3.20am. I’m taking an auto from Khar West. The driver scans me like he’s checking me out. My friend urges me to send my live location to her. I take the auto and he continues to stare at me from the rear view mirror. You know that stare, the creepy one.
I call a friend and talk to him in the hope that that helps the situation. Then I remember that a minister claimed that I should call 100 instead of calling a friend when I’m scared, so I keep the number dialled and ready to call. I warn my friend about the circumstances.
I see plenty of traffic cops on the highway with their breathalysers. He continues to stare from the rear view mirror and I remain hypervigilant, scanning exit I need to jump out of if he makes one wrong turn and sways from the directions I’ve given him.
The auto approaches Dharavi and he slows down near a turn. My heart rate has escalated. I’m now surrounded by 5 men, centimetres from the auto and I’m petrified for my life. Multiple scenarios play in my head - how they’re going to abduct me, gang rape me and then burn my body.
The auto picks up speed again but I see him scan his surroundings. I wonder if he’s looking for a secluded spot where he can turn to and how the same men I saw at the Dharavi turn would make an appearance to do the deed. I’m scared for my life beyond imagination.
Sion approaches and he stops the auto. He claims that something isn’t working and I need to take another auto. 3 men huddle around my auto. A friend calls and I’m almost in tears, repeating ‘I’m really really scared. They’re going to do something.’ She has my location.
I curse myself for not having exact change. What if they choose that moment and two men jump from a either side, throw my phone outside to them take me to a corner, gang rape me and then burn me alive? Who will know where I disappeared? Why have I brought this upon myself?
I continue saying ‘I’m really really scared’, I don’t count the exact change he returned and I almost start running on the street. I see men everywhere, huddled in groups, scanning my body, talking to each other. I cannot hush the thought that they’re all going to rape me.
100 is ready to be called, a friend is on high alert with my location, I choose directions to run in if necessary while also making peace with my imagined outcome - gang rape + death; till I find another auto who agrees to take me home.
I’m hyper aware for the entirety of the ride, I’m almost in tears out of fear, I keep looking behind to see if I’m being followed, I’m calculating the distance to the nearest police station while my friend throws suggestions on the other end of the call.
I made it home and I cried. I was convinced that I wouldn’t. This city has been my home since I was born and I have felt safer over here than I have felt in many other places because the bar is already so low. Our bodies are treated ruthlessly everywhere.
I hate that we have to feel like this. Hyper alert, expecting to be raped and killed, diminishing our freedom, triggered and hyper vigilant. This is the most terrified I have been in a long long time. I was convinced that this was it. This is a pathetic world to live in.
