Did I Really Stand Up?

Womensweb has this wonderful blogathon, ‘I Stood up’ running till July 25th 🙂

go on and write for it eh?

I was wondering when I read the title, could I really write about it…I mean, when had I actually ‘stood up’?

I thought a lot…

Was it

– When I went to the principal’s office in my class 5 to defend my brother against the bus conductor who was falsely accusing my elder brother of doing mischief when everyone around knew that my brother was the most ideal child and the conductor was trying to put himself out of trouble and play the blame game and selected my brother as his target

– or was it when I went and slapped a guy in my class 4 because he said something against my parents. I jumped a bench, pinned him down and slapped him saying ‘Fight with me, dont involve my parents EVER’

– or was it when in college, I refused to accept help from the assistant at the ‘filing’ workshop just because I was a girl and actually made a decent work piece without help?
Just because all the other girls in the class pretended that it was too tough, how could the assistant assume that I needed help as well…after all, Appa had ensured that I did the same amount of physical work as the brother..

– or was it, when I defended an old lady from a really rude aunty in the local train, who was trying to blame just that one lady for the entire crowd in the compartment, which was stupid!

– or was it, when I glared at the man who during the break of a Garba session, tried to touch my breasts when I was in my 2nd year college. My glare was enough to make him stop

– or was it, when I abruptly left the side of an elderly relative when he tried to touch my breasts while I was trying to escort him back to a car after a family wedding..

– or may be when, on a bus in Calcutta, from work to home, at about 8 in the night, a guy with sunglasses and a scarf around his neck, kept touching a pregnant me, who was standing because the bus was over crowded, and I tried moving twice, but he was persistent, I turned around and screamed at him in Hindi ‘Aapka problem kya hai, haath theek se rakhiye’ (What is your problem, keep your hand properly) and the conductor made him get off at the next stop…I spent my time rest of the way wondering that even visibly pregnant woman are not spared 😦

– or was it when I was coming back from Ahm and noticed a very old man sitting strategically so that his clean shaven private parts were visible just to where a couple of girls along with me were sitting, and I told the old man ‘uncle barobar beso badhu dekhai che’ (uncle sit properly, everything is being seen), and he left the place immediately? (I think the old man was a pervert, because I have seen him in the same train 3 times when I travelled  between ahm and Baroda, once with my cousin, once by myself and once with my junior of dance class, he would come and sit right in front of where young girls (usually college girls who did up-down from Vidyanagar etc) would sit and show all his private parts, which was horrible!!)

– or was it when I politely refused help to carry R and her bag, by a man in the bus I was not comfortable just looking at…

– or was it when I told a couple of girls in the BEST bus, struggling to fight for space, that the guy standing behind them was not a very good man and he has his hands all over the place…

I really dont know when I stood up or did I stand up at all..

All, I know that some incidents made me feel, I did the right thing, some incidents left a bad taste in my mouth and some incidents I still think I could have handled it better.

Whether its for ourselves, or its for our family or its for any person on the street, whats important is realising that ‘we have to stand up’ We need to speak out for sure…