A band of DYFI students, tarined by theatre stalwart NK Sharma, CPI-M have for the past days been conscientising Bus travellers in the capital city on the socital Complicity of Silence that allows/turns a blind eye to sexual violence be it molestation, eve teasing or outright rape. I had an amazing experience going for two bus rides in Delhi with this committed band, acting out in a realistic sense, "feeling around", a young girl slapping her outrage in protest, another young man shooting up to her defence and finally ending in a wonderful nostalgic slogan-song! In the first ride there was a relatively mute response and we got off sedately after the experience ended. We caught another bus, with an equally thin passenger crowd it being a Saturday..but here there was a snowballing of responses. Mostly positive. Hearteningly two men, 15 years apart in age, volunteered actively to support the girl. Once on of them (the "elder") realised that it was a"natak" his outraged ego felt the young crusaders had taken him for a ride. The other not quite sure was vacillating until he too then joined the "protesters' against the protest, now complaining that they were late late and this was making them "later".. The conducter and bus driver, panic-over cautious after the "slap" had parked the bus beyond India Gate and dialed 100. Some of us interested co-travellers started chatting with the remaining travellers; bhajans and kawaalis dot out public cultural lanscape and they too agreed that such krantikari vocalism had a place and must find voice. Seasoned DYFI had got the requisite police permission so All is Well that ended well, this 6th of December...DYFI will have a unique protest on December 16 th in the capital...Equally fascinating was the discussion that three of us women, all post 50 years had, about bringing up boys, gender injustice ..but that is for the next round of Blog thoughts..
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.