I Had a Dream

I had a dream.

“It is 9:00 PM in India.

No TVs are on. Husbands help clear out the dining tables. Sons fetch their sisters’ jackets from the closets. Fathers check if their daughters’ and wives’ cell phones are completely charged. Elderly mothers-in-law hand shawls to their daughters-in-law and granddaughters. It may be chilly outside.

The men and elderly wave from the door as the women step out of their homes. As the elevators fill up on their way down to the first floor and the sound of women’s voices becomes fainter down the staircases, men shut the doors of their houses and apartments. They will stay up and wait for their women to return.

On meeting at a designated spot in the neighborhood, the women walk toward the lane where their maids live. A group of women joins them.

The larger group walks toward the local bus stop which is right next to the metro station. Women returning from work, laptop bags strapped to their shoulders, join them. Some women carry water bottles.

Mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, partners, friends, maids and their employers, housewives and professional women, step out of their homes, neighborhood after neighborhood. Teenagers and adults in T-shirts, kurtas, jeans, and skirts and older women in sarees and salwar kameez – throng the streets.

In every neighborhood, the women walk through the darkest corners which schoolgirls fear to walk past in broad daylight.

The women enter those lanes which their boyfriends, husbands, brothers, and sons avoid after sunset if the women are in their company.

They stop at the local bus stations and watch the men who loiter there.

They spend at least an hour, looking men in the eye at busy street corners. Many of these men try to touch them, poke them, or whistle at them during the day.

Then they walk back to their homes. Their husbands open the doors.

Every single neighborhood in the city witnesses these quiet processions of women every night. News channels report new cities and neighborhoods where the processions start. But they don’t try to interview the women anymore. Journalists and politicians have stopped their fiery debates on NDTV, IBN, and Times Now.They don’t fetch extra TRPs.The women have refused to cooperate with filmmakers….”

Then I woke up. ‘India’s Daughters’ is doing its rounds of controversy, debates, and discussions.