The other day I was travelling by a BMTC bus. A lady passenger extended a hundred-rupee note to the conductor for her ticket and that was it. The conductor started abusing her left and right. She said she did not have the required change.

He may also not have had enough change. But the way he expressed his problem was indecent. The lady said had he told her this right at the stop, she would have got off the bus.

The bus was crowded and not a single person came to the rescue of the poor woman. When I tried to support her, the conductor started abusing me too.

Such incidents occur everyday in many buses. The moment the conductors find a pretext, they pounce upon lady passengers. On many occasions the conductors get irked if a woman demands balance due to her, as her stop is approaching. They expect the passenger to forget and get off. Then they start abusing the women and if the women react, as it is but natural, then they had it. The conductor starts saying things like, “these women wait to fight. They fight with their husbands at home and not contented with that, they come out and fight with the men on the streets”.

One night I got into a crowded bus at Majestic and was very upset that when we were just about six to eight women passengers, men pushed us behind and barged into the bus till it was crowded up to the footboard. We neither had the physical strength to squeeze ourselves between tens of men nor the indecency to do so. I expressed my feelings to the driver and said why cannot people form queues and why such a disorderly behaviour, where women get overpowered by physically stronger men, that too at 10 in the night.

Immediately, some men in the bus said women were fit to stay in the kitchen and they had no business to go out at that hour of the night.

When I blogged about this kind of verbal sexual harassment, a spate of hate mails were shot at me, calling me “man-hater”. This is the state of women in India. Thousands of women have to bear physical abuses in public silently, because if they raise their voice, there is hardly anyone to support them.  Instead people start advising the women to “behave properly” and “show patience”.

I was working for a nationalised bank and I have been verbally abused and hurt many times, though I was a very efficient and sincere employee, just because I used to support right causes.

For instance, once I demanded that a waste bin be placed inside ladies’ toilets, as otherwise, women were flushing down sanitary napkins, because of which the entire sewage lines were getting choked often. Just for this rightful demand, I was teased and mocked at. They made all sorts of indecent comments about me and my lifestyle.

One so-called “gentleman” manager had the audacity to comment as to why a 45+woman was bothered about sanitary napkins. When such things can happen in a decent workplace, one can imagine what will be the fate of a hapless woman on the streets!

No wonder the shameful incident of 70 men physically abusing two women took place on Dec 31 in Mumbai! This shows how most of the men have such dirty thoughts. Except the photographer, no one stood to save the women! Wasn’t there even one man, who respected women?

It is sickening to read about fathers sexually abusing their own minor daughters, brothers or husbands turning villains or pimps, friends taking advantage of intimate friendships and innocent infants also being raped! Where is the society heading to?