Isn’t it time we began talking about ‘safe and unsafe’ behaviour, when incidents like the rape of the girl from TISS take place? Of course the heinous crime of rape shocks and angers us all, and the perpetrators deserve the strictest of punishments. And of course eve-teasers (the boys in this case were known eve-teasers back in their home towns) should be dealt with severely, and boys must be brought up to respect girls and not assume that girls are up for grabs if they come out for a drink. So for those who will jump on my throat and say: are you suggesting the talibanization of our girl’s lives, etc, right at the outset, let me say: I believe girls should have the freedom to come and go as they please, meet who they like, and dress as they want.
I am also well aware that in some places, women in perfectly ‘safe’ times of the day, and perhaps right in their own safe neighbourhoods, wearing ordinary unremarkable clothing, are raped. Having said that, however, is it not equally important for girls and women to have a ‘danger/threat perception’ in place when they choose to go out with someone to some place? The girl in the TISS case, seemed to have a shocking absence of these ‘filters’ in place. This newspaper carried her statement, so I won’t go into the details, but it distressed me deeply to hear that this girl sat around with boys who kept egging her on to drink (first red flag), then wouldn’t let her leave when she wanted to (second red flag), kept drinking and rolling joints themselves (third red flag), decided that they would drop her to the next place that she wanted to go to at well past 1 am (fourth red flag). She then gets into a rikshaw with some of them, with others trailing behind, and agrees to a detour to some unknown place to someone’s house (many more red flags). My blood ran cold reading this, wondering if it was that easy to get a girl to pawn her common sense these days, in exchange of some so-called fun?
Without dragging gender and women’s rights issues into this matter, I really think it’s about common sense. And no, having to exercise my common sense doesn’t always mean I have lost my freedom. For instance, I wish I could live without door and car locks, but common sense tells me I can’t. I must use them. It also tells me and also any man too, that I don’t walk on a lonely road late at night with a bag full of cash. It tells me not to sit in a car with a drunk driver. Common sense also tells me whether the people I’m hanging out with are good guys or dodgy creeps. And it’s not an age-related thing. Kids and young girls too know how to exercise that common sense which teaches them safe behaviour. It’s not about teaching young girls to be scared and ill-confident and dress up in gunny sacks and never look at boys. It’s about teaching them discernment – the ability to know what to wear where, who to go out with at what time, and when to cut out of an evening that is obviously not going well.
And no, for those who want to jump to conclusions and twist my words, please note: I am not saying about the TISS girl - ‘she deserved it’. I am saying, in a case like this, she could have avoided it, but tragically didn’t read the road signs that seemed to have popped up loud and clear at several junctures on that fateful night – this was evident in her own telling of the events that lead up to her waking up to a living nightmare.
After the incident, some newspapers screamed: ‘Is Mumbai safe for women?’ This is an important and recurring question. But I’m afraid, that in this case, no city can be safe – not if a girl decides to hand over her sense of safety into the hands of 6 drunk sickos.

Gouri Dange