Do not shield away

I was in 10 the grade when my dad was posted in the national capital i.e. New Delhi. Being from a small city in southern India, my parents had warned me about how bad this big city could be. I was a very friendly person and there were very few instances when I had fought with someone for any know reason.

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Everything went good till my dad took her to explore this new city. It took us nearly a little
more than an hour to reach the heavily crowded Chandni Chowk on a busy Sunday before the age of Metro's. However, Chandni Chowk is a tourist destination in it's own rights complete with historic monuments, worshipping places and of course the best markets.

After we were done with exploring the beautiful red fort, we headed towards the market and somehow I was walking a step behind my parents casually checking out the stalls that sold everything that a young girl like me needed when suddenly I felt something between my thigh gap. I turned back and found a man who pretended as if nothing happened. I started walking and he did that again. I snapped back at him, held him by his collar and started slapping him. People around me stood as silent spectators. My parents came running to get me stop hitting that bastard. He told my parents 'iss paagal ko sambhalo' (control this psycho). I had lost it and was shouting at him at the top of my voice while I my parents were pacifying me instead of hitting that bastard.

My parents argued that my way of dealing with the harrasment was wrong. I should have rather changed my way or should have walked before my parents. Well, don't I have the right to walk freely around a public place? Why should I shield myself if a pervert is roaming freely. How many girls like me should shield themselves to make way for a pervert?

It has been over 15 years for that incident, but still the condition has not changed much in India. You can still get to read news about women getting harassed publicly by men and all that woman can do is change her way and ignore.