"Fight and Stand up for your Rights"

It's December 1st and our fab five ladies have dwindled down to the crazy three: Priya, myself and Ishita. Honestly, its funny how you end up making friends so randomly and quickly. I went to Thailand really have no expectations...to look at it as a learning experience and I ended up learning a lot more about myself, my reaction to situations and people. Well, because the situation in Thailand so so safe for tourists, us fab five (priya, ishita, joanna, sulo and I ) ended up every night causing some trouble or another on Ko-san road. We made random friends, hung out with cute boys and ate one too many banana pancakes to remember.

We had finally found out that the airport would be re-opened at the earliest date of December 6th. So, that meant that we were confirmed to leave via the military airport. So, us three decided to make the best of it. We met up at Ko- San road and sat down on the sidewalk, enjoying our favorite meal (banana pancakes smothered in carnation milk and chocolate) people watching. What we didn't expect to encounter was the so called “over friendly” Nepalese and Burmese guys intent on causing trouble.

We knew these boys were up to no good. I mean for the past week, every time we walked by they had tried to unsuccessfully sell us something. When that didnt work, they started teasing us and calling us “sexy”...we want to spend the night with you etc. We had tried to avoid it and ignore the comments as much as possible but to no avail.

Today was not the day to mess with me. I was on a roll. I had spent the morning trying to confirm our seats back to India and was utterly embarrassed by the pushy behavior of Indians at the jet airways office. With the men screaming and the women budging the line ups, I found myself making fun of the situation and apologizing on behalf of “my kind” to a bunch of friendly tourists behind me. You have got to understand that these people were acting very foolish and really had no etiquette. You should have seen the number of dirty looks I got for stating that “even though the British conquered India for 200 years, they still couldn't manage to teach us Indians to form a line”. Yes, I know it's racist...but hey I can be racist against my own people!

Well what we had hoped to be a quiet evening enjoying good food took a turn for the worse. Noticing that we three were just alone by ourselves...these boys decided to have a go at it. They started passing lewd comments and finger gestures. At one point we even warned them that if they continued with this behavior we would have to report them.

Infuriated by their responses, we decided to walk to the Ko-san police station and report them. Well, speaking to the Thai officials itself was an interesting experience. They were really sweet but I don't think they quite understood why we were so angry. We tried to describe using hand gestures what exactly the men had indicated. The officer politely asked us to sit and wait until the street officer came to see us. Ishita was so tired from the entire day that she actually ended up falling asleep in the officer's room. I think that embarrassed them to no end and we were asked to politely wait outside until someone came to see us.

Well, an hour later ( yup the Thai officials sure took their own sweet time) the road officer ended up meeting with us. We tried our best in broken Thai, English and hand gestures to indicate what had happened. He asked us to go down the street and he would follow on his bike.

So, we went back towards the pack and they were all ready to taunt us again. But, what they didnt expect was for us to actually bring an officer with us. Ever seen three men disappear in less than a second? Well I did. They ran!
The one guy that we ended up cornering blatantly began to lie to the officer. Fed up, I decided it was time to create a scene. The men had assumed that since I was from Canada, I would not understand or speak Hindi. Surprise! I ended talking to all the shop keepers asking them if they would treat all their visitors and make sexual comments to them. I think it really hit home for them when I told them I could have been their sisters too.

Well, the poor officer, that's who I felt really bad for. He tried to follow along on our conversation. I switched to English when I realized that everyone had gathered around me. I know it may seem like I had blown this small incident out of proportion but honestly, it was pretty bad. When you have multiple men propositioning you for sex, the line has been crossed.

Well, the guy ended up apologizing and we thanked the officer for his assistance. From that day forward, everytime we walked passed their stalls, they would look away or just stand in silence.

We had reacted in this manner to make a point. There are so many women who bear all kinds of abuse in silence- mental, emotional, verbal, sexual and physical. I am never to back down. We were empowered from our week long training and we decided to stand up for our rights.

Now you can see why everyone kind of recognized us when we returned to Ko-San Road. Never a dull moment :)