New Delhi: Three years since the brutal Nirbhaya gangrape, and everyone is debating whether the juvenile accused should be set free or kept in the remand home. The topic of the debate changes, but nothing really happens. Earlier, the debate was on whether the now famous 'controversial' documentary should be telecast or not.
Each time I read about 16th December 2012, I feel it's a personal attack on me, I feel that it could have been me instead of her. I feel why everyone reading this should care, why this is my battle and why this certainly should be yours.
I went for a reality check to see for myself and reassure everyone that maybe things have changed. But, unfortunately I can tell from my experience that things far from what I have been hoping for.
It was 10 o’clock in the night, Saturday: me along with my crew travelled to Dwarka Sector 10 metro station to take stock of how safe Delhi streets are for women. We wanted to know how safe bus stops, auto stands and areas outside the metro stations are. My cameraperson and I switched on our cameras and waited to see how people behave, our idea was to understand what an average woman waiting for public transport has to go through each day.
Its 10:15 pm: 10 minutes into our shoot, three men in a Wagon R pulled up right in front of us. They came out of their cars and started abusing & misbehaving with us without any provocation. All three of them were completely drunk. It was evident that they clearly wanted to pick up a fight with us and harass us over nothing and all this despite a camera rolling constantly. One of them came very close for my comfort and started passing lewd comments at me. Their body language was really outrageous for a woman’s modesty. And it was this moment, when I had bile churning in my stomach, my heart beating a million miles an hour, shortness of breath and such vehement, inexplicable anger that I didn't know how to get a grip on it. I could feel a bit of what Nirbhaya must have felt that day, or any other woman feels when she gets in such situations.
10:20: Nerves stretched as taut as they could be, I kept reminding myself that in less than 5 minutes some PCR van will definitely turn up. And I’ll be away from the disgusting scenario, but to my disappointment not even a single PCR van turned up for 20 long minutes.
10:25: They started ridiculing the entire scene by mocking us and our work. I would like to tell you here that this is an area outside a metro station, not any desolate spot in the capital. Cars were passing by, residential apartments were there and a police chowki just two minutes away. But even that didn’t stop these men from misbehaving and mocking us.
Then they started hitting our camera and when my camera person tried to stop them, one of them hit my camera person and pushed him back. Then they started threatening me with their disgusting body language.
Then my camera person asked me to call the PCR, and somehow I gathered my courage and tried to alert the system. But because of bad network, it took me more than the stipulated time to connect to a one. This action scared them and one of them “suddenly realized" that what they were doing was not right. He started making an effort to stop the main culprit. But those words were falling on deaf ears. The main culprit out of those three continued to abuse and misbehave.
They threatened us to shut the camera off, but when we did not do what they wanted, one of them whacked our camera screen. They even tried to put the blame on us for shooting without their “consent", when we weren’t even shooting them. We had nothing to do with them and they had nothing to do with our work. And finally, it all came to an end and three of them got into their car and left the place.
We decided to switch on our cameras when they started leaving. Our next move was to head to the police station to file a complaint. Though we did initially encounter a regressive attitude from the lower level cops, but only when the DCP stepped in, more attention was paid to our complaint. They were able to nab all three accused within 12 hours.
And this is how irony died a thousand deaths. I went through the streets of Delhi to do a status check of how safe streets and public transport are for women, and was heckled myself.
Why we decided to tell our story is because this can happen with any woman in Delhi and things can easily go out of control. Unfortunately three years after that brutal gangrape, it is this audacity and the mentality that we continue to fight each day.
I wonder how long will we have to fight for the basic necessity of a safe space for us.
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