I was molested at Banaras Hindu University: I thank students for protesting sexual assault on campus
Varanasi, the city I was born in, gave me some good memories in the first few years of my life. Come summer vacations, I would happily stroll around the city with my grandparents — everything you hear about, from the ghats to the narrow lanes was a lot of fun till a certain age. The thrill of walking through the ghats, especially Assi, making one's way through the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) campus and the city's bhang-clad Holi tempts one enough to visit the place again.
What if I say this is mostly a male narrative and there are a majority of female narratives that we have failed to hear, or rather ignored over the years?
Toxic masculinity is scared out of its wits when the female narrative presents an unheard-of perspective.
I am elated at the protest led by students, which has gripped the university campus for nearly a week. 16 years back, as a teenager growing up in the city, I used to race through the BHU campus on my bicycle to reach school on time. I would take many serpentine turns to reach my destination as fast as I could, at times humming and crooning my way through the route.
It was during one such afternoon in June that I was trying the same tricks just outside the university campus in Lanka — the exhilarating race had almost left my bicycle flying.
Suddenly, I heard an obnoxious and deafening honking — and, out of nowhere, a hand pinched my breast hard. I shuddered and fell on the road. By the time I gathered myself, the men on the bike were speeding away — but not before one of them turned and leered at me. He even hurled abuse, advising me to ride slow. "Ride slow" — this is what ossified patriarchal norms have taught women for ages. In the past 16 years, having aced several cyclathons, I know I have taken revenge from the man who cautioned me to "ride slow".
For the love of womanhood, universe and God, and cycling, I would do anything but ride slow. Chase me if you can. Years later, I visited the city with my partner and showed him the sprawling campus where my bicycle learnt to fly before that incident happened.
This time, I expected the visit to be pleasant, for a male chaperone was walking beside me. I was wrong: a young boy used the same expletives hurled at me all those years back, again, to abuse me. One and a half decades later, I revisited the ordeal.
Those two years in the city, which I spent living close to the university campus, were extremely depressing. The patriarchy-soaked Varanasi tried its best to convince me that I must internalise misogyny. No wonder then that I did not have to think twice before leaving the city after finishing school.
While the city was always rich in festive spirit in the name of one god or the other 365 days a year, no force could save me from the repeated incidents of sexual assault. The worst was when men and women normalised such events. The molestation I experienced happened on sultry afternoons on a road full of people. None of them came to my aid, to help me pick myself up. When I spoke about it to several of my friends in school, some of them actually chuckled. One friend, a local who had lived in the city for a good number of years, advised me to always ride with a group of girls, and to try not to be "over smart".
Another told me how she had sped on her scooty when a group of men had chased her the previous evening. They gave me the example of university hostel where men would try throwing their underwear at women or pull their dupatta (stole).
At that young age, we did not know who to talk to about our horrific encounters. There were no helplines for women in the university. Each time we wanted to discuss these issues, we were told that we should be careful because "men will be men".
May be when this phrase — "men will be men" — first came up, women did not pay taxes. May be our culture had degraded to the point where only women were expected to carry the burden of goodness and morality.
But now is the time to erase them. And, therefore, as I hear the news of student protests on campus, my heart is elated. I congratulate them and wish their parents, too, join them in the protests. That 16-year-old girl who gathered herself on the road all those years ago is riding her bicycle, singing at the top of her voice and saying, catch me if you can. Patriarchy is abnormal, feminism is normal.
Also read: Why the BHU VC pitched sexual assault convict for a job