Sara's Diary, Freelance Researcher, mid-20s
Gurgaon has a heightened sense of insecurity and fear attached to it. For me, it is those occasional, most sensationalized news articles on sexual violence and harrassment, that feed the fear. I do, however, realize that this fear is not new. I have lived in Gurgaon for 24 years, with at least 15 of them having been spent with some form of fear. It is also true that while I have fortunately been able to avoid the physical aspects of it, being a woman who’s grown up in the city has meant growing up around copious sets of restrictions, most of which I have learnt to navigate over the years.
For instance, in class 8th, my classmate told me something unsettling indicating that he wanted to have sex with me. I felt so violated, I slapped him. My class teacher was informed and she called my parents to school. When I came home and told my parents about what had transpired, they told me I shouldn’t have slapped him, that boys and men will continue to say and do things, and I couldn’t go around slapping and yelling at them. The meeting at school must have lasted for 30 minutes, where both my parents, and my teacher, tried to make me understand that I was growing up, and I should brace myself for more cases like these, and try to control my anger. A year or two later, when something similar happened with a senior, I slapped him and didn’t tell anybody. Thankfully, news didn’t reach my teacher, and I moved on.
Reflecting back on those incidents, I think they were critical in shaping my resolve to keep certain things away from my parents. Over the years, I realized I was outspoken, something that didn’t go down well with them. I stopped narrating the incidents once I was told to let go of them.
Because I had been so vocal, I can’t particularly remember the moment when fear of abuse and harassment started to sink in. I think the last two years have been particularly detrimental because I have constantly been at home, and most of my time has been spent with my parents - who while being one of the ‘progressive kind’, are nonetheless filled with fear and trepidation over their daughters’ safety. Now when I am traveling in an auto after 6 pm, I make sure I sit towards the corner of the seat so I can jump out if need be. I remember reading an article where a woman did jump out when she was being taken through a different route. She suffered a fracture, but later told the media that she was glad about what she did, and a few broken bones were better than being a victim of sexual violence. I think about that article every now and then, and wonder if I’d have the strength and the sense to react the way she did.
Last month, I had a chatty driver in the auto. We talked the entire ride home. He told me that his brother’s phone got snatched away while he was standing near Ardee Mall (sector 52). He re-enacted the scene and mentioned how his brother couldn’t do anything apart from saying “arre woh le gaya”. He couldn’t stop laughing, thinking about his brother’s incapability of articulating ‘kaun kya le gaya’. He told me about his family, that he was from Kanpur, and had come to Gurgaon only a couple of years ago. I was having a brilliant time, until he asked me where I was from. I told him I was from Gurgaon, and he said I didn’t look like I was. He then asked me if the place he was dropping me at was the place I live in. I told him it was. And then panic set in - the entire 30 minutes of good conversation were overshadowed by this one question. I was five minutes away from home, and repeatedly kept thinking that I should have told him that this was my brother’s place, or my friends’ or anybody else’s for that matter. For the entire next day, I was paranoid that he might show up at the house with someone. There are moments when I still do, and I have absolutely no idea about when I reached this level of anxiety.
A major part of it definitely comes from the news I consume, because nothing of the sort has actually happened to me or to people in my close circle. The constant news of incidents over the years has normalized the fear - five years ago I might have laughed it off, and wouldn’t have given a second thought to it. It is so weird to think that the possibility of something happening seems so real, when in physical reality you have no actual person around you who might have gone through kidnapping or rape or abuse. This is not to say that incidents don’t happen, and that the fear around them is irrational, but to me, it is astounding that 10 news cases of abuse in a month could send whole communities of women into a constant state of anxiety and panic. That day, I got home and told my mother that I had a chatty auto driver, and in a second she told me to stop talking to drivers. And so, the narration ended there.
But it is also the small things that have happened over the years, and now culminate into this omnipresent fear. When I used to come home from school, there was this group of boys, probably my age, who followed me home a couple of times. They would stop 100 meters from my house to avoid scrutiny by my neighbors - retired uncles and aunties who were usually out in the streets for most part of the day. I remember I changed my route a few times, even went to a friend’s place nearby and sat there for 30 minutes until I was sure the boys had left. The friend then used to drop me home on her scooty. But I was also angry, and ashamed that I had been scared, especially because I had been so outspoken and perceived as someone who could take care of herself, and so I started to take the same route along with another friend. It took some time, but the boys disappeared and the fear subsided, for some time at least.
