One bad incident could change a preference, one bad memory and you steer clear of everything that it connects with. This is probably too vague, so ill roll into the details.
A few weeks back, i was holding my breath and attempting to draw a neat black stroke with my brush, i learnt that holding your breath helped to some extent. But as i was nearing the finish of this neat black line, a shriek that still echoes in my memory resulted in me dropping my brush...this line had now broken...
My chair flew back, and i stood there with my face white, distraught...my housemate cried, "there's someone outside the bathroom!". Apparently, while she was inside the bathroom, a man was staring in from the large window, this was at 12 in the night. We ran to the other room to find our other housemates, six girls petrified with the thought that their personal space had been intruded upon. The guard was called, and he reported that there was no one in our backyard anymore, "the guy must have run off, don't worry"...How could we not worry?
I am emotional, and i express myself more openly than other's, in no time, there were tears rolling down and i had made a frantic call to a friend who was angry that we as "educated individuals" were not reporting to the police. Having been in Srishti for five months now, the one thing i have heard most often is "the police won't do shit, they don't like Srishti kids!"....it's hard to believe, but if so many people are saying it, there must be some truth in it. I couldn't digest the fact that we couldn't go ask for help from the people who are trained and paid to protect us. How can the police force have a like or dislike, how can they refuse to file and FIR?...these were questions we were asking each other in the time after the incident in a common room. It was close to 2 a.m and we were not ready to sleep....but little did we know that this was NOT the end....
The room we had gathered in, is surrounded by our backyard that overlooks a very lonely street, like the corner of the street. The boundary wall is studded with pieces of broken glass, but anyone can scale the wall unhurt and jump into our compound. Yes, we heard sounds at this point...of a body move from one window to the other...we kept complete silence to reconfirm our worst fear...i quietly snuck out of the room and called our landladys son - " hello bhaiya, there is someone in our backyard, we can hear his footsteps, please come right now!"...
Before we knew it, we heard voices and the guard jumping into our compound, we had no guts to open the curtains to see, but we were called and told to go to bed, and that things were sorted. They did find a man in our compound. He was taken to the cops, but that is all we know.
Three weeks have passed, and most of my housemates have put this incident behind them, some of us are still scared to use our bathroom, but strangely this has affected me the most.
I began by saying, bad incidents can change preferences. I used to love being alone at home, i used to love it when people would go out of the house on work, or to the city and id have my silence and space...and suddenly after that night, i fear being alone the most. I've been having sleepless nights, but i am learning to cope, i have to...living in fear is affecting my state of being, my work to some extent...
I'm not going to let this go, if no ones going to take this up, i will...to educate the people who live here, to protect people like me, now and those who will come here in the years to come...to make it a safer place to be in....
...so that no shrieks will disrupt brushes drawing straight lines...
No comments:
Post a Comment