrop, I feel another frozen thing slightly touching my heated arm. I look on my side and it is the arm of that guy beside me. I should ignore him, it can’t be intentional. “The wind is howling like the swirling storm inside….” and again that cold arm slides with my arm and this time with a little more pressure. Now, I have to analyze this, he looks young almost like my age, is dressed properly and looks like from a decent background so maybe it isn’t  intentional, moreover, guys of this age can be flirtatious but not trashy. Girls are actually little judgmental at such situations; many of us never think twice if the same situation was created by some middle aged men or men from specific background or race. I am not being a racist at this point though, but that’s how things are normally perceived in the society, which I agree is definitely wrong. Anyways, this so-assumed innocent guy does that creating friction through his arm stuff on my arm and then, this process seems to increase in speed and intensity with each passing seconds. I have to give him a death stare now and I gave. Did he just ignore that stare? Or, didn’t he notice it? If he hasn’t noticed, let me change my posture and stay away from that tacky skin. Now, I can feel his elbows slowly and intentionally getting close to my waist, he seems to have been more encouraged for his performances with me not warning him directly. He is continuously looking at my face and smiling to himself as if his parents just told him that this is the girl you are going to marry and soon you can do anything to her. I am not watching him directly but observing this through the corners of my eyes. I look around to see if anyone is seeing these mini forms of assaults happening around them and then this song on my background plays “Don't let them in, don't let them see…Be the good girl you always have to be…Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know…” and going with the lyrics, I am concealing whatever is happening and as a lame act of self-protection, I carried my bag so close to me that his elbows can now only touch my bag and not my waist. My heart is still pounding with fear and I can feel all those words of women empowerment and women rights I had advocated in past pointing at me and laughing at me.  Why couldn’t I stop him in the first place? Was it because I wasn’t sure of the good and bad touch in the beginning? Was it just because I didn’t want to create drama for such temporary issues? Or was it because I was just another scared girl lacking guts to speak against such harassment which I know is not just some temporary issues? Whatever, I am going with this feeble idea of holding my bag. But the barrier my bag has created is now making him look more uncomfortable than I am right now.  He starts shaking and changing his postures like he is suffering from repeated epileptic attacks and now he seems to have discovered a new weapon which is his shaking right leg that is continuously hitting my petrified left leg. I am putting my legs away from his but the space has become very narrow because now he is starting to push me towards the windows. I don’t get what hormonal dysfunction this guy must be facing there but now I have already started to visualize him as a potential rapist. I feel like screaming right into his face, slap him, warn him to get off the bus immediately and tell him to have an appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist soon. Since I hadn’t warned him for his behavior earlier, he must have felt that I was timid and would not revolt against this. But, this is getting over the top and I can’t take it anymore and now even Demi Lovato is singing to me  “Let it go, let it go…Can't hold it back anymore…Let it go, let it go…Turn my back and slam the door…” behind my ears. I kept my bag aloof, gave him that previous unnoticed death stare right into his face (this time with raised and crooked eyebrows) and warned him to stop moving and to put his hands off me or else I will complain about this in front of rest passengers. I know that slapping and telling him to have an appointment with the endocrinologist was a better option but for now this one worked and he sat frozen and still all the way back my stop. Finally, I had to intentionally tread on his shoes hard before getting down for all those mental trauma he had kept me through.
Now, I am out of this bus but my heart is still pounding but this time with anger. The anger isn’t for him but for myself as I could have acted little more bold and brave and stopped his sleazy acts in the beginning itself. I do not know what had held me back to make that first move for myself. Maybe I was somewhere fearing about the probable disturbing judgement the rest passengers would make on me. But then, what if they had made the judgement the other way around? That guy would have been thrown out of the bus with humiliation and maybe he wouldn’t dare to do the same with other girls in similar situation. I think the latter one made more sense and would inspire others to fight for their self-esteem. But, do I actually care what others think about my actions? Maybe 'No'. I could hear my inner ‘she’ lamenting about the things I could have done but didn’t do, but a miss was a miss. Maybe some another time!

There must be no girl who hasn’t faced similar forms of harassment in the public transportation at least once and many of them haven’t dared to speak about it. But do tell me, did that help you in anyway? Didn’t you regret even a bit for not teaching that person a lesson? My definition of both weakness and failure is regretting about anything we could have done or at least could have tried to do. So, if falling weak and failing with regrets is not your type of thing, then get up and speak up for any kind of assaults and harassment you face in your life and if possible, don’t walk without teaching those chauvinists some very memorable lessons to make them (and not you) lamenting for rest of their lives.