I take the same route today. But there have been days when I have asked my cab or auto driver to stop under the street light, or near my friend’s place which is five minutes away. I am not in touch with the friend, but I pretend to walk towards her home. I have stood at her gate twice, pretending to go in. Once I watch the driver leave, I proceed to walk home. There is nothing in particular that sets me off, though. Each time this has happened, it wasn’t because the driver hinted at something. Nor have I ever encountered a driver who was rude to me, or yelled at me. But the smallest of things have had the potential to make me anxious. In one case, the driver was constantly looking at the rear view mirror, and I was alarmed. He might have just been looking at the traffic that was behind our cab, but that day, because it was night time and traffic was low with very few street lights actually working, I assumed somebody was following us and so I got off. Sometimes, I start texting my friends, and I would share my live location with them. I would have thought I was going mad had my friends not been doing the same thing. Between women, I think no matter where we are and what we are doing, if a female friend texts us saying she is uncomfortable and wants to talk while on her ride back home, all of us are suddenly on stand-by, because somewhere all of us have experienced the same level of discomfort.
In recent years, even facebook and instagram have become sites of violation. I take my dog for a walk twice a day, and for years I have kept getting these occasional spam messages from men in my sector, who’d say something like ‘oh i have seen you walking your dog a lot of times, you both look cute’, followed by repeated messages saying just ‘hi’, or ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’. I don’t think men understand why saying something as banal as this would be perceived as problematic by women. It is troubling because I do not know this person, and somehow this person knows my name, knows that I have a dog and has watched me more than once taking him for a walk, tracks me on a platform, messages me, and does not seem to understand that I am not interested to talk, and so continues to text. And so I eventually block them, but now they have a new ID, but I am not interested in making a huge spectacle of it, and so I continue to block new IDs.
Over the years, I have also learnt how parents respond to these stories. Their first reaction is, naturally, worry. However, it doesn’t stop there. Their worry then manifests itself into multiple forms of restrictions - for instance, setting a curfew at 9 pm. In winters, that comes down to 7:30 pm because the daylight ends earlier. And it is not just me that needs to adhere to this curfew. My mother, who loves to go out for a walk, will not step out after 7 PM because ‘it is too dark’. I tell her she has to go through the same route she takes everyday, and that street lights are on, and that kids are still out playing - but none of it seems to make a difference once the clock strikes 7. I am left to think that if this is the kind of fear that she lives in, no wonder she expects me to follow a similar routine. I also wonder about the magnitude of stress she takes once I am out of the house.
Thus I am asked to text her when I reach the metro station in the morning, although it is only 30 minutes away. I have had multiple arguments about it. But once I realized that the arguments weren’t going to disappear, I started dropping one word texts informing that I had reached, at times even when I hadn’t. I would be stuck in traffic, but would tell her that I had reached nonetheless so she could stop being in a constant state of fear/panic/worry. When I go to a friend’s house for the night, I call my parents at 9 pm to tell them I had had dinner, and that I was headed to bed. Most of the time, I am usually either already at a restaurant with my friends when I call, or I am headed to one. I find a quiet place to call them and tell them that all is good. It’s a two minute call, but I think it sets them at ease, while also allowing me to do things I otherwise won’t be allowed to.
Because I have traveled extensively in Delhi, that is the immediate contrast that comes to my mind. What makes Gurgaon scarier to me is the lack of crowded public spaces. In Delhi, you will see these vast market complexes - both old and new, a huge student population in all of its districts, universities, museums, street shops, book stores, protest cites - all of them meant to be used as public spaces by people irrespective of their class. I think that is what makes the difference - that people realize and occupy these spaces considering them their own, and the imagination that you could rely on such people if something were to happen. In Gurgaon, I don’t see people having that kind of attachment to physical spaces, possibly because the infrastructure does not allow us to. The city has some incredible skyscrapers and market complexes, but most of them cater to corporate professionals. For me, their location in newer parts of Gurgaon is evidence of their lack of accessibility to people who do not have the means to either travel to these places, or to be able to enjoy these places without putting a dent in their pockets. You will often find people traveling from Gurgaon to Delhi to just sit in the middle of Lodhi Garden and Sunder Nursery in the winter sun. And if you go to Leisure Valley park in sector 29 of Gurgaon, you will find it almost deserted, with a few men hanging around, which is bound to discomfort you. If you are traveling especially in older parts of Gurgaon, you can hardly see any grocery shops or parks or any places of leisure. What you do find frequently are mostly liquor stores, automobile shops, and gyms - spaces that have an overwhelming male presence.
