“This man is a husband, a father. But most importantly HE IS A DISGUSTING VERMIN OF A PERVERT. He is a middle-aged man from Kerala travelling on the Yeshwantpur- Kochuvelli Garib Rath, couldn’t control the sight in front of him – young women, old women, little children, all minding their lives – that he had to start masturb**** inside the running train. Where people are still awake. Where lights are still on. This cursed starts to look around to deliberately catch eye contact of the still awake female passengers around him after he throws off his covers and sheets, amongst whom I was one. I cursed. I shouted. I threatened to pepper – spray him when he asked me to shut up. People gathered along with the TTR. Of course they (friends of the scum that were travelling with) tried to sweet talk / bribe the TTR. But the good man that he was did not comply.
I’m only writing this because suddenly there were three classes of people in my coach. One was younger, mostly men, who immediately came to their senses and handed me numerous help lines and Twitter tags and the like. The second was older, also mostly men, who wouldn’t get up from their berths and said “mole, vittere”, which means child, let it go, and other forgiving, super human reactions to the same effect. One of then said, “think of me as your father and turn a blind eye to these men”. (To which I said he was lucky my father wasn’t there to hear him say that). I’m not forgiving. I’m not a super human. I was a woman travelling on my own in my government’s transport vehicle who has had enough. The third class of people there was the most disturbing thing yet.
They were mostly women of all ages, who either pretended to not hear or looked too scared to be a part of it or looked at me like I lost it. In a coach of 80 seats running nearly full capacity with at least half the seats occupied by female travelers, there were four young women with me. And another sweet woman who may have been as old as my mother quietly came to shake hands with me and said,”you have courage”. This is not courage. This is not strength. This is not being head strong. This is duty. Yours as much as mine. It is sad that a woman thinks that to fight for her own safety and her own right as a living being is a result of an acquired quality of courage as against an innate instinct from within. Courage and strength are only insignificant by-products.
What’s sadder is that there were still women my age who continued pretending to sleep.”
-Anonymous
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