Eve-teasing

A visit to India of any duration will introduce the westerner, well accustomed to a culture of transparency and straightforwardness, to the mess of social and economic complexity wrapped in red tape that constitutes the Indian way of doing things. The endless difficulties in getting anything done, the futility of individual aspirations and action, and the constant noise and hassle of this overcrowded country result in what V.S. Naipaul calls 'subcontinental patience': a temperament, perhaps the inspiration for the idea of reincarnation, geared towards accepting the chaos around you and doing your best to stay afloat. For me, with my water wings of western ambition, this environment entails little but frustration. Once in a while, the ogling crowd will just be a little too large or the tuk tuk wallah a little too bellicose or the search for the simplest provision too hopeless and I find myself entering a murderous rage, swearing to myself that I will throttle the next idiot who grabs my arm and asks me what my good name is.

Despite my less than pugilistic nature I have been secretly yearning for an appropriate excuse to take out this pent-up anger on a deserving victim, and last week the gods were kind enough to oblige me. Returning from the Dusshera celebrations (to be covered shortly) with two young western women, we were overtaken by a crowd of repressed youth emboldened by the darkness. While I am accustomed to the occasional slap or poke as some kid tries to get my attention, my Y chromosome had blinded me to the disgusting forms this practice takes on when the target is a woman. I realized the boys were trying to grope my companions, and as one rapscallion with a jaunty hairdo and scraggly goatee shoved his hand between one girl's legs my rage overtook me.

After grabbing him by the back of his neck, I kicked out his legs and forced him to the ground. But his friend came to help, and so I channeled two months of no NFL and clotheslined him. I used the boys' ears to arrange them face down and kneeled on their backs. Luckily, the crowd was composed entirely of pubescent boys whose social awkwardness precluded any understanding of their power were they to unite. I knew the police would be of no help (they would probably book me for assault), so I took a more effective route.

After the two women were in a tuk-tuk, I made the ruffians (still face down, now crying) get out their cell phones and call their mothers. Both arrived from elsewhere in the crowd within a few minutes. Careful to turn the side of my face where I had cut myself during the tackle towards them so they wouldn't join in the fray, I explained through a bystander what had happened.

To my sister and other postcolonialists who are aghast at the idea of an over sized white man beating up two Indian boys: violence is a common sight on the streets here and is seen as an OK way to resolve disputes. What isn't OK is the way Indian men treat western women. In any case, my behavior was justified by the mothers' reactions. After the boys stood up, the women took off their left shoes and started beating their sons far more savagely than I had. The crowd laughed and I walked home, telling Jitu that I had tripped over a brick in the road.