Gurgaon has a heightened sense of insecurity and fear attached to it. For me, it is those occasional, most sensationalized news articles on sexual violence and harrassment, that feed the fear. I do, however, realize that this fear is not new. I have lived in Gurgaon for 24 years, with at least 15 of them having been spent with some form of fear. It is also true that while I have fortunately been able to avoid the physical aspects of it, being a woman who’s grown up in the city has meant growing up around copious sets of restrictions, most of which I have learnt to navigate over the years.
For instance, in class 8th, my classmate told me something unsettling indicating that he wanted to have sex with me. I felt so violated, I slapped him. My class teacher was informed and she called my parents to school. When I came home and told my parents about what had transpired, they told me I shouldn’t have slapped him, that boys and men will continue to say and do things, and I couldn’t go around slapping and yelling at them. The meeting at school must have lasted for 30 minutes, where both my parents, and my teacher, tried to make me understand that I was growing up, and I should brace myself for more cases like these, and try to control my anger. A year or two later, when something similar happened with a senior, I slapped him and didn’t tell anybody. Thankfully, news didn’t reach my teacher, and I moved on.
Reflecting back on those incidents, I think they were critical in shaping my resolve to keep certain things away from my parents. Over the years, I realized I was outspoken, something that didn’t go down well with them. I stopped narrating the incidents once I was told to let go of them.
Because I had been so vocal, I can’t particularly remember the moment when fear of abuse and harassment started to sink in. I think the last two years have been particularly detrimental because I have constantly been at home, and most of my time has been spent with my parents - who while being one of the ‘progressive kind’, are nonetheless filled with fear and trepidation over their daughters’ safety. Now when I am traveling in an auto after 6 pm, I make sure I sit towards the corner of the seat so I can jump out if need be. I remember reading an article where a woman did jump out when she was being taken through a different route. She suffered a fracture, but later told the media that she was glad about what she did, and a few broken bones were better than being a victim of sexual violence. I think about that article every now and then, and wonder if I’d have the strength and the sense to react the way she did.
Last month, I had a chatty driver in the auto. We talked the entire ride home. He told me that his brother’s phone got snatched away while he was standing near Ardee Mall (sector 52). He re-enacted the scene and mentioned how his brother couldn’t do anything apart from saying “arre woh le gaya”. He couldn’t stop laughing, thinking about his brother’s incapability of articulating ‘kaun kya le gaya’. He told me about his family, that he was from Kanpur, and had come to Gurgaon only a couple of years ago. I was having a brilliant time, until he asked me where I was from. I told him I was from Gurgaon, and he said I didn’t look like I was. He then asked me if the place he was dropping me at was the place I live in. I told him it was. And then panic set in - the entire 30 minutes of good conversation were overshadowed by this one question. I was five minutes away from home, and repeatedly kept thinking that I should have told him that this was my brother’s place, or my friends’ or anybody else’s for that matter. For the entire next day, I was paranoid that he might show up at the house with someone. There are moments when I still do, and I have absolutely no idea about when I reached this level of anxiety.
A major part of it definitely comes from the news I consume, because nothing of the sort has actually happened to me or to people in my close circle. The constant news of incidents over the years has normalized the fear - five years ago I might have laughed it off, and wouldn’t have given a second thought to it. It is so weird to think that the possibility of something happening seems so real, when in physical reality you have no actual person around you who might have gone through kidnapping or rape or abuse. This is not to say that incidents don’t happen, and that the fear around them is irrational, but to me, it is astounding that 10 news cases of abuse in a month could send whole communities of women into a constant state of anxiety and panic. That day, I got home and told my mother that I had a chatty auto driver, and in a second she told me to stop talking to drivers. And so, the narration ended there.
But it is also the small things that have happened over the years, and now culminate into this omnipresent fear. When I used to come home from school, there was this group of boys, probably my age, who followed me home a couple of times. They would stop 100 meters from my house to avoid scrutiny by my neighbors - retired uncles and aunties who were usually out in the streets for most part of the day. I remember I changed my route a few times, even went to a friend’s place nearby and sat there for 30 minutes until I was sure the boys had left. The friend then used to drop me home on her scooty. But I was also angry, and ashamed that I had been scared, especially because I had been so outspoken and perceived as someone who could take care of herself, and so I started to take the same route along with another friend. It took some time, but the boys disappeared and the fear subsided, for some time at least.
