by EVELYN FOK
When I moved to India for work, I found that rape was a feature of the country, as deeply embedded as caste
It was a warm spring evening in Bengaluru. Purple jacaranda blooms leaned heavy against the dying light, and warm puffs of exhaust sat suspended in the air, as if urging the monsoon to break. Leaving the newsroom at the end of the day, I decided to stop by an office-warming party for a mapping company I was considering writing about, right by my apartment in upscale Indiranagar. Around two dozen people milled about the open-plan space, sipping beers and bobbing to the reggae playing in the background. This crew was distinct from the regular Bengaluru startup crowd: they had travelled to places like Poland and Peru for mapping projects, and there were quite a few women as well; the lead told me they wanted to reach gender parity soon. They seemed eager to get to know me as a fresh-faced foreigner new to the city, not as a reporter who might feature them in the paper.
Before I knew it, it was almost 10 pm. As I took my leave, my host offered to walk me home. It was rare for me to be out drinking midweek but I shook my head no: I lived just a few blocks away! ‘Are you sure? It’s pretty late,’ he said, with genuine concern in his eyes. I dismissed his worries with a flick of my hand. The gesture felt a little too intimate between a reporter and a potential source; besides, I had chosen to live in Indiranagar precisely because of its reputation for being safe: for the right to walk home without worry. Before he could press further, I made my way towards the exit and spent a few minutes getting lost inside the maze of shoes, my vision woozy around the edges.
Once I’d stepped out of the building, the euphoria of the party took all of two seconds to fade. The road ahead was pitch dark, deadly quiet. A gust of wind whipped against my torso, then another. I steeled my jaw, hunched my shoulders, and began marching the hundred or so metres back towards the bright-lit main road. I’d walked home after sundown a number of times, but this time, approaching the junction, I realised something was amiss: the streetlamp on the corner was not on. The road stayed dark. I figured there must have been another blackout – they had become more frequent as the days grew hotter.
A low-pitched buzz was approaching from ahead – I could just make out the contours of a motorbike scooting towards me at full speed. Before I knew it, a hand had thwacked my chest. When I finally gathered myself to react, I spun around and saw his face, turned towards me from the receding vehicle, shiny with sweat in its red backlight. Tuft of hair on top, double chin bulging from the bottom, the offending arm held out like a weapon. A wicked smile that said: Gotcha. Did you think you were safe?
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