POETRY : My 7 commandments to not get raped: Feat-Autorickshaw by Fiona Kezia Winston
There’s a party in my
auto rickshaw this night.
In yellows, greens, grays
and whites, all the lights filtered from street corners,
Motorbike heads, shop
windows and a full gray, thanks to the moon-this could very well be twilight.
The boy who I knew from
school just left, made me promise I’d text him once I reached home,
My whole body
reverberates with a sense of numbness taking over, as the auto swerves other
autos, jumps over ditches and drops into plops of semi-plastered roadside
puddles,
I whisper my holy seven
softly into the lights,
I remember my lessons
very well, thanks to several years of auto-rickshaw-taking and
auto-rickshaw-drivers-assessing:
- Get
into the auto. Check for emergency exits from where you can jump through
from a moving vehicle (without having your knees broken, if you’re lucky).
- Make a
fake call to dad. “I’m coming home in this road, xyz Colony..oh! You’re
just a street away from me? That’s nice.” Just me, casually seat belt
buckling myself into the only safe man in my life, my airbag for a night
of potential head-on clashing.
- Pretend
like I know the map of these lands like the back of my hand. “Oh Alwarpet.
Take a left, a right, a left. I know this place. Am I sure? Yes I’m sure.”
(Am I though? No I’m not. Obviously.)
- Never
make eye contact with the driver. Both direct and in the rear view mirror.
Avoid his eyes like the plague. Some eyes hold secrets, some hold
vengeance. Sometimes for my short skirts, for my top that has ridden a
little over my midriff without my knowledge, for an accidentally exposed
thigh, for my made up face, for my lips: both lipstick-painted and raw. “Don’t
give him reasons to be preyed upon”, I say, in my mother’s voice this
time, over and over in my head till I drown out my own voice that squeaks
to a hurt halt.
- Keep
your eyes on the streets. Look for allies on the street as they buzz by
you, lost in their own cynosure of vehicle smoke, sweat stained bodies,
tired eyes and tiring tires that go round and round and round. The
wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.
The wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the town.
- Do not
smile even if he makes a joke that tugs a smile. Think of the girl that
was shredded from inside the walls of a bus and thrown to the streets like
a ragged doll. The doors on the bus go open and shut; Open and
shut; Open and shut. The doors on the bus go open and shut; all through
the town. Does that ring a bell?
- If the
auto takes a different turn, think nothing, speak nothing, see nothing.
Just JUMP through the escape route figured out in commandment 1.
The holy seven
commandments run through my head as I slip my hands into my pockets and count
the loose cash.
One,
Hundred,
Two,
Hundred,
Three,
Hundred.
I shoot a swift glance at
the rear view mirror, thereby breaking commandment 4.
I cuss softly into my
handkerchief as I avert my eyes from red rimmed bloodshot eyes that look back
at me.
There’s a party in my
auto rickshaw this night.
In yellows, greens, grays
and whites, all the lights filtered from street corners,
And in the grays I see
him turn towards me,
A sliver of cold runs
through my spine as I gather my backpack in my arms and brace my body for the
jump, for the possibility of the broken knees, teeth and an elbow if I’m not
lucky,
He smiles and I freeze to
my seat.
When he turns around to
face the road again, my insides don’t seem to exist, all I can see is the bus
that runs parallel to my auto, its wheels going round-round-round, a cold
bloodied rod, a naked rag doll on the streets, my insides churn, I choke a
little as he turns around to offer me his fingertips and gasoline-stained half
empty Aquafina bottle.
I pretend to drink, as I
break commandment 4 again and watch the rear view in case he’s watching me.
He’s not.
I place the bottle at my
feet and my sigh heaves loud when my house grows from a dot to a fist, in the
distance.
A slice of the chrome
street light falls on my face, a fragment of the night, in yellows, in the
colour of “I can finally breathe again”, as I step down and hand him the
counted cash, balled into a wad in my pocket.
I run back into my house,
my heart pounding “round-round-round” in timed syllables till I close the door
behind me and suppress an urge to cry.
Tears lodge behind my
throat as a loud rasp in the door tears through the night.
My house rings back an
echo. Empty houses do that, just like empty hearts, I try not to think that as
I bite back a sob.
I prepare for the worst,
my hands in a fist as I unlock the complicated locks specially designed for
single women in unsafe localities.
Twist once-round the
dial, twist twice, round-round-click! Swipe, press, let go, the clasp of the
handle falls heavily about with a creak.
My town is a hotmess of
unsafe happenings and my newspapers are filled with more gore than news, but I
can think of nothing, as I open the door to see him standing at my doorstep, a
smile that stretches across his face.
Eye to eye,
One corner of his face to
the next,
Dimple to dimple.
It might’ve been sinister
if the chrome street lights threw him a ray of light from a different angle,
but no lights fall on his face and he looks more like a man I used to know when
I was young than the Hannibal Lector I had imagined his face would be like, up
close.
I watch him pull the
lever of his stubborn auto gear twice and then leave into the night with a puff
of gasoline smoke behind him.
If I noticed carefully, I
might’ve seen the party in his auto rickshaw this night.
But I see no lights when
he leaves, only the crumpled 100 rupee note in my hand and the “you gave extra
cash Mam” in my ears ringing like a rhyme, overlapping the
round-and-round-and-round in my head,
As I type out a message: “I
reached home” to the boy I met before, and hit send.
About the Writer:
Fiona Kezia Winston is a Spoken Word Artist, Published poet, Writer, amateur boxer and PhD scholar from Chennai. She has authored 3 books till date and is currently working on 2 more. Fiona believes in the power of words and passionately hopes to change the world, one word at a time.
Fiona Kezia Winston is a Spoken Word Artist, Published poet, Writer, amateur boxer and PhD scholar from Chennai. She has authored 3 books till date and is currently working on 2 more. Fiona believes in the power of words and passionately hopes to change the world, one word at a time.
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