Being 11

On a crowded public bus when the conductor repeatedly groped my left breast. That is really my first memory of having breasts, as my body had begun to change a few months / weeks before the incident.

Action Shero Aarti Laxman Rastogi

Place: Chennai

Being 9

I've always been aware of catcalls and whistles and stares, ever since I was a young girl growing up in the 90s in what used to be one of the safest cities in India - Kolkata. It's hard to recall my first memory.

At some time it had started to seem a matter of course that running errands for my mum at the grocer's nearby in the evenings would mean crossing the group of boys sitting around in their bikes and leering. It was also a matter of course that I would have my head bowed with fear of eye contact. I may have heard them say things clearly aimed at me which I didn't understand at the time, though I felt the intent vaguely. Or they sang snatches of film songs when I passed. I was terrified of going out into the streets alone and would slouch to blur my growing breasts.

Though I'm relatively more equipped to handle eve-teasing now than when I was 9 (well not really; petite me was hugged successively last year by a random old man and a high school student on Delhi streets), I'm still afraid of the chance eye-contact with strangers on the street. It's ridiculous, having to live with that fear and walking blinkered because of a large number of men that would probably get a hard-on at the sight of a polo mint.

Action Shero Kaushani

Place: Kolkata, India

Being 13

Mine was when I had wore a pair of jeans and full armed T shirt with a wide neck. Not only did I hear the boys on the road whistle and make those cheesy kissing noises (that most of the times is also used to call out to the dogs), even the Police men on the road were clearly leching. I was just about 12-13 years old. Though I did not understand why I was feeling humiliated, I felt humiliated and guilty even at that age. This took place in Kodagu district, Madikeri town. my hometown.

The second time was when a man passing by me, passed a lewd comment such as ""lovely knocks"" or some crap like that. My friend's sister who was walking along with me, instead of being irritated with the man who said it, in turn advised me 'not to wear' the sleeve-less T I was wearing, ever again!! I was around 18years old. This Happened in Malleshwaram area in Banagalore.

Action Shero Anonymous

Place: Karnataka

Being 18

When I was walking back from school and a young boy, probably a street child, grabbed my breast.  Fortunately I was wearing my school blazer and so while I didn't as violated (if I had not been wearing the blazer)  it left me feeling used and powerless even against a person almost my age and size.

Action Shero Manjari Chakravarti

Place: Lucknow, UP

Being 12

I was 12-13 years old and on my way back from tennis practice. I would usually wear shorts and a t-shirt to tennis practice every evening. I would always sit in the front passenger seat and eat my snack on the way back home. One evening on the way back from tennis i had my snack box in my hand and i could feel my driver's eyes staring down at my legs. At first i thought he was just looking at the gear, but even at a traffic signal i could feel his eyes staring down at them. I can never forget that feeling of discomfort, I just couldn't wait to get home. I was so uncomfortable that I pretended like I needed something out of my tennis kit and reached to the back seat, grabbed it, pretended to look for something, and then placed it on my lap to cover my legs the rest of the way home. After that day I never sat in the front seat of the car next to my driver, I was not comfortable being in the car alone with him.

Action Shero Anonymous

Place: Bangalore

Being 10

I was 10, my father and i went to get colours and pichkari for holi to a market which wasnt very crowded, but in a locality which wasn't very secure. i was standing right beside my father and was wearing a frock when i felt someone groping my butt, and i was shocked and startled, i looked back and this uncle was standing there with a confident smile on his face. As i tugged my dad's hand to tell him someone was behind us, he went away.. I was really angry and couldn't fathom why or what had happened to me for a long time.

