They are shaken by the mass molestation in the city on New Year's Eve. But they are not waiting to be rescued.
Armed with pepper spray, defence classes and their independence, the women of Bengaluru have taken matters into their own hands.
Nikita Puri reports.
"Find a partner," says the bearded man standing amid 40-odd women in CubbonPark. Some of the women are in track pants, others are in denims. Some are in saris.
"Okay, look your partner in the eye. Now lift your right hand and slap."
His instructions are greeted with incredulous laughter. The women continue to face each other, and none raises her hand.
Akhilesh Kumar, self-defence trainer from The Combat Guild, keeps at it till two women facing each other finally acquiesce.
The slap is soft and another fit of giggles erupts.
"That isn't going to do anything," Kumar says as he proceeds to call one of his students forward and lands a thunderous one on him. "You've got to put some emotion into it. Be okay about taking this slap. Remember, if you can't take a beating, you can't give a beating."
Kumar then goes on to show how to fist someone in the ribs in a way that can cause some damage. Passers-by stop to take note of the classes and go live on Facebook with it. Placards reading #IWillGoOut lie strewn under the trees.
A group called Night In My Shining Armour has organised this self-defence session.
A few days later, it conducts another gathering at Town Hall where over 600 men and women with placards and torches show solidarity against gender-based violence.
Earlier, citizens of the city had taken out protest marches and formed human chains in different pockets of the city.
The trigger was news reports that revelers molested a number of women on hip M G Road on New Year's Eve.
India's Silicon Valley, Bengaluru, attracted old and young alike with its safe and cosmopolitan air. Women went about their lives with carefree abandon, soaking in the liberal calm of the city. Recent assaults against women have made some of them weary.
Soon after the incident at M G Road, a video of stalkers molesting a woman in Kamanhalli went viral.
In December, a 27-year-old advocate was stabbed in public view by a man she had reported to the police earlier.
And before that, a woman working for a top-notch info-tech company was assaulted and murdered, allegedly by the taxi driver who was supposed to drop her home.
Bengaluru registered 714 molestation cases in 2015 and 756 in 2016. A few of these have recently been reported to be false, and this is way below Delhi (around 4,000 cases) and Mumbai (over 2,000). But every case drives home a sense of insecurity and women find themselves engaged in a constant personal battle for safety.
Moreover, around a quarter of the 2015 cases and over three quarters of the 2016 cases are under investigation.
The lack of closure worries people. When cops nab criminal offenders, "the courts should ensure that hard, punitive measures are taken. Just a rap on the knuckles is unacceptable," says Biocon Chairman Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw who keeps a hawk's eye on civic matters.
Till that happens, some women have decided to take matters in their hands.
"I feel like I am always preparing for something (an assault)," says Shaina (name changed). She has never been a fan of big handbags, but nowadays she always carries one. "It's perfectly sized to swing and hit someone."
Besides some money, kajal and lip balm, she has begun to carry a book or two -- not to read but to add weight to the bag. She keeps her keys in a way that they can be used to stab someone, if necessary, and keeps a scarf loosely draped around her. "Some article had said the scarf can be used as a weapon. It doesn't work, but I hang on to it."
Communications professional Anita Jerry Ramesh has been threatened by auto-rickshaw drivers if she doesn't pay them extra. "A bunch of incidents have changed my perspective completely," says she.
Ramesh had given the call for the human chain that was formed in front of Vidhana Soudha on January 7. But she and her friends, who have been advised to be cautious, wonder why they should be the ones to take up self-defence.
"We'd rather spend that time doing something we actually like," she says, adding the city needs to evolve enough to ensure a woman doesn't have to carry a Swiss knife at all times.
As a marketing professional who works late hours, Jithela Yohannan always drives around: no taxis and auto-rickshaws for her. "And I always carry a pepper spray. I don't take chances," she says.
Mazumdar-Shaw says the "ugly and unexpected crimes that have been committed" are because of the city's "population that has suddenly increased over the last 20 years."
Whatever the reason, institutions are not taking chances.
Mindtree, where women account for 28 per cent of the workforce, offers flexible working hours and work-from-home options. A part of the thinking behind this move is the safety of its employees.
At IBM, where a significant proportion of the women work the graveyard shift, there are security guards who accompany women in office cabs during drop-offs.
"All employees have access to an emergency hotline, which is managed by a security team 24/7. We also have panic buttons in all our cabs," says IBM India/South Asia Vice-president Dilpreet Singh. "While we have a formal induction program for the cab drivers and security guards, we conduct breath-analyser tests on them at random."
Colleges like R V College of Engineering regularly conduct self-defence classes, specifically for those staying in hostels.
