‘Opened my hair to cover more of my body’: Woman recounts uncomfortable Delhi metro ride on Twitter

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metro
FILE PHOTO

If you have travelled in Delhi Metro, you know it is not a comfortable public space to be in especially during peak hours where the trains are overboard and the stations overcrowded. Amid this, an incident of eve-teasing and harassment of females have been reported. A journalist in the capital city on Wednesday recounted her uncomfortable Metro journey during which she said two men kept staring at her and even tried to follow her when she deboarded.

Tanishka Sodhi, whose Twitter bio says she works for Newslaundry, shared a thread of tweets late Wednesday of the entire incident. Read it through:

  • Small thread on a small, common incident. Noticed half way in the metro journey this evening that 2 men, sitting diagonally opposite me, kept staring at me. I looked away + looked back a few times to check, and they were still looking.
  • Opened my hair to cover more of my body, and held my press card tight in my hand – both to feel slightly more secure. Put my music off, so that I could be fully alert.
  • I got out at my station and unsurprisingly, they got off there too, behind me. I raced down, but they were not far behind. Instead of heading towards my exit, I just stood in a corner, waiting for them to go.
  • When they reached the point that you have to punch in the metro card, they looked around, presumably for me. After they crossed the point, they spotted me, whispered, walked a little ahead and stood there, staring, waiting.
  • I wasn’t panicking but had absolutely no strength to get into a verbal spat with them or worse, experience the fear that would inevitable follow if I would walk towards my exit, where they were standing.
  • I stopped a metro policeman who was passing by and told him about them. Immediately, a woman who was earlier in the same compartment as me, approached us and asked if we were speaking about the 2 men.
  • She said that she had changed compartments in the metro because of how inappropriately they were looking at her. And that as soon as she saw me talk to the police, she figured it would be the same reason.
  • The cop, though sweet and helpful, asked us why we didn’t alert an official in the metro about them. Well. Sure. Let’s alert officials everytime a man makes us feel unsafe. Lol.
  • Anyway, he walked with me to the exit and walked down with me too. The men had disappeared by then. Cop told me I’m like his sister but I should speak up as soon as something happens, next time.
  • But that’s the thing. That space where nothing has actually happened yet except extreme discomfort is the space we spend most of our time in, no? Because, there is so much emphasis on the ‘yet’.
  • It’s hard to tell when it can escalate. Navigating public spaces as a woman means you inevitably stay on alert, always, and choose the battles you want to fight. It is exhausting.
  • Have also noticed that I’m a lot less confrontational with such incidents in Delhi – I think that’s because of the reputation this city’s men + crime rates carry, and also because, still new to the city, it feels like it is not my stronghold.

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