Pervert Alert

About a month ago there was a report in the newspaper about a father who died of a heart attack while having a spat with a drunken man who tried to grope his daughter in the bus. The family was on its way back from a wedding and the bus was just a few minutes away from their stop when the father noticed a tipsy guy making indecent remarks and gestures at his teenaged daughter. In the heated argument that followed, the father collapsed. He was immediately taken to the hospital, where he was proclaimed dead of a sudden stroke. After venting out their anger and disgust on the offender, the other passengers on the bus handed him over to the police.

The very next day, at the same spot where the previous day’s tragedy occurred, a young IT professional who was on her way back home in a city bus, got up from her seat, turned around and landed one tight slap on the face of a man sitting right behind her. Terrified, the man hurriedly got out of the bus and ran for his life. The fuming woman got down too and chased him with all her strength and speed. People on the street, thinking the man to be a chain snatcher caught him for her and beat him black and blue. The livid lady punched him left and right too.

When the initial excitement of having caught a thief died down, the crusaders asked the woman what exactly had happened. The woman told them how the man had been disturbing her from the moment she had got on the bus. She explained that at first she thought it was accidental but when he did it again, she knew she had to react. The man was handed over to the police and a case was filed against him under Section 354 IPC (outraging the modesty of a woman). The middle aged man pleaded ‘innocent’ and said that he had ‘accidentally’ touched the woman.

Thrice. That too in an almost empty bus. Yeah right!

And just yesterday as I was traveling in the bus, happily seated near the window, ear phones plugged in, listening to a nice Malayalam number, I saw a scene on the footpath that compelled me to pull out my ear plugs. Our bus was waiting for the signal to turn green when I saw a man, slowly, very cautiously walking towards a woman who was irritably looking into her phone. The woman had her back to the man and he was walking towards her making weird faces. And then he got too close for comfort and the woman was still unaware. Now he was literally breathing down her neck and there was a maniacal glint in his eye.

It was then that I pulled out my plugs. The stories mentioned above came into my mind and I knew I had to react. I was thinking of calling out to the hapless woman to draw her attention to the moron when suddenly the man said ‘TTTho!’ scaring the woman out of her wits. She shrieked, almost dropped her phone in the process, jumped around, went blank for a second and then threw her arms around him. The brief embrace broken, the man took out his phone, showed her the screen (which probably showed girlfriend/wifey calling), both of them started laughing, he wore his helmet, got on his bike, the woman hopped on too and they happily sped away. Everything happened too fast.

Feeling slightly stupid I pushed back my ear plugs into their rightful place and reclined into the seat. I looked at the lady sitting next to me who was sound asleep. Thank God, I didn’t think of waking her up. Or may be I should have, she would have become a partner in my folly. The guy looked so convincing as a lecher!

Anyway, the message should not get lost in the typical ‘Destiny’s child’ incident. All those jobless, groping, lewd idiots, this is what I have to say to you, ‘Get lost pervert! Women on alert!’