A day at the park

A teenage me in the late 90's. Out on a field trip to a park in Lahore. I casually decide to walk to a nearby water fountain, not realizing I'm briefly separated from my group. It is a hot day indeed! 

I'm drinking water when I hear a strange sound...a scream, like a bunch of hounds. I raise my head in surprise. I see a bus full of teenage boys  - some on the roof of it. Out on a field trip, just like me. I feel all eyes on me. They are a mob - screaming feverishly at the sight of a woman drinking water. How dare I drink water at a public space! They are out to have fun and they will claim their space. How dare I step into it! My brain goes into emergency mode. Good thing we are separated by a barbed wire. Their bus is parked outside the park boundary but they can see me from up there. I grab on tightly to my large dupatta wrapped around like a chadar (something I habitually did when venturing out in public spaces). I walk back as fast as I can to my group of familiar people. I dare not run. I'm well aware women shouldn't run in public. 

Nervous, embarrassed, cursing myself for wanting to drink water. A lesson taught well. I'll remember next time to not repeat this mistake. After all I'm answerable to scrutiny such as "Why did she go there?", "What was she wearing?", "Why was she alone?"

I pretend nothing happened, and I'm hoping no one saw anything. Decades have passed. I have a couple of photos from that day that show me smiling. But all I remember is the random men screaming at me. My older self today is angry I didn't speak up. I imagine myself walking up to that bus and staring at them in the eye. I imagine myself gesturing at them to be quiet. And then I see myself lecturing them on what horrible human beings they are. I tell them how they've ruined my day. I wonder what their response would be. I can't decide if I'm happy I chose the sane response of running away, or mad I didn't speak up. I certainly carry the anger and resentment with me decades later.

An incident at the Minar e Pakistan on Independence day this year takes me back to that day. Hundreds of men assaulted a woman who dared to be present at a public place to celebrate independence just like they were. Things have only gotten worse over the years. I wonder if things would be better had I spoken up that day. I remind myself we collectively form the society, and are all responsible for what is acceptable.

A random thought crosses my mind. I was with a bunch of male class mates. They surely would have stood up for me had they been there - because they know me, because chivalry is still alive, because poor helpless women need men to protect them. Strangely, at the back of my mind, I have this feeling they are perfectly capable of perpetrating the same behavior to another woman they don't know. After all, we get to decide which women to respect and which ones to not.