It's past 11 pm and the guests at popular watering holes in the city are gearing up to leave. Pubs across Brigade Road, Church Street, Koramangala and Indirangar insist the number of women coming in hasn't been affected by the crime reports.
"It's always been 40 per cent women in most pubs and that remains the same," says Vicky, the floor manager at Warehouse in Indiranagar.
Down the same road is The Black Rabbit, a night club. A bouncer is always around and more are called in on weekends, though rarely do they need to intervene.
"The only difference we've seen is that now everyone books a cab and then leaves. Women find that much safer," says Abhilash, floor manager at The Black Rabbit.
A few blocks away, women leaving The Humming Tree, a live music venue, can be seen on their phones doing just that: booking app-based cabs.
Realising that women would feel safer if it's a woman who drives them home, social entrepreneur Vandana Suri started TAXSHE in the city two years ago. "The service is strictly for women, children and senior citizens. And we are completely booked," says Suri.
Pepper sprays have become popular. Back in 2002, city-based Aax Global was the first to launch a pepper spray in India. Named COBRA, it was targeted at women consumers, but Raana Singh, the proprietor, found that it was largely men who bought the product for the women in their lives.
"There has been a slight increase in pepper spray sales here, but I really don't know whether it's because of the recent incidents or it's a result of things returning to normal in the economy after November 8 (demonetisation)," says Singh.
Meanwhile, a techie has developed an app to help women in distress.
Called Ausodhyatmika, the app was originally designed by Krishna Kant Tiwari to offer health-services but the rising concern for safety prompted him to modify the app late last year.
"There's a lack of evidence in the recent molestation cases the city has seen. This app will help by sending out a live video to five of your contacts and it'll also alert the nearest police station," says Tiwari.
The app is free and pressing the power button three times within 10 seconds sends out the SOS.
Top cops insist women are safe in the city.
"Nothing like the alleged mass molestation happened," claims Praveen Sood, the city's new commissioner of police.
Still, he says the protest marches and demonstrations the city has recently seen are welcome. "I don't see them as targeting the police -- I see them as targeting the rotten mindsets. There's no denying that there are perverts among us."
These efforts are also meant for the people who don't intervene when a woman's modesty is being outraged, feels Sood.
"There can't be a policeman everywhere, but there are people everywhere. A lot of people don't react when such untoward incidents happen in front of them."
When the woman in Kamanhalli was attacked recently, there were indeed eyewitnesses who didn't come forward to help her.
The cops are taking no chances.
So far, 579 close-circuit television cameras have been sanctioned to be installed at vantage points for improved surveillance.
For all of the city's population, there were only 14 phone lines open for emergencies; this capacity is now being bumped up to 100 lines.
On the ground, 222 Hoysalas (emergency response vehicles) were introduced only a few months ago.
"We are increasing the representation of women in the police force. We want more policewomen out on the streets. It's roughly 6 per cent now; we want this to become 20 per cent," says Sood. Just earlier this month, 280 women joined the force as constables.
The civil society in Bengaluru is pushing for 24x7 kiosks, sponsored by corporations, at every major junction which could house a policeman, chai/coffee-wallah and toilet.
"The civil society is adopting a zero-tolerance policy towards violence in the city," says Srinivas Alavilli, software professional and coordinator for Citizens for Bengaluru. "People make a city what it is. And Bengalureans are stepping up the effort."
Increased surveillance may help, but the city will be unsafe unless communities own it, feels actor and activist Prakash Belawadi. According to him, if people have the power to decide what happens in their neighbourhood, they will begin to have ownership of the city.
Another way to safeguard the metropolis is to make the city's nightlife more inclusive. "You shouldn't be shutting down the parks at night. People should be able to congregate there. Have the paani-puri and pav-bhaaji wallahs there with the guy who sells peanuts," Belawadi says. "Apart from restaurants, it's important to have the smaller shops that sell badam milk and masala dosa open."
This, he feels, will encourage families to be out and push forward a culture where women can be free to participate in the life of the city.
Mazumdar-Shaw feels that parents of offenders must be spoken to. "In a society like ours, parents can play a major role in curbing such crimes," she says.
The dream here is for a Bengaluru that breathes freely even at night, a city whose life is accessible to all people, night or day.
The Kanglish (Kannada and English) phrase "swalpa adjust maadi" translates into "please adjust a little" and has always been used as a starter-kit for anybody who is new to the language.
It's also a reflection of what Bengaluru is best known for: its inclusiveness. It is this inclusiveness that citizens want to preserve, without compromising on safety.
© 2024 Rediff.com -