It’s the 31st: let’s attack some women

Here’s a story that happens every year: ‘women attacked my frenzied mob’. Last New Year’s Eve, it was at the Gateway of India. This year, two couples – one newly married – were attacked in Juhu. A group of 50 men simply pounced on them, and began molesting the women.

This is the psyche of Mumbai -- a city that’s touted to be safe, open-minded and cosmopolitan. But simmering under this veneer of coexistence and equality is a mentality that is chilling and menacing. Everyone, the rich and the poor, are guilty. You could be walking in a chawl or parting at a ritzy night club, either way you're not safe.

On New Year’s Eve, when everyone is under the influence of alcohol and roaming the streets looking for an angry fix; it takes little to excite the masses. The mob knows that there will be little or no consequences to their actions on this day; they are free to do as they please. And so, on December31st, if I’m in town, I flee to the safety of my home. The roads are not safe after 10.30 at night, and I have no faith in the police. I have forgotten what the roads look like on the 31st, and now, I no longer want to know.

In 1977, Anne Pride’s war cry rang out in Pittsburgh. Take Back the Night, she said, and the women of the world took up the chant. In Mumbai, we too, are shouting the slogan, but the night never did belong to us.