Action Shero Anonymous

Place: Noida

Being 26

My Lucky Stars. I know I would have been gang raped that day in Mathikere, one of the most crowded areas, if I hadn't rushed to my car & locked myself in & driven off at TOP SPEED. My brother & I had been to a restaurant a few lanes past my house. We parked in a dark by-lane opposite an old building, a hostel. There was rush in the hotel too & too many men. My bro feeling protective and did not want me to stand in the Queue. We decided one would get the food and the other would pick the car and come back to the hotel. As I was walking towards my car, I felt a groups of guys walking into the same lane as I was. I heard footsteps behind me. The Footsteps started gaining speed. I could hear them now & understand a few words of malayalam. "Lets catch the deer". Alarm bells rang in my head, strategies to escape the group of perverts. If I had run, they would instantly catch me. Hence I picked pace gradually and rushed to my car, sat in and locked my doors immediately. Started the vehicle. By the the guys had caught up and come to the car. They tried opening my door & started banging on the window & top. I just drove at top speed & might even have injured the foot of the person trying to open the door. It was a scare I still cannot forget. An advantage of a few seconds saved my life that day.

Action Shero Anonymous

Place: Bangalore

Being 24

I was working in MNC Tech-support centre. The Tempo-traveler driver would drive at maniacal speeds for cheap thrills on the roads of Bangalore. Others did not want to go against the driver and make an issue out of it. Talking him out of speeding only earned his ire. Anticipating a road accident, I complained to the management about the driver. He disappeared from our route for a month & came back again to seek revenge. Some drivers warned & asked me to avoid his route for sometime. He would deliberately drop me last late in the night, make lewd comments, declare threats. It was scary to be in the same place as him. I had already put my papers and quit in a weeks time & hence unknowing escaped a plight that a few years later happened Pratibha from HP. She was brutally raped and murdered by the cab driver. A few months after I quit, one of the vehicles of the MNC lost control banged into the wall of HAL compound. A young lad, new joinee, died in the accident and many were injured. Speed control was introduced & measures were taken.

Action Shero Anonymous

place: Bangalore

Being 12

Since my parents were quite protective of me in my childhood it was quite a while before I was confronted with this looming issue. The earliest memory of street harassment would be when I would walk alone to the market nearby and could literally feel the gaze of several jobless men on the road. There was singing songs, sleazy dialogues from Hindi movies and the whispered or loud remarks as I walked by. It failed to bother me after a point.

It was maybe because I never risked wandering into an empty lane alone as a child or I lived on a busy street that my earliest memory of street harassment is nothing that scarred me forever. However the feeling is something that makes me uncomfortable and causes me to hasten my pace as I'm walking on the road, avoiding eye contact or any sort of communication with the person who causes this discomfort.

Action Shero Pallavi Dutta

Place: Kolkata

Being 12

My first vivid memory of sexual harassment occured when I was around 12 or 13 years old. Those were the days when E-ticket booking was not common, and one had to reserve the seats online, and the ticket would be delivered at your doorstep.

Since my both my parents have jobs, I had the task of collecting the ticket.

The doorbell rang at around 3 in the afternoon. This is how it should've happened. I open the door but not the grill, collect the ticket, read out the PNR number, sign the slip and close the door.

Except that is not how it happened.

I collected the ticket, took the list and asked for the place to be signed upon.

There was the locked grill between us and yet that did not bother him.He cupped my breast and squeezed it and at the same pointed out the place to be signed.

I quickly signed on the paper, returned the papers to him and shut the door behind me.

This happened twice.

To this day, I shudder to think what would've happened if the grill wasn't locked. Also, i'm writing this story anonymously, not because I prefer not to disclose my identity, but because when I think of this incident, its a little hard to digest the fact that I had been a victim of child abuse. That I just let him get away with it. That I knew what he was doing, but did not slap his hand away, because I was so terrified and shocked

Action Shero Shipra

Place: Bangalore

Being 4

Calcutta. Maidan. February 27th. 8pm. My mother and I were really excited about the elaborate book fair that took place every spring. We entered this stall of books on art. Ever since i was a child, those books appealed to me. So engrossed in one of the books, I failed to notice the presence of a middle aged man (my guess would be 40ish) too close for comfort. Suddenly, this man started commenting on a human anatomy book, few decibels above normal, as if to grab my attention. He said things like "Bah, ki shundor...ei shober-i toh dorkar". (Wow, so beautiful, only all this is important). I looked at what he was commenting and was highly disturbed to see him staring at a rendering of a nude woman. I kept glancing through other books, as it was the ONLY way by which i could ignore what had just happened. Soon enough i could feel something poking me. I swiftly turned to find that very man rubbing his erected genitals on me. I was in a state of shock and my mind was blank. Somehow my instincts made me run to my mom who was just five steps away. I couldn't explain to her anything at that moment but just pointed out to that man. I don't know what she understood, what she assumed but she guarded me from that man and we left that stall.