I take the same route today. But there have been days when I have asked my cab or auto driver to stop under the street light, or near my friend’s place which is five minutes away. I am not in touch with the friend, but I pretend to walk towards her home. I have stood at her gate twice, pretending to go in. Once I watch the driver leave, I proceed to walk home. There is nothing in particular that sets me off, though. Each time this has happened, it wasn’t because the driver hinted at something. Nor have I ever encountered a driver who was rude to me, or yelled at me. But the smallest of things have had the potential to make me anxious. In one case, the driver was constantly looking at the rear view mirror, and I was alarmed. He might have just been looking at the traffic that was behind our cab, but that day, because it was night time and traffic was low with very few street lights actually working, I assumed somebody was following us and so I got off. Sometimes, I start texting my friends, and I would share my live location with them. I would have thought I was going mad had my friends not been doing the same thing. Between women, I think no matter where we are and what we are doing, if a female friend texts us saying she is uncomfortable and wants to talk while on her ride back home, all of us are suddenly on stand-by, because somewhere all of us have experienced the same level of discomfort.
In recent years, even facebook and instagram have become sites of violation. I take my dog for a walk twice a day, and for years I have kept getting these occasional spam messages from men in my sector, who’d say something like ‘oh i have seen you walking your dog a lot of times, you both look cute’, followed by repeated messages saying just ‘hi’, or ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’. I don’t think men understand why saying something as banal as this would be perceived as problematic by women. It is troubling because I do not know this person, and somehow this person knows my name, knows that I have a dog and has watched me more than once taking him for a walk, tracks me on a platform, messages me, and does not seem to understand that I am not interested to talk, and so continues to text. And so I eventually block them, but now they have a new ID, but I am not interested in making a huge spectacle of it, and so I continue to block new IDs.
Over the years, I have also learnt how parents respond to these stories. Their first reaction is, naturally, worry. However, it doesn’t stop there. Their worry then manifests itself into multiple forms of restrictions - for instance, setting a curfew at 9 pm. In winters, that comes down to 7:30 pm because the daylight ends earlier. And it is not just me that needs to adhere to this curfew. My mother, who loves to go out for a walk, will not step out after 7 PM because ‘it is too dark’. I tell her she has to go through the same route she takes everyday, and that street lights are on, and that kids are still out playing - but none of it seems to make a difference once the clock strikes 7. I am left to think that if this is the kind of fear that she lives in, no wonder she expects me to follow a similar routine. I also wonder about the magnitude of stress she takes once I am out of the house.
Thus I am asked to text her when I reach the metro station in the morning, although it is only 30 minutes away. I have had multiple arguments about it. But once I realized that the arguments weren’t going to disappear, I started dropping one word texts informing that I had reached, at times even when I hadn’t. I would be stuck in traffic, but would tell her that I had reached nonetheless so she could stop being in a constant state of fear/panic/worry. When I go to a friend’s house for the night, I call my parents at 9 pm to tell them I had had dinner, and that I was headed to bed. Most of the time, I am usually either already at a restaurant with my friends when I call, or I am headed to one. I find a quiet place to call them and tell them that all is good. It’s a two minute call, but I think it sets them at ease, while also allowing me to do things I otherwise won’t be allowed to.
Because I have traveled extensively in Delhi, that is the immediate contrast that comes to my mind. What makes Gurgaon scarier to me is the lack of crowded public spaces. In Delhi, you will see these vast market complexes - both old and new, a huge student population in all of its districts, universities, museums, street shops, book stores, protest cites - all of them meant to be used as public spaces by people irrespective of their class. I think that is what makes the difference - that people realize and occupy these spaces considering them their own, and the imagination that you could rely on such people if something were to happen. In Gurgaon, I don’t see people having that kind of attachment to physical spaces, possibly because the infrastructure does not allow us to. The city has some incredible skyscrapers and market complexes, but most of them cater to corporate professionals. For me, their location in newer parts of Gurgaon is evidence of their lack of accessibility to people who do not have the means to either travel to these places, or to be able to enjoy these places without putting a dent in their pockets. You will often find people traveling from Gurgaon to Delhi to just sit in the middle of Lodhi Garden and Sunder Nursery in the winter sun. And if you go to Leisure Valley park in sector 29 of Gurgaon, you will find it almost deserted, with a few men hanging around, which is bound to discomfort you. If you are traveling especially in older parts of Gurgaon, you can hardly see any grocery shops or parks or any places of leisure. What you do find frequently are mostly liquor stores, automobile shops, and gyms - spaces that have an overwhelming male presence.
