I was shunned for a moment as I was walking down the street amidst the hubbub of people in the Durga puja. Little did I know that my mother was right. Men do make advancements towards women in unexpected ways. Everywhere, every time. I saw a man walking close to me while my mother held my hand in public. My father was there too but I was too uncomfortable to open to them. The man walking close to me was brushing its wrist down my skirt as if he wanted to do so, not once but thrice or more than that. Whenever, he gets an opportunity. As shocked as I am, I couldn’t say a word to me except leaving my mother’s hand and walk forward to some distance to avoid this uncomfortable situation.
As I walk forward, I saw a woman who is walking towards a bus in the early hours of the morning. Her hair is straight with a bare back blouse. I wonder, “Who is she?”
That woman was in some rush but I do know who is she. The woman from the last night who was standing in a row of other women, wearing provocative dresses and makeup to entice men for an entire night. Though, I am fifteen years old, the world of media has opened my eyes to so many new things. If my mother was in my age. She wouldn’t have understood, what I do now.
“You are still a baby girl.”, said my father once, as he puffed up the smoke from his cigarette. He never beat up my mother. He never told her abusive words but there was always something off about my parents. I don’t know. Unlike other parents, I don’t see them, holding hands, giving roses. They stayed because they had to for my sake. For my happiness, I wonder what life would have been if they separated a long time ago.
“Will my mother live a better life while doing her daily chores? Or Dad, will roam around care-free without his awkwardness.”
What is the mystery I can never solve? I think to myself, why?
I have thoughts about today’s incident as well. If dresses are ways to entice men, then why on earth do we have to keep ourselves covered. For some dresses are ways to make ourselves confident. For some dresses are ways to express our freedom and assertion in our lives. that has nothing to do with what I faced today or the women I saw on the road. In fact, my dad is ashamed of my mother’s dressing sense. He is ashamed of the shirts that mother brought for him.
Sometimes, I see men staring in a manner which I call as “Not a right way of staring” to the women, seeing their exposed belly as if they had a deep satisfaction in their soul. It never felt right. It never felt good.
What if we allow ourselves to be the way we were? What if we allow ourselves and accept ourselves for the way we were? How amazing life would have been? Instead of seeing my exposed back with tattoos on it, they would have considered it a normal part of their lives. They would have learned the meaning of respect instead of blaming everything to us as women.
Attraction is normal, but what is not normal is the lines crossed under the name of attraction. Attraction is mutual that is what the world needs to understand more.
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