I had walked into that cafe and
carefully spotted my seat. It was a self-service place, so I had to walk to the
counter first. I placed my order and collected it, too. When I turned to my favorite
high stool chair, I noticed it was taken.
With a sad face, I walked past the
men who had snatched my fate and tried to settle into one of the regular
chairs. I was very uncomfortable and uneasy, there. It was in a dark corner and
the adjacent group was quite noisy. No it wasn't a bunch of college kids. In
fact, a group of senior citizens were having a re-union of some sort. Cute, I
thought. But nonetheless, their constant chatter would not let me write that
evening. And writing was as if a mission for me that day. 5 PM to 7 PM, I had
decided. I had told myself that I had to write during these two hours. I was
willing my brain cells to function and juice out the creativity. The pen couldn't
just scribble on the pad now. My writing, ought to have more meaning to it.
Since morning I had prepared
myself for it. Read a little during lunch, as if to familiarize myself with the
string of alphabets that made reading a pleasure. But now: I was stuck in this
cafe, in an uncomfortable chair because some creepy men had taken that table
with the high stool chair. Not fair! He hadn’t even bought a coffee. He was
sitting there just to use the WiFi. This is what happens in most self-service
places, I thought.
Just then, my fate seemed to take
a turn. A couch got vacant and this creepy duo decided to take to that
reclining comfort. Hurrah! I thought. No, I am not exaggerating. Writing that day
was extremely important. It was one self assuring act to make myself believe in
Me again. The past week had been bad
and writing was my only reclamation of fate. Yes, in my world this was
important.
The men shifted to the couch, and
unthinkingly I took the empty chairs. I placed my bag carefully on one chair,
as if it were my date. However, my real date was with the paper and pen. Little
did I know that those men were going to butt into this date.
Since they were creepy men and I
had taken the seat they had occupied, I had attracted their attention like a
magnet. They were staring at all women who walked in. My presence had come to
their notice specifically and therefore I was the center of their attraction, especially
since I was in clear, diagonal line of vision. They were strangely attracted to
the XY chromosome race. When a female walked in, their eyes would almost
impulsively turn to the direction and you could tell they were scanning from
head to toe, and ogling at everything in between. They say, a woman knows a
nasty man by his looks. I identified this blue shirt clad man, as one. He was
not right.
However, the irony was that the
women who walked in didn't care about his presence. I am sure; most of them
didn't notice his existence at all. There were several girls, women, ladies and
lassies that walked in. It was a popular cafe and this was a busy, Sunday
evening. Women walked in, and they walked past. He was at his creepy act, and
kept staring at me in spurts. I was judging him and the women, too. Some of
them were slightly scantily clad, some were covered,
some were beautiful and some even rough by my judgment. I was scared for them,
me and us. Unknowingly, I was weighing their sense of dressing in my head and
classifying the right and wrong. I hate to say this, but yes I was scared.
He was summing up every woman’s
private parts in his head and then murmuring something to his friend, who took
quick notes on a tissue paper. I am not sure what they were up to. I don’t know
if it was some crass, cheap, perverted game they were at. But the whole
situation, made me very uncomfortable. I was not okay with being the
judgmental one here. I was not okay with the fact that I found myself
vulnerable, uneasy, scared and most of all, I was not okay with being the
subject of his sleazy leisure.
I was very conscious of how I was
sitting: no crossed legs, not too much gap in between my lower limbs, hands in
place. I was careful to ensure that I wasn't bending forward to let the
neckline of my top, drop, ensuring that the ends of my scarf covered me
necessarily. I felt blessed to be wearing a scarf, but I was also questioning
myself on the need to dress up for this evening out. I was careful about my movement
and cautious even when I shut my eyes to sneeze and yawn! It was not a nice
feeling. I knew I was being watched. And no, this was not a random CCTV at a
super market. Vulnerable was the best
adjective here, but the magnanimity was far worse.
After several permutations and
combinations of the possibilities of events, I made my way out of the cafe
after a while. I carefully chose the exit which would let me mix in the crowd,
though my house was closer from the other side. As I took the longer route
home, I kept looking around to make sure I was not being followed.
I reached home, clicked the
lights and first checked how I would raise an alarm, if hell broke loose. Two
eyes, those two eyes and that stare had pierced me so hard, I realized.
When I went to bed that night, I
wondered why I was so scared. My roots connected me to a country which is popular in the global news for all its
hideous crimes against women. I knew all that and I had read about it, seen
clips and videos of some accidents, too. I used to watch a TV show that
featured these real stories to warn and educate people. These shows and those
reports were intended to provide caution. However, there is a thin line that
separates caution from paranoia. I, had unthinkingly, crossed that line.
That evening it was not just a
pair of eyes that had left me trembling, but several cruel and reckless souls
far, far away from where I was; had managed to shake my ground of positive
thinking.
That evening, I reflected but
never wrote.
