Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Harassment

Just when I thought that respect for women in India was at an all time high given the number of women in top positions in the corporate world, NGOs, the President of India and so on, the common Indian man does not have seem to recognized it.

My personal experience a couple of days back replaced my belief and saw that man has not changed although women may be doing well in the country.

A married man, about 35-40 years of age, was allegedly harassing a young lady sitting in front of him. The trip from Mangalore to Bangalore was not pleasant in the first place after a hectic weekend and that too this act from a man who was married added to my mental agony. To top it all, this happened in a Volvo bus in which supposedly only ‘decent’ people travel…

After a fierce 15 minutes of verbal duel, the person received a well deserved slap from on of the co-passenger. This continued and after 45 minutes of begging and pleading, saying his career was at stake, his wife would leave him and stuff. Later, he was handed over to the police at a town near Bangalore.

God knows what has happened of him as I write this, but he should have thought of his career, his wife all that when he was committing the act. It was a good move by the young lady that she spoke out, else there would be many who would just avoid complaining and the guy would give a slip, only to continue making it a habit.

6 comments:

Buls said...

You applaud the woman for speaking out... what were you doing while the male was harrassing her??? Men applaud, never support.. talking through personal experience

Paddy said...

The point I am trying to drive out here is the way this lady spoke out, otherwise ladies who would just and sulk.

And the "support" given by the ladies in the bus was cold shoulder as though the event never happened, wanting to reach Bangalore early. It was the male co-passengers who helped her.

Regarding your personal experience, all I can say is you have a wrong set of Men

Buls said...

I have wrong set of men??? See, its always the woman's fault... when you can't find something substantial against her then "she has a wrong set of men". How typical of you!!!

Paddy said...

Ought to be... Just as u can find a fault in me not being participative enough in dealing with the situation

Comments without meaning or justification - just the example I gave for you.

rt said...

offoh verbal duel over here tooo..gud to see that u appreciate the lady's protest..but as bul said u wre not supportive ... however i have seen woman who dont care at times...and u will be in a soup if u speak out...it goes both ways..generally teh mentality of indian(man/woman) is of indiffernce..

Paddy said...

Is there any place in the post I have mentioned of not being supportive? I don't understand how you can make such an assumption when there is nothing mentioned.

The co-passenger who slapped could have been me or any other 30 odd passengers in the bus. But I have also showed my support by writing about it through this blog and warning people of the consequences.

The youth of today do not show indifference as it used to happen earlier. That was the point I was driving at.