Sara's Diary, Freelance Researcher, mid-20s
Gurgaon has a heightened sense of insecurity and fear attached to it. For me, it is those occasional, most sensationalized news articles on sexual violence and harrassment, that feed the fear. I do, however, realize that this fear is not new. I have lived in Gurgaon for 24 years, with at least 15 of them having been spent with some form of fear. It is also true that while I have fortunately been able to avoid the physical aspects of it, being a woman who’s grown up in the city has meant growing up around copious sets of restrictions, most of which I have learnt to navigate over the years.
For instance, in class 8th, my classmate told me something unsettling indicating that he wanted to have sex with me. I felt so violated, I slapped him. My class teacher was informed and she called my parents to school. When I came home and told my parents about what had transpired, they told me I shouldn’t have slapped him, that boys and men will continue to say and do things, and I couldn’t go around slapping and yelling at them. The meeting at school must have lasted for 30 minutes, where both my parents, and my teacher, tried to make me understand that I was growing up, and I should brace myself for more cases like these, and try to control my anger. A year or two later, when something similar happened with a senior, I slapped him and didn’t tell anybody. Thankfully, news didn’t reach my teacher, and I moved on.
Reflecting back on those incidents, I think they were critical in shaping my resolve to keep certain things away from my parents. Over the years, I realized I was outspoken, something that didn’t go down well with them. I stopped narrating the incidents once I was told to let go of them.
Because I had been so vocal, I can’t particularly remember the moment when fear of abuse and harassment started to sink in. I think the last two years have been particularly detrimental because I have constantly been at home, and most of my time has been spent with my parents - who while being one of the ‘progressive kind’, are nonetheless filled with fear and trepidation over their daughters’ safety. Now when I am traveling in an auto after 6 pm, I make sure I sit towards the corner of the seat so I can jump out if need be. I remember reading an article where a woman did jump out when she was being taken through a different route. She suffered a fracture, but later told the media that she was glad about what she did, and a few broken bones were better than being a victim of sexual violence. I think about that article every now and then, and wonder if I’d have the strength and the sense to react the way she did.
Last month, I had a chatty driver in the auto. We talked the entire ride home. He told me that his brother’s phone got snatched away while he was standing near Ardee Mall (sector 52). He re-enacted the scene and mentioned how his brother couldn’t do anything apart from saying “arre woh le gaya”. He couldn’t stop laughing, thinking about his brother’s incapability of articulating ‘kaun kya le gaya’. He told me about his family, that he was from Kanpur, and had come to Gurgaon only a couple of years ago. I was having a brilliant time, until he asked me where I was from. I told him I was from Gurgaon, and he said I didn’t look like I was. He then asked me if the place he was dropping me at was the place I live in. I told him it was. And then panic set in - the entire 30 minutes of good conversation were overshadowed by this one question. I was five minutes away from home, and repeatedly kept thinking that I should have told him that this was my brother’s place, or my friends’ or anybody else’s for that matter. For the entire next day, I was paranoid that he might show up at the house with someone. There are moments when I still do, and I have absolutely no idea about when I reached this level of anxiety.
A major part of it definitely comes from the news I consume, because nothing of the sort has actually happened to me or to people in my close circle. The constant news of incidents over the years has normalized the fear - five years ago I might have laughed it off, and wouldn’t have given a second thought to it. It is so weird to think that the possibility of something happening seems so real, when in physical reality you have no actual person around you who might have gone through kidnapping or rape or abuse. This is not to say that incidents don’t happen, and that the fear around them is irrational, but to me, it is astounding that 10 news cases of abuse in a month could send whole communities of women into a constant state of anxiety and panic. That day, I got home and told my mother that I had a chatty auto driver, and in a second she told me to stop talking to drivers. And so, the narration ended there.
But it is also the small things that have happened over the years, and now culminate into this omnipresent fear. When I used to come home from school, there was this group of boys, probably my age, who followed me home a couple of times. They would stop 100 meters from my house to avoid scrutiny by my neighbors - retired uncles and aunties who were usually out in the streets for most part of the day. I remember I changed my route a few times, even went to a friend’s place nearby and sat there for 30 minutes until I was sure the boys had left. The friend then used to drop me home on her scooty. But I was also angry, and ashamed that I had been scared, especially because I had been so outspoken and perceived as someone who could take care of herself, and so I started to take the same route along with another friend. It took some time, but the boys disappeared and the fear subsided, for some time at least.
