Raat Ke Rasiye

For as long as I can remember, I have had to fight with my father about letting me stay out late in the night. In the early days of my struggle my deadline was 9 pm. Over the years it shifted to 12 pm. I lived in another city for four years in the middle. At that time my father didn't care what time of the day or night I was returning back home. I can't remember a single day when he checked on me. But I remember days, during my undergrad, when I used to be out having fun with friends and I'd get a phone call which would totally spoil my mood. I would get angry. My mum would get angry. Because my father was angry. Drunk angry. Same arguments. Same explanations  Same fights.

Overtime I realized that it was not so much about my safety as it was about my image in the colony. I was told to beware of my neighbours' judgmental eyes who saw me being dropped  by a car in the middle of the night. So it didn't matter if my parents knew every minute details of who I was with, where I was, who was dropping me back home etc etc etc, all that mattered was what others' would say about me. Ki ladki kaisi hai. Raat raat ko bahar ghoomti hai. Gadiyan isse wapas chhodne aati hain. I obviously didn't tell them that on several occasions I did (and I still do) use buses and autos to come back home after dark.

Sometimes my father used to make blank statements like he wanted to see me in front of his eyes when he returned home. There was no logic and no negotiation. It was a typical aggressive north Indian way of operating where men make blank statements and women blankly submit. Although I must admit, in spite of my father's objections, my mother never threw a fuss about my timings. She was just afraid of my father creating a ruckus around the house.

I remember one night in particular when my father threw a fuss and made me come back at 11.45 pm from a mid night surprise birthday party.. He lectured me on how I should come back home after dark because...wait for this... because even birds come back home after dark. Yes my drunk father, that sounds like an extremely legitimate reason and I am totally going to follow you and the birds home from now on!

Over the years, number of calls from home post 10 pm have reduced. Things have changed. I have become older. My parents have aged. They have supposedly become 'cooler' with all my 'reconditioning'. But it is hard for people to loosen their grips on their daughters. So my parents may not stop me from going out now but there is always a deep discomfort in my absence from the house. For me and for so many of my friends, although less now than before, this has been a constant headache. It is a headache to remind your friends that your parents are conservative, to arrange for someone to drop you home, to leave a nice evening earlier than you would like to and above all to brave that walk from the main gate to the door of your house, walking quietly in the colony, saying a silent prayer, standing outside the door and not ringing the bell but whispering calls to someone in the house to quietly open the door. It is a headache to explain and fight and sometimes even shout over something as simple as wanting to be out in the night.

The last few days have been very interesting. There have been many talks in the house regarding the recent rape case in the city. Every one has been enraged with what happened with the girl. This one seemed more brutal because the girl was middle class, a pre-med student and someone who accessed the same locations and modes of transport as any other girl like me. My parents encouraged me to go for protests everyday. They didn't stop me when I wanted to go for two protests on the same day, not when they saw my photographs shouting slogans in front of police barricades, not when the police charged lathis and threw tear gas at students and not even when I decided to join in a mid night march and walked the streets till 2 in the morning. They were very encouraging and for once, I was happy about finding my parents on my side of a political argument.

A few days back, I was out with a couple of friends. I decided to leave because it was becoming unbearably cold. At that very moment I got a phone call and an attached scolding for not being home again! Before I could say I was planning to leave anyway, I was told that I was doing the exact  opposite of what I had been protesting for. Apparently I was protesting against rape but I was not taking enough measures to come back early and save myself from getting raped!

I decided to not go home that night.