Dear Narendra Modi, Amitabh Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan and Anil Ambani, I am writing to you specifically because you are the most powerful and influential MEN in our country. I am writing to you for help!
I was just 13 and I was groped I never saw his face but I’ll never forget his hand. I still remember what I was wearing, as if, it was the dress’ fault. My dad and uncles told me I was imagining it. Maybe they just couldn’t deal with it.
Can you? When I started going to college in a bus, I was groped several times and this was just how I grew up. Not just me but most Indian women. A few times, I slapped those who touched me I got slapped back too.
(Years later) My mom accompanied me to Hyderabad on a shoot once. A cyclist groped my mom. My dear mom. It’s not our shame, it’s their shame. Let’s make this our motto it’s not our shame, it’s their shame. Who are “they”? “They” are the men in our country. Not just the sexual offenders, but also our fathers (sorry dad) and uncles and brothers and movie stars and politicians for not saving us or protecting us by insisting and protesting for the laws to change and rapists and gropers to be punished severely.
In the past four years I have been living and working half in India and half in New York and let me tell you I have walked the streets of Harlem, the Bronx and Brooklyn (perceived as the most dangerous in NYC) at 3 am after parties in short skirts and felt safer than I feel in Bandra at 10 pm on a quiet road fully covered.
What good are all your speeches in the US or Japan or Australia, NAMO, if no woman can walk freely in the streets even in broad daylight. Isn’t this a shame? Shame on you sir.
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