I take the same route today. But there have been days when I have asked my cab or auto driver to stop under the street light, or near my friend’s place which is five minutes away. I am not in touch with the friend, but I pretend to walk towards her home. I have stood at her gate twice, pretending to go in. Once I watch the driver leave, I proceed to walk home. There is nothing in particular that sets me off, though. Each time this has happened, it wasn’t because the driver hinted at something. Nor have I ever encountered a driver who was rude to me, or yelled at me. But the smallest of things have had the potential to make me anxious. In one case, the driver was constantly looking at the rear view mirror, and I was alarmed. He might have just been looking at the traffic that was behind our cab, but that day, because it was night time and traffic was low with very few street lights actually working, I assumed somebody was following us and so I got off. Sometimes, I start texting my friends, and I would share my live location with them. I would have thought I was going mad had my friends not been doing the same thing. Between women, I think no matter where we are and what we are doing, if a female friend texts us saying she is uncomfortable and wants to talk while on her ride back home, all of us are suddenly on stand-by, because somewhere all of us have experienced the same level of discomfort.
In recent years, even facebook and instagram have become sites of violation. I take my dog for a walk twice a day, and for years I have kept getting these occasional spam messages from men in my sector, who’d say something like ‘oh i have seen you walking your dog a lot of times, you both look cute’, followed by repeated messages saying just ‘hi’, or ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’. I don’t think men understand why saying something as banal as this would be perceived as problematic by women. It is troubling because I do not know this person, and somehow this person knows my name, knows that I have a dog and has watched me more than once taking him for a walk, tracks me on a platform, messages me, and does not seem to understand that I am not interested to talk, and so continues to text. And so I eventually block them, but now they have a new ID, but I am not interested in making a huge spectacle of it, and so I continue to block new IDs.
Over the years, I have also learnt how parents respond to these stories. Their first reaction is, naturally, worry. However, it doesn’t stop there. Their worry then manifests itself into multiple forms of restrictions - for instance, setting a curfew at 9 pm. In winters, that comes down to 7:30 pm because the daylight ends earlier. And it is not just me that needs to adhere to this curfew. My mother, who loves to go out for a walk, will not step out after 7 PM because ‘it is too dark’. I tell her she has to go through the same route she takes everyday, and that street lights are on, and that kids are still out playing - but none of it seems to make a difference once the clock strikes 7. I am left to think that if this is the kind of fear that she lives in, no wonder she expects me to follow a similar routine. I also wonder about the magnitude of stress she takes once I am out of the house.
Thus I am asked to text her when I reach the metro station in the morning, although it is only 30 minutes away. I have had multiple arguments about it. But once I realized that the arguments weren’t going to disappear, I started dropping one word texts informing that I had reached, at times even when I hadn’t. I would be stuck in traffic, but would tell her that I had reached nonetheless so she could stop being in a constant state of fear/panic/worry. When I go to a friend’s house for the night, I call my parents at 9 pm to tell them I had had dinner, and that I was headed to bed. Most of the time, I am usually either already at a restaurant with my friends when I call, or I am headed to one. I find a quiet place to call them and tell them that all is good. It’s a two minute call, but I think it sets them at ease, while also allowing me to do things I otherwise won’t be allowed to.
Because I have traveled extensively in Delhi, that is the immediate contrast that comes to my mind. What makes Gurgaon scarier to me is the lack of crowded public spaces. In Delhi, you will see these vast market complexes - both old and new, a huge student population in all of its districts, universities, museums, street shops, book stores, protest cites - all of them meant to be used as public spaces by people irrespective of their class. I think that is what makes the difference - that people realize and occupy these spaces considering them their own, and the imagination that you could rely on such people if something were to happen. In Gurgaon, I don’t see people having that kind of attachment to physical spaces, possibly because the infrastructure does not allow us to. The city has some incredible skyscrapers and market complexes, but most of them cater to corporate professionals. For me, their location in newer parts of Gurgaon is evidence of their lack of accessibility to people who do not have the means to either travel to these places, or to be able to enjoy these places without putting a dent in their pockets. You will often find people traveling from Gurgaon to Delhi to just sit in the middle of Lodhi Garden and Sunder Nursery in the winter sun. And if you go to Leisure Valley park in sector 29 of Gurgaon, you will find it almost deserted, with a few men hanging around, which is bound to discomfort you. If you are traveling especially in older parts of Gurgaon, you can hardly see any grocery shops or parks or any places of leisure. What you do find frequently are mostly liquor stores, automobile shops, and gyms - spaces that have an overwhelming male presence.
