I always wondered why people call Bangalore a ‘not so safe’ place for women .My sister ,when staying in Bangalore during her MBBS days often used to prefer going out for lunch or an early dinner whenever I visited her and I always wondered ‘why?!’.
But , the experience that I had yesterday , made me realize how true were those words of the capital not being a safe place to roam around for women. I happened to meet two of my very good friends (girls) after a long time and we hung out at pizza hut at Jaynagar 4th block .It was 8 when we finished our dinner and being a Mumbaikar for the past year and half, I felt weird! Coming from a place, where 11 PM movie shows run full house and girls having “night outs” at Marine drive, it felt a bit awkward when the my friends started receiving calls from their parents for being late! Walking down the streets, two obnoxious morons kept staring at us and I felt ashamed and the very moment realized, how true were those concerns of the parents!
My quota of unpleasant experience for the night was not over yet ! Failing to catch a state transport bus, I hopped into a private city bus for Hebbal only to find an eve teasing seen going on in a Telugu movie which was being played in the bus! And, YES! , there were quite a lot of ladies travelling in that vehicle! At Marthalli, there was only one guy left apart from me and the so called ‘conductor’ asked me to hop into what you call a ‘tempo’ for Hebbal .I had no choice but to accept his offer. The tempo had a seating capacity of about 12 and there were about 20 people jam packed in it! The smell of alcohol and 'beedi' suffocated me and YES, again there were women travelling in it! My cell phone’s battery was running low and the tempo took an unusual root and I openly accept that I was feeling a bit scared although there was this confidence that I would reach home somehow .If that is what I felt being a guy, imagine how insecure and vulnerable the ladies sitting behind me might have felt !
Everybody talks about how Bangalore is developing into one of the most important cities of India with the IT boom ,simultaneously portraying the city as a cultural hub of the state with the paintings on the streets’ walls depicting Karnataka’s heritage. But, what good is a city if it cannot provide security to its inhabitants which is one of the basic needs of human beings?!I strongly believe that as long as we don’t improve the ‘culture’ of our society, any of these infrastructural developments would not matter much and there is an alarming need to bring in a change in the attitude of people .I feel very lucky to reside in Mumbai, which to a large extent provides our mothers, sisters, daughters and girlfriends the freedom to travel wherever they want, whenever they want without the fear of eve teasing or those ugly stares!
By:Shreyas mangalgi
is a 2nd year student at IITB.
