My Daughters and the rest of Us

When Archie Griffin suddenly tightened his grip on my neck, I told myself this was really happening. This is what it would feel like on a empty street in Baltimore downtown walking to my car in Penn Garage. I had to create an escape route but first I had to get out of his grip. I raised my right hand tightly up against my ears, tilted and pressed my head towards the right and snapped my neck out of his grip. Thats what we had been taught. Cpl Griffin was saying "Very good! Very very good". We were all laughing and at that moment I was being empowered with faith in myself.

We were in the RAD classes in downtown Baltimore. Rape Aggression Defense classes for females, offered several times a year by Baltimore police. At the behest of a grad student I joined this class hoping to receive a survival mantra.

It was an early summer night in Delhi. Close to 9pm. Thats right when the trunk call rates went down. I was with my sister in law and her friend walking home from the nearest phone booth having made a call to my parents. The streets were fairly empty. I had recently pierced another set of holes in my ears. Which made it 3 holes per ear! And I had pretty gold studs in them going from big to small. I had a small gold chain around my neck. In short I was a typically young recently married female on Delhi roads. As we crossed the 4 way crossing, each of us licking Kwality Choco bars, we made small talk. Right after crossing the road, I glanced behind my shoulders, out of sheer habit and a self imposed alertness that every woman in India is used to. I noticed him standing tall under the street light in white pants and a white shirt. I had a fleeting funny thought that crossed my mind, "a criminal would never wear white at night", and we kept walking. 3 young girls.

The next thing I knew I was slowly floating in air. It was like a dream sequence from a movie. Everything was passing by very slowly in front of me. This lasted for a few seconds but for me it was eternity. As I came back to my senses and ran my hands on my neck, I realized that it was hurting and bleeding. My sister in law and her friend were standing aside shocked and my gold chain was gone. All I did was scream. Just screamed with tