It was a Thursday, and she boarded the same overcrowded bus as everyday. Of late, she had been happy that she found a new bus route that was shorter and dropped her right in front of her workplace, albeit the fact that she had to walk five minutes from her home to take it. It didn’t really matter. She wanted to save travel time as her primary job in the morning was to make breakfast for her husband and get her six-year old ready for school, before she herself dressed up for work.

It was quite a hot day, she realised. The air inside the bus was slightly reeking with the stench of sweat from people standing, and she could feel beads of perspiration forming on her back beneath her blouse. She couldn’t manage to secure a seat for herself, but she was okay standing for a fifteen minute journey. As she wiped her forehead with the pallu of her saree, she distinctly felt a rapid breathing on her neck from behind. She didn’t turn around, but from the corner of her eye she saw a middle-aged man, who appeared to be standing much closer to her than necessary, as there was definitely some space next to him that could accommodate another human being. It wasn’t really something very new for her. Time and again, she had felt breaths upon her neck and shoulder, but she mostly ignored them, thinking that the journey was going to end soon, and it was better not to say anything.

But what happened this time made her freeze. She felt a hand, that man’s hand, stroking the part of her waist peeking out from her saree, and brushing up against her right breast in an instant. This went on for few seconds, that felt like hours to her. Don’t tell me this is an accident when I ask you, you piece of filth! She turned around with the fiercest look she could put up.

“What do you think you are doing? Did I ask you to touch me?” she roared.

The man looked somewhat taken aback. He did not expect to be confronted. “Well Ma’am, it is such a crowded bus. No space. Sorry.”

“I am also in the same crowded bus. Did I run my hands on your body?” Her eyes penetrated his. “If your answer is yes, I will get down from the bus right here. Else it’s you who gets the hell out of here.”

By now the rest of the people had heard what was going on. The woman’s voice was loud and clear, and the man was timid and speaking indistinctly. She was looking straight at him, without flinching. His head was pointing slightly down, but not completely, as if he was trying hard to decide between guilt and ego. But it turned out that at the very next stop, he got off the bus. No one knew if he was actually supposed to get off there, or not.

II.

The entire family had gathered for her cousin’s wedding. Everyone was happy, happier than they had ever looked before. The arrangement was perfect, the house looked like a dream, every single person — man or woman, young or old — was dressed up like it was the best day of their lives, and the music was the most cheerful and uplifting. She was supposed to be wearing a bright pink lehenga that her mother had picked out for her. Although she was only sixteen, people at home were whispering in her ear, that after her cousin, it was her turn even if after few years, and she should try to start looking attractive. You never know who fancies you, especially at weddings, they said. Look your best, girl. You might just find your Prince Charming.

But she had chosen to distance herself from boys since long ago. When all her friends began to have crushes and even boyfriends as they entered adolescence, she didn’t look in the eyes of any boy that crossed her path. Something held her back. She herself wasn’t fully aware what caused this aversion, but she just accepted it as it was.

As she was putting on her lehenga, she found it difficult to zip up the blouse from the back. She couldn’t go out of the room in that state, and decided to call someone for help. But neither her mother nor her sister picked up the call. This damn loud music, she sighed. All of a sudden, there was a knock on the door. She assumed it would be a female and opened it, happy to be expecting some help. But there was a man standing there — her father’s cousin, her uncle.

“I saw your mother’s phone ringing. She is busy, you know. Thought you need some help.”

“No Uncle, it’s fine. I’ll wait for her,” she stammered.

He seemed to pay no heed to what she said, and entered the room by pushing her aside. To her horror, he then closed the door behind her.

*********

It was evening. The family was sitting in the huge hall, singing, dancing, talking and eating. She was sitting in a corner, staring at nothing in particular, and no one seemed to ask her what the matter was. But rushes of memories seemed to attack her — memories that she thought she had long forgotten. Her eyes could not hold tears anymore, and she could not pretend like nothing happened over all these years. She remembered those frequent visits that her “Uncle” used to make when she was a child, about eight or nine — the way he always used to make her sit on his lap, give her chocolates, and shower kisses on her, as her parents laughed and chatted with him at the same time. He even used to babysit her sometimes, but then his display of affection wasn’t so soft and smooth. There were certain ‘games’ they played, which required them to take off their clothes. She never understood why. She never thought they were fun. But she liked to make her Uncle happy, because then he brought her more chocolates. When she was around ten, he left abroad for work, and returned only after six years, for the wedding. She never missed him, she realised. Neither those chocolates.

But today he was in her room. He helped her zip up, kissed her on the cheek, and whispered to her, remember how much fun we used to have together? I am back now. Be prepared. And it all came back to her.

She rose up from the corner, and located her mother, who was sharing jokes with some guests. She ran upto her, frantically wiping her tears which seemed to pour out nevertheless. She dragged her reluctant mother to her bedroom, and told her whatever had happened that day, and whatever she could remember from the dark childhood days. Her mother listened, cried with her, hugged her tightly, and put her to sleep. Then she returned to the hall, talked to her husband for few minutes, and then they dialled up the police together.