Sara's Diary, Freelance Researcher, mid-20s
Gurgaon has a heightened sense of insecurity and fear attached to it. For me, it is those occasional, most sensationalized news articles on sexual violence and harrassment, that feed the fear. I do, however, realize that this fear is not new. I have lived in Gurgaon for 24 years, with at least 15 of them having been spent with some form of fear. It is also true that while I have fortunately been able to avoid the physical aspects of it, being a woman who’s grown up in the city has meant growing up around copious sets of restrictions, most of which I have learnt to navigate over the years.
For instance, in class 8th, my classmate told me something unsettling indicating that he wanted to have sex with me. I felt so violated, I slapped him. My class teacher was informed and she called my parents to school. When I came home and told my parents about what had transpired, they told me I shouldn’t have slapped him, that boys and men will continue to say and do things, and I couldn’t go around slapping and yelling at them. The meeting at school must have lasted for 30 minutes, where both my parents, and my teacher, tried to make me understand that I was growing up, and I should brace myself for more cases like these, and try to control my anger. A year or two later, when something similar happened with a senior, I slapped him and didn’t tell anybody. Thankfully, news didn’t reach my teacher, and I moved on.
Reflecting back on those incidents, I think they were critical in shaping my resolve to keep certain things away from my parents. Over the years, I realized I was outspoken, something that didn’t go down well with them. I stopped narrating the incidents once I was told to let go of them.
Because I had been so vocal, I can’t particularly remember the moment when fear of abuse and harassment started to sink in. I think the last two years have been particularly detrimental because I have constantly been at home, and most of my time has been spent with my parents - who while being one of the ‘progressive kind’, are nonetheless filled with fear and trepidation over their daughters’ safety. Now when I am traveling in an auto after 6 pm, I make sure I sit towards the corner of the seat so I can jump out if need be. I remember reading an article where a woman did jump out when she was being taken through a different route. She suffered a fracture, but later told the media that she was glad about what she did, and a few broken bones were better than being a victim of sexual violence. I think about that article every now and then, and wonder if I’d have the strength and the sense to react the way she did.
Last month, I had a chatty driver in the auto. We talked the entire ride home. He told me that his brother’s phone got snatched away while he was standing near Ardee Mall (sector 52). He re-enacted the scene and mentioned how his brother couldn’t do anything apart from saying “arre woh le gaya”. He couldn’t stop laughing, thinking about his brother’s incapability of articulating ‘kaun kya le gaya’. He told me about his family, that he was from Kanpur, and had come to Gurgaon only a couple of years ago. I was having a brilliant time, until he asked me where I was from. I told him I was from Gurgaon, and he said I didn’t look like I was. He then asked me if the place he was dropping me at was the place I live in. I told him it was. And then panic set in - the entire 30 minutes of good conversation were overshadowed by this one question. I was five minutes away from home, and repeatedly kept thinking that I should have told him that this was my brother’s place, or my friends’ or anybody else’s for that matter. For the entire next day, I was paranoid that he might show up at the house with someone. There are moments when I still do, and I have absolutely no idea about when I reached this level of anxiety.
A major part of it definitely comes from the news I consume, because nothing of the sort has actually happened to me or to people in my close circle. The constant news of incidents over the years has normalized the fear - five years ago I might have laughed it off, and wouldn’t have given a second thought to it. It is so weird to think that the possibility of something happening seems so real, when in physical reality you have no actual person around you who might have gone through kidnapping or rape or abuse. This is not to say that incidents don’t happen, and that the fear around them is irrational, but to me, it is astounding that 10 news cases of abuse in a month could send whole communities of women into a constant state of anxiety and panic. That day, I got home and told my mother that I had a chatty auto driver, and in a second she told me to stop talking to drivers. And so, the narration ended there.
But it is also the small things that have happened over the years, and now culminate into this omnipresent fear. When I used to come home from school, there was this group of boys, probably my age, who followed me home a couple of times. They would stop 100 meters from my house to avoid scrutiny by my neighbors - retired uncles and aunties who were usually out in the streets for most part of the day. I remember I changed my route a few times, even went to a friend’s place nearby and sat there for 30 minutes until I was sure the boys had left. The friend then used to drop me home on her scooty. But I was also angry, and ashamed that I had been scared, especially because I had been so outspoken and perceived as someone who could take care of herself, and so I started to take the same route along with another friend. It took some time, but the boys disappeared and the fear subsided, for some time at least.
