Gone is the heady feeling of travelling on the train at nights...

In Lagos, Nigeria, as I was threatened with loss of life and limb if I dared roll down the windows of my cab in 40-degree heat, I thought longingly of my Bombay, where taxi drivers gave gyaan and the wind whipped through broken windows, wiping out the stench of the city.

In Jaipur, as a gang of biker boys rode circles around me in the middle of a busy street, with no one batting an eyelid, I thanked my city for the basti boys I met the day of the deluge (26th July, 2005), who paid no heed to the wet T-shirt outlining my breasts, and helped me negotiate the whirlpools that the gutters lining the road had turned into.

In Bangalore, as the city shut down way before the midnight hour, I recalled with fondness the late night butter chicken, bhurji pao and Bachelor’s strawberry ice cream.

As for Delhi, every single time I visited there, I had the overwhelming urge to return home as soon as possible.

As a girl growing up in the early 90s in the city then known as Bombay, I owned the nights as I traversed its road and rail arteries, returning home from work or play, sometimes drunk, occasionally sober – and always alone. The heady feeling of an empty compartment on the last train that chugged out of VT station way past midnight, with the wind blowing in my face and the world at my feet, is an experience that perhaps ended with my generation.

Sure, Mumbai is still safer than any other city in the country. But physical safety and mental security are two different beasts.

On the night the young photojournalist was raped (22nd August, 2013), I was in a fashionable cafe just a few mill compounds away, celebrating with girlfriends. I could have been in any world capital. Single women worked on their laptops undisturbed. Some flirted with the bartenders. Others whipped out credit cards to pay for cocktails. Unknown to us, outside this picture perfect world, something sinister was afoot. And even though we had no knowledge of it then, we had a built-in instinct. So, as the friend I was to drop off at a bus station emerged at midnight ready to leave, I looked at her little white dress, and she, by instinct, went in and changed into pants for the long ride home. The heady feeling of the nights was gone forever. Replaced by caution, even fear.

Gone also is something that was once a certainty in this city: the goodwill of strangers. In a train compartment full of men, I was felt up from head to shoulder to breast by a transsexual begging for alms. I protested, for it is my right not to be physically touched by strangers, no matter the gender. The transsexual was aggressive and directed a loud voice and red eyes at me, hurling the choicest abuses. I stood my ground, probably in the naïve confidence of a compartment full of strangers who I trusted to do the right thing. Not a single man stood up in protest, or even voiced solidarity with me, though many had been felt up in a similar manner minutes earlier.

Caution, I am reminded often, is the wise way forward. And I protest vehemently at the chains imposed on me, chains that I am still unused to. I scream from the rooftops that I will not let the city change me.

But in spite of myself, an evolutionary instinct of self-preservation is insidiously installing itself. And once minor, unnoticed events now trigger of waves of caution. An unlit stretch of beach turns a bracing late evening walk into something menacing. The local drunk, once a source of amusement, now merits crossing the road and moving away from his threatening path. A reprimand to a male employee leaves in its wake fear of retribution.

Yes, the city is still safer than any other in the country, but as our DNAs change to negotiate the new reality, no amount of CCTV cameras or security personnel can make us feel safe anymore. The fear has now crawled into our minds and hearts, and is here to stay.


The writer is a volunteer with SafeCity.in.