III.

She checked her watch: 1:20 am. She regretted her decision of starting to walk from the office towards her home instead of waiting for a cab. It was barely a twenty minute walk, but the hour wasn’t favourable. Not at all. Although this town was known to be relatively safer compared to other places, one never knew. She quickened her pace and heightened her senses, despite being aware of the lack of any weapons that she could use to defend herself. She had often considered buying a pepper spray and giving it a permanent place in her handbag, but a part of her head told her that it wasn’t necessary. And some cab was always available. But not tonight.

She had barely walked a couple of hundred metres when she heard something behind her. She didn’t dare look, but the stench of alcohol that floated up her nostrils gave her the idea that she was being followed by someone who was heavily drunk. Her heart started thudding against her ribs, and she wasn’t sure if she should start running. To alleviate her fears, she heard voices. Men talking. There were more than one man. From their conversation, she could vaguely make out their names. She is alone, bro. Let’s grab the chance. She thought she heard them saying. She prayed that she misheard that.

Although she was trembling with fear, she kept walking. She realised that if these men did plan to force themselves on her, there was no way she could tackle them alone. Not by physical strength. She fidgeted inside her bag for something that might be of use to her. The very first thing she found was her mobile phone.

Should I call the police? They won’t arrive soon enough anyway, and if these men are gone by then, it will be me who will face harassment.

Should I pretend to call the police? If they understand that I am already aware of them, they might just chase me down, and finish off in five minutes, because they know there’s no way the police will be here by that time.

Should I call someone for help? Or text?

She tried to remember which of her friends is most likely to be awake at this hour. Probably her colleague, who left at the same time as her, but went in the opposite direction. But she didn’t dare to make a call and speak. She left a text message: I will call you in exactly ten minutes. If I don’t, PLEASE call the police. I am in potential danger. And she dropped her approximate location as well.

She didn’t realise that the texting had slowed her down a bit. Or did the men get faster? The footsteps were now distinctly right behind her. Without thinking anything, she started running as fast as she could. It occurred to her as a good decision since drunk men are not expected to run coherently. But before she knew it, she stumbled and fell down, and the men weren’t late in approaching her. As she found them a metre away from her fallen body, grinning and seemingly congratulating each other for having landed a prey, she thought of ways to escape. I won’t give up. This won’t be the end of me.

By a stroke of luck, she remembered having a cigarette lighter in the front pocket of her bag, that she often carried for occasional smokes between work. She just decided to stun the men somehow and have enough time for fleeing. With a lightning move, she pulled off her silk dupatta, held its corner on the flame of the lighter and threw the burning cloth on the man closest to her. He screamed as his shirt caught on fire from it, as the other two men got distracted from her and started helping out their friend. She grabbed the opportunity to rise on her feet and started running again, until she found a safe spot behind a small house to catch a breath.

She checked her watch again. 1:32 am. Her colleague had called up few times already, and her phone buzzed again. She received the call.

“Where are you? What’s the matter? Are you okay?” The voice on the other side sounded genuinely worried.

“Yes! Yes!” she breathed heavily. “But I would like to call up the police anyway.”

She disconnected the call, and visited the gallery of her phone. She was thankful for the high resolution phone she owned, and zoomed into the last picture she had taken. The three faces were clear enough, even from quite a distance away — one of them agonized at the sudden burns on his arms, and the other two startled and flabbergasted.

I have been meaning to write something on a sensitive issue for some time, but maybe I lacked the incentive. Well, few minutes ago I came upon a short film by a YouTube channel called BLUSH, whose films and other clips I have always appreciated for their alternate but sensible ways of dealing with the so-called out-of-bounds aspects of Indian society.

This particular eleven-minute short film is called The Good Girl and features only two people, a mother and a daughter, played by Gurdeep Kohli and Plabita Borthakur (of Lipstick Under My Burkha fame). I don’t want to say much about the film because I want you to see it, but I would just quote the description here:

“A 21 year old girl is waiting for her pregnancy test result in her bathroom. Her mother barges in with a bunch of laundry and finds what her “good girl” is upto. What transpires next changes their relationship forever.”

As an Indian girl coming from a moderately conservative family, I anticipated many things that the protagonist of this film might have had to go through, and I did of course imagine myself in that situation with my own mother. The question is, what do we, as Indian sons or daughters from average middle-class families expect from our parents? It is needless to say what we are expected to do — be the perfect child, study hard, find a well-paying job, get married at the right time to the right person. And somewhere along our life’s journey, a void gets built which could have only been filled by our parents when we actually needed them. A void that starts hollowing out from our early adolescence — that of communication and trust, of being able to share everything we want to with the two most important people in our life.

Many will of course disagree with me. Many of us do have the privilege of having very openminded and understanding parents, so I do not dare generalise my point. But looking from a broader perspective, one cannot deny that the communication gap between our generation and the previous one arises due to our easy exposure to different possibilities of living our life, which wasn’t easy accessible for our parents. Life is faster and more dynamic for us now — with the internet, connecting with the outside world and even social interactions like dating have taken a new form altogether. We have a plethora of options among things to see, do and enjoy. And it is not fair to expect that our parents will understand the nuances of all these things overnight.

