MY Bitter Experiences With Lechers

Lechers have always been a pain for women whether young or old. Most of the lechers of my time were middle aged men or occasionally young men. At the time when I was in school there were men who would stand in the by-lanes and trouble school girls by catching them on their private parts. These men were “bad men” according to Sr. Monica.
These “bad men” were always feared by the boarders because we had to go through a lane in order to reach our school. Very often we boarders were victims of these “bad men.” It was not just one but there quite a few of these “bad men”. Some were exhibitionist while others physically harmed the school girls who passed that way. Somehow I always escaped these men because I was careful to move in groups and not alone.

I started experiencing problems when I started travelling by bus. In bus I was always a hot target. I am not sure as to why I was targetted. My first experience was inside a bus. I was taking a bus to college. The bus was very crowded and I got no place to sit. Suddenly I felt an uncomfortable scratch. Did I feel someone trying to raise my skirt? I tried to watch but it was difficult as the bus was so very crowded.

Oh no! Some one was lifting up my skirt and ‘scratching’ my thigh. I realized it was an engineering college student. Shit!!! That creep was trying to rub his private part into me. I had to react before he did something disastrous. With all my anger and irritation I gave him one hit with my elbow and too on his stomach. I must have definitely used all my energy and that must have definitely hurt him. As he was trying to move away from me I stamped his toes (with my 5” heels). He wriggled in pain but could not scream. I was not ready to lift my leg from his toes until I vent out my anger. Then I moved my legs away. He moved away from me and hastily got down at the next stop. This was an incident where only both of knew what happened. Though I met him a number of times after that incident he never dared to look at me.

After that I had a series of attacks from various men, young and old. Most of them were exhibitionist inside the bus or at side roads. I have had attacks from lechers at the East Fort bus station. They would disappear at lightning speed after attacking me. By the time I realized what was happening they must have disappeared.

The worst experience was from a dentist. My sister was doing her BDS in Manipal. She wanted to see the Dental College in Trivandrum. My one tooth was sensitive to ice water and sweets. I had never been to a dentist. Even I wanted to see how it was to go a dentist. So under that pretext we went to the Dental College. It was a long process. I had to stand in a long queue for the OP ticket. Another queue waited me. I had to see a dentist to find out what was wrong with me. There were people from various backgrounds. Some were dressed clean while most of them were shabbily dressed and were people from the lower strata of the society. The lady who stood just in front of me was a very shabbily dressed woman with oily hair neatly combed and adorned with jasmine flowers. Her hair was so neatly combed that a number of lice (big ones, small ones, black ones, light ones) could be seen going up and down her hair. There was a flock of lice gathered near her plaits. It looked as though they had assembled for a party meeting at the Party Secretariate. She had an awful stink – that of flowers, paan and sweat together. Occasionally she would spit her mouthful of red betel nut juice on the wall adjacent to her which made artist designs on the mosaic wall. I kept a safe distance from this lady. I did not want a ‘tick-tock’ infection on my head. The queue moved at a snail pace.

At last I reached the doctor. He seemed to be a junior doctor. He was a small built, fair bearded man with eagle like eyes. I looked into his name tag. He was a Muslim. I gave him a brief “history” of my tooth in Malayalam. He took an instrument (not sure if it was a probe or an explorer or was it with the mouth mirror?) and gave me one knock at my incisor. I moaned and eyes filled up with tears. It did hurt me. He smiled at me and said in English,

“Your tooth needs a RCT”

“RCT?”

Never had I heard about a RCT.

“Yes, Root Canal Treatment. Your root has been infected.”

He continued, “In doing so you can save your tooth.”

It was the first time that I was hearing about root canal treatment. I was not sure what was all this about. I had heard about extractions. Was the medical science developing?

“So when will you do it …Today?” I enquired

“No, no. You have to register. Buy a postcard, fill your address and give it. We will send you the post card and you will have to come on that day.”
He then continued, “It takes more than six months for that. Look this is not a place for people like you” He paused for a while and said slowly, “I can do it for you if you come to my house,” and gave me a sheepish grin.
“How much will it cost, doctor?”
“Not much, around Rs.750.” (This took place 20 years back. According to my sister there was no dental chair, the place was unhygienic, it was too crowded and the services were much below international standards. I was not in a position to comment because this was my first visit to a dentist)

I agreed, got his address and thanked him. I went to his house the next day. He told me that I should take an x-ray for my tooth and that I should go to the dental college again. I didn’t want t waste another day for it. This time it was much easier as this doctor was there. I didn’t have to wait in the queues. I had a VIP treatment there. My x-ray showed that my root was infected. So I was going to start my RCT the following day. The doctor was a very talkative man. I found that he was my eldest brother’s friend. I had to do four sittings for my RCT.

On the last day of my treatment he was too sugary. His various gestures made me feel uncomfortable. I felt he was coming too close to me and the hot air that he exhaled was too near my face. He was touching my face unnecessarily. I remember my sister telling me that a dentist was not to touch the face of a patient with his/her hands. Here, this doctor was violating the rules of a dentist. After my tooth was filled he put his pointer into my mouth and started pushing it in and out. He told me that the filling had to dry and that is why he was doing so. Every time he pushed his pointer into my mouth I would feel the hair on his pointer rubbing against my lips. I wanted to vomit. It was such a sick feeling…. a feeling of someone’s hair inside your mouth (Yuk!!!). I wanted to ask my sister why she was pursuing a “dirty” profession like this. This continued for about ten minutes. Slowly his left hand started sliding into my blouse. I hit his hand off and got up. I kept the money there and got out off the room. I was simply a stupid to sit there all the while not realizing that he was “fingering” me. I was crying while I got back home. I was again the target of a lecher who held a respectable position in a dental college.

This was the most horrible experience that I had. I saw this ‘respectable’ doctor’s photo in a Malayalam newspaper a few years back. It seems he and a group of doctors did some rare surgery. Many women may have experienced this sort of ‘fingering’ from the same ‘lecher’ doctor. I don’t know why I didn’t create a hue and cry then. Probably I may have been too shocked to react to this situation or was it because I was unmarried and this would be a bad mark on my reputation? Anyway I paid Rs.750 for a RCT and ‘fingering’ came absolutely free. What an offer!!!

Now I make it a point to advice my students and my daughter to react to lechers and to hurt them in such a way that they won’t dare to play with another woman thereafter. I always tell them that they should alert other women especially if they are in some public carrier or in any public place. I ask my students to carry a blade or pin to keep them at bay. Gandhiji taught us non-violence but if we are to follow his policy blindly, I am sure that we women will be targetted by all the so-called ‘respectable’ people of the society. There won’t be a single law to save us from these frustrated men. Is that not what we are seeing in all the harassment cases here in Kerala?