I take the same route today. But there have been days when I have asked my cab or auto driver to stop under the street light, or near my friend’s place which is five minutes away. I am not in touch with the friend, but I pretend to walk towards her home. I have stood at her gate twice, pretending to go in. Once I watch the driver leave, I proceed to walk home. There is nothing in particular that sets me off, though. Each time this has happened, it wasn’t because the driver hinted at something. Nor have I ever encountered a driver who was rude to me, or yelled at me. But the smallest of things have had the potential to make me anxious. In one case, the driver was constantly looking at the rear view mirror, and I was alarmed. He might have just been looking at the traffic that was behind our cab, but that day, because it was night time and traffic was low with very few street lights actually working, I assumed somebody was following us and so I got off. Sometimes, I start texting my friends, and I would share my live location with them. I would have thought I was going mad had my friends not been doing the same thing. Between women, I think no matter where we are and what we are doing, if a female friend texts us saying she is uncomfortable and wants to talk while on her ride back home, all of us are suddenly on stand-by, because somewhere all of us have experienced the same level of discomfort.
In recent years, even facebook and instagram have become sites of violation. I take my dog for a walk twice a day, and for years I have kept getting these occasional spam messages from men in my sector, who’d say something like ‘oh i have seen you walking your dog a lot of times, you both look cute’, followed by repeated messages saying just ‘hi’, or ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’. I don’t think men understand why saying something as banal as this would be perceived as problematic by women. It is troubling because I do not know this person, and somehow this person knows my name, knows that I have a dog and has watched me more than once taking him for a walk, tracks me on a platform, messages me, and does not seem to understand that I am not interested to talk, and so continues to text. And so I eventually block them, but now they have a new ID, but I am not interested in making a huge spectacle of it, and so I continue to block new IDs.
Over the years, I have also learnt how parents respond to these stories. Their first reaction is, naturally, worry. However, it doesn’t stop there. Their worry then manifests itself into multiple forms of restrictions - for instance, setting a curfew at 9 pm. In winters, that comes down to 7:30 pm because the daylight ends earlier. And it is not just me that needs to adhere to this curfew. My mother, who loves to go out for a walk, will not step out after 7 PM because ‘it is too dark’. I tell her she has to go through the same route she takes everyday, and that street lights are on, and that kids are still out playing - but none of it seems to make a difference once the clock strikes 7. I am left to think that if this is the kind of fear that she lives in, no wonder she expects me to follow a similar routine. I also wonder about the magnitude of stress she takes once I am out of the house.
Thus I am asked to text her when I reach the metro station in the morning, although it is only 30 minutes away. I have had multiple arguments about it. But once I realized that the arguments weren’t going to disappear, I started dropping one word texts informing that I had reached, at times even when I hadn’t. I would be stuck in traffic, but would tell her that I had reached nonetheless so she could stop being in a constant state of fear/panic/worry. When I go to a friend’s house for the night, I call my parents at 9 pm to tell them I had had dinner, and that I was headed to bed. Most of the time, I am usually either already at a restaurant with my friends when I call, or I am headed to one. I find a quiet place to call them and tell them that all is good. It’s a two minute call, but I think it sets them at ease, while also allowing me to do things I otherwise won’t be allowed to.
Because I have traveled extensively in Delhi, that is the immediate contrast that comes to my mind. What makes Gurgaon scarier to me is the lack of crowded public spaces. In Delhi, you will see these vast market complexes - both old and new, a huge student population in all of its districts, universities, museums, street shops, book stores, protest cites - all of them meant to be used as public spaces by people irrespective of their class. I think that is what makes the difference - that people realize and occupy these spaces considering them their own, and the imagination that you could rely on such people if something were to happen. In Gurgaon, I don’t see people having that kind of attachment to physical spaces, possibly because the infrastructure does not allow us to. The city has some incredible skyscrapers and market complexes, but most of them cater to corporate professionals. For me, their location in newer parts of Gurgaon is evidence of their lack of accessibility to people who do not have the means to either travel to these places, or to be able to enjoy these places without putting a dent in their pockets. You will often find people traveling from Gurgaon to Delhi to just sit in the middle of Lodhi Garden and Sunder Nursery in the winter sun. And if you go to Leisure Valley park in sector 29 of Gurgaon, you will find it almost deserted, with a few men hanging around, which is bound to discomfort you. If you are traveling especially in older parts of Gurgaon, you can hardly see any grocery shops or parks or any places of leisure. What you do find frequently are mostly liquor stores, automobile shops, and gyms - spaces that have an overwhelming male presence.