This is in fact one more reason why we should communicate more often and in a better way with our parents, to make them understand how new the world is right now, through the viewpoint of someone who is an active part of this new world. While we were growing up (at least in my case), talking about crushes at school or things like that which apparently “distracted” us from a healthy student life was highly discouraged. As a teenager who learnt about sex from giggling classmates, dictionaries and magazines (because the words sex and education together make an oxymoron), I always wished I could ask my parents to clear certain doubts I had. But in most Indian households, this is practically unimaginable. Nevertheless, I did grow up and did figure out everything by myself, but it could have been much easier and in the right direction if I had been comfortable enough to talk about it at home.

This is just one example among many. It could be talking about any social issues, or alcohol, or drugs, or career choices, or choosing the right life partner — whatever questions we have about our very existence are best addressed to the people who are meant to understand us the best by default, and are experienced as well. If only it isn’t a taboo.

Throughout our cravings for success and happiness and building the perfect life for ourselves, we forget that there are certain little things that need to be taken care of in everybody’s life, no matter how much everything seems to be in place. Nothing is in place, unless the very dark thoughts that keep hovering in our head are driven away by beams of understanding, insightful and non-judgemental conversations. Maybe our parents wouldn’t mind delivering us lessons that we need so badly. Maybe they yearn for this communication as well. But how do we know? Is it possible that both are hesitant in taking the first step? If so, then why don’t we, as adults ourselves now, try to initiate a conversation that we had wanted to make since our early years of growth? Will it be so difficult?

This post follows from a discussion I had with my Swiss-German flatmate Gianluca a couple of days ago. I am fortunate enough to have such people around me who are happy to share their views on different aspects of life over a cup of tea or otherwise, and I find it very refreshing to occasionally deviate away from the usual small-talk and concentrate on more profound conversations. So after a few games of Backgammon (which I learnt to play that very evening, what an addictive game!), we started talking about different things, and oftentimes as it happens with me here in Switzerland, the discussion moves on to societal differences between the East and the West.

My friend here hasn’t visited India yet, but he has spent few years touring and working in the whole of Latin America, and from the experiences he shared, I found some (if not many) similarities between the South of America and that of Asia. Living in Europe for some time now, and especially in a very well-organised country like Switzerland, I agreed with him when he said that life moves faster here. The public transport is always on time, everything moves exactly according to the clock, and one needs to be prepared with their schedule in order to go through the day. On the contrary, South Americans can survive with the “take-it-easy” attitude and spend a more relaxed day because they don’t have any fixed timings to follow, at least not for the transport.

Now I have never been to Latin America (or any America for that matter), but I feel connected globally because of all the things I keep hearing about places I haven’t yet set my feet on — things that resonate with my own lifestyle and my upbringing back in India. But even in this age of globalisation, we Indians are kind of worlds apart from the western society in many ways.

For example, our discussion also included the importance of family in our respective cultures. As he understood from his stay in Latin America, and this holds true for India as well, our families are quite close-knit. Well yes, now we have more nuclear families than joint ones, and our families get distributed all over the country or even the world. But somehow, by default, our family remains one of the topmost priorities in life. I don’t mean to say that catering to individual interests is selfish, I am just saying that it is different for us. We kind of have to “earn” our individuality. We deserve to live separately from our family on our own and live life on our own terms only if we have been able to secure a well-paying respectable job. That’s how it works in India, admit it or not. But for the westerners, individuality comes automatically as they grow up, and is rather encouraged. Moving out of their parents’ house is not a matter of achievement but simply a life choice.

A middle-class Indian family mostly doesn’t have a separate bedroom for their kids, and we grow up being pampered by our parents and relatives and grandparents. Our parents devote almost all their time and money on us, our education, our extra-curricular activities, and are mostly very protective of us. There is always a fear in their minds about how we might hurt ourselves while playing, how we might get lost if they let our hand go, how we might fail in our exams. They rear us with extreme love and care, something which we become highly dependent on. Until we are in our early twenties, it is difficult to get permission for travelling alone, or sometimes even in a group of friends. And moving to a different city or abroad can be a very difficult experience in the beginning, because managing our life completely on our own takes time to master. Because, although our parents have wanted the very best for us and raised us in the most dedicated way possible, along the way they have given everything we ever needed without asking, and did not let us understand how difficult it is to take care of one’s food, expenses and health. They have spent almost two decades of their life making life easy and comfortable for their children.

That’s how it is, but I am not really complaining. Many of us eventually do move abroad and are doing very well for themselves. Life teaches us many lessons the hard way, and we as humans are adapted to learn from them. It’s just that the paths of these lessons are different for the two halves of the world. I call my parents at least once everyday, even now, after studying away from home since the past six and a half years. And I totally understand why it is difficult for people here to fathom it. But that’s how it is going to be. I love my individuality, but I love my family more. I guess it’s the balance between the two that determines how happy we stay in our own personal space as well as in the collective.