Monday, August 13, 2012

Where Am I Safe?

Hardly a month back, we read about and saw visuals of the Guwahati incident where a teenage girl was molested outside a bar, in public, by a group of 10-20 men. And not one person came to her help. Not one vehicle stopped to help the girl.
A couple of days back, I read about the attempted rape and subsequent murder of a 25 year-old lawyer in Mumbai by the security guard of the building where she was staying.
And I got to asking myself , "Where am I safe?" 
"Is there any place left where I can be and not feel threatened?" 
We are not foolish to actually believe that the security guards in our buildings and offices will be our protectors but then we also do not think that they will be the perpetrators of premeditated and heinous crimes.

As single working women, living far away from our families, we are on our own. Literally. We have only ourselves.
And no, not all Indians are my brothers and sisters, like they made us recite in school. Brothers and sisters come to your help. The majority of the people won't.

It's been five years since I left home to pursue a college degree and a career and there hasn't been a single day when I could walk down the streets without worrying about getting touched, groped or molested.
I live in constant fear of being violated. It's a fear that I share with every other girl.
And the time of the day doesn't make much of a difference really. I am as scared at 2 in the afternoon as I am at 10 in the night. Maybe a little less but just the same.

There are dangers lurking every where, in every corner. At any time. It's a minefield. You never know when you will step on one and it will blow off.
And above all, there's the feeling of complete helplessness when you realize that your safety is not in your hands anymore. You can take all the caution in the world but people with the intention to do harm will always find a way to harm you.
Safety has become only an illusion, even if you do feel safe. And it takes only one small incident for that to break.

The streets have never been safe for us women. The home is no longer safe now.
All we can do is pray to a non-existent being and ask for protection.


Friday, August 10, 2012

Do Or Die

It's a serious affair. Either I Do or I Die.

Either I get into a decent B-School next year or my life is over. Like over over. 
It might sound a little too dramatic. But that's pretty much the truth.
Professionally, my career in my present firm is taking a downhill road.
And it's not that I am not doing my job well or I have bad relations with everyone. It's just that I have good relations with almost everyone except the decision-makers/the service line managers - the people who will be deciding whether I can move on to the next level in the firm or not.
And I am not even trying to change the way things are. Because ,simply put, I don't want to. I don't care. I have no intention to stay.
I have pretty much made up my mind to leave the firm by early next year. I am staying here only because people tell me the "profile" and "brand-name" of my firm's gonna help me in my MBA interviews if ,at all, I clear the written part of the exams. I am hanging on just for that reason.
So imagine not making it through the written exams. This one year will have been a total waste then. My career will have been messed up beyond salvation. My MBA aspirations will have been crushed.
I will have nowhere to go. Neither here nor there. What would I do then?  I have no answers.
I am scared beyond words. I freak out at times. No, I freak out most times.
Of course, I am trying my best here. But I don't know what the future holds. I will only know by the beginning of next year.
I will know then if I will get a shot at being "something" and doing "something" I want.