Shockingly enough, that man followed us to the next stall without our notice, and this time he tried the same thing on my mom. Both of us petrified, left that place immediately and were too scared to even console each other.

Action Shero Anonymous

Place: Kolkata

Being 12

When I was harassed for the first time in yehlanka, I felt no better than a punching bag.two boys on the bike were taking round outside my house. They exactly knew where I lived and how far I travelled. They would often pass sleazy comments at me to draw attention. On one of my trips to the market, when I was walking alone on the road, they came behind me and try to grab my back. Thankfully I turned and jumped in the bushes. They missed the prey. I felt quite victorious but threat and imposing seance of danger still lingered. On my way back from the market, the same men on the very same bike fisted and punched me hard on my hip. It was pretty obvious from the way they hit me that they were angry. They were angry because they missed their target or were they angry because I teased them unintentionally by being able to protect myself from them the first time. After closed retrospection, I came to a dilemma. I had a choice to make. Either to get felt up and sexually harmed or to be violently hit and abused. Should I just surrendered or put up a fight knowing that I will loose.

Action Shero Anonymous

Place: Gujarat

Being 13

Well I haven’t had any nerve-wracking experiences, as far as eve-teasing is concerned. Mild forms of eve-teasing such as cat-calling, staring, passing comments, or just a once over, at least one of them is a daily dose for every woman.

The debate remains-How much is too much? To what extent must women ignore and move on? Is retaliating the best solution? Does walking away in silence with your head down seem right to you?

There’s no dearth of pepper sprays, pocket knives, or even self-defense classes. But what purpose do all of these serve when we are attacked and for a split second, we find ourselves in the shackles of fear, worry and helplessness.

With recent comments by politicians stating that women must learn to dress acceptably and must not get carried away by western influences, and blaming the rampant cases of rape on the explicit content featured in the films nowadays- Who is answerable?

In a century where there are cases of a woman being raped in her own apartment by her watchman, precautions like stay indoors after a certain time seem laughable.

So what should a woman do when confronted by such situations? If she turns around and slaps the offender, what’s to stop him from returning with a bunch of other hooligans like him, and swarming around the woman rendering her vulnerable?

Subah chaai peete waqt, akhbaaron mein balaatkaaron ki khabrein padhte toh hai, magar hamdardi ke alaawa de bhi kya sakte hai? (We read the news of women being raped as we sip our tea, but what more can we do apart from sympathizing? )

Action Shero Shipra

Place: Bangalore

Being 12

I was going to my cousin's house for my summer vacation. I was in a bus sitting next to my uncle. There was a lady sitting in front of our seat. There was a guy standing next to her and was intentionally trying to lean on her whenever the bus driver was applying breaks. He was just exaggerating the inertia even more and was trying to rub himself on her. She was giving her looks after every gap of a time but he was pretending as if he was not doing anything. After certain time she stood up and went towards the front and was standing over there. That time I was young enough to understand these things but I couldn't say anything to that guy.

Action Shero Anonymous

Place: Bhojpur, Bihar, India

Being 14

My first memory of street harassment was sometime in school when I was walking back from school and this random guy came and touched my boobs and by the time I realised what happened and went ahead to say something he had already got onto a bus from the signal.

Action Shero Anonymous

Place: Mumbai

Being 11

I was around eleven years old, shopping on Park Street, Calcutta with my mother. I was wearing light blue jeans and a over sized T shirt, when I felt a huge wave of crowd from the back. I felt trapped with people everywhere, there was no breathing space when I felt someone's hand very harshly pushed up against my lower back. I was alarmed I tried pushing myself away, It was a collective attack, I realized that there was more than one man involved so I pushed myself out and ran to my mother.

Action Shero Anonymous

Place: Calcutta

Being 13

I was 13 years old when I first experienced street harassment. I was entering a Café Coffee Day with a friend. And while we were climbing the stairs of the café there was a bunch of young men staring at us. We ignored them and kept walking on, when one of the guys teasingly barked, ‘bow-wow’. Angered by his provocation, I replied, ‘kutte ho kya?’ and entered the café. I felt very uncomfortable after this incident and was almost disordered by what happened and how I retaliated towards it.

Action Shero Anonymous

Place: Jaipur

Being 11

The Birthday Party, that I never attended.

When I was 11, I was supposed to go for a birthday party at Mc.Donalds. But some misunderstanding happened and my dad dropped me at a wrong branch of Mc.Donalds. I went inside and discovered that there was no party here and begin to worry. Even though this branch was very close to my house I was alone and scared. So I called up my dad from the telephone booth across the road and asked him to pick me up. I have to describe what I was wearing, I wore a short skirt, and a boat neck top with a butterfly sticker tattoo near my neck. All in pink. YES, that!  And I got a few stares and whistles while I was waiting for my dad to come. I was so uncomfortable, nervous and almost in tears. My dad came soon and picked me up safely. As soon I sat in the car, I burst into tears at the awkwardness of the incident.

Action Shero ANONYMOUS

Place: New Delhi

Being 14

It was the day my parents first allowed me to go the mall and watch a movie with my friends without a chaparon. We were very excited with the new freedom that we had gotten. We watched the movie and then decided to hang out in the mall for a while until my friends car came to pick us up. As we went from shop to shop we realized that a man was following us. We were really scared because this was our first time out alone. He came close to us and in a really creepy way said 'Hi girls'. We looked at each other and started walking away. When we got a message that the car had arrived we started running towards the car as the man followed. Luckily we got into the car fast. It was an extremely scary experience. After that experience my friends and i realized why our parents hesitated so much to send us alone. It was after that day that i became conscious of eve-teasing.

Action Hero Saasha

Place: Bangalore

Being 11

When I was in class 6, we lived in an apartment in Marredpally, Hyderabad. Close to my home, there was a quaint temple. Ever so often, I would visit that temple alone to escape the noise and feel a sense of calm. Back then, I truly believed I felt a connection with God. One evening after school, I told my mother I wanted to go to the temple. This temple was one of those with a huge tree and a place to sit around it. As I sat there, a man was walking alone in the temple. A few minutes later, I completely forgot about his presence and went about my routine. As I was absorbed in my own world, much like 11-yr-olds are, when I felt someone's hands around me. The same man picked me up and cradled me in his arms. He brought his lips close to mine when I tried to scream. He held onto me tighter and I felt helpless. He was not heavily built. But I remember that part of my body was numb from the shock to even react or in this case run. I remember screaming for help. But my voice was barely above a whisper and the temple was empty. When I did manage to escape his touch, I ran home, crying all the way. For a long time, I couldn't explain to my mother or sisters what had happened. I don't think I ever fully explained it. But they understood the gist because somewhere deep down, they had all lived similar experiences. I have never been able to write or talk about it. I am 22 and I still find it difficult to walk by the temple without feeling shivers. But today, with ample distance from the incident, I am brave enough to remind myself that back then, over time and even now, I am not to be blamed. Every time a story of abuse, “eve-teasing” or harassment arises, I am forced to relive so many of those traumatic experiences. These suppressed memories are unnerving and vivid, almost like it all happened yesterday. I find myself repeatedly questioning the similarities between each of the incidents, if any. Wondering what I could have changed. What could I do differently in the future? I have to make a conscious effort to tell myself, it is not my fault and not dwell on those insignificant details. I have never asked for it.

Action Shero Anonymous

Place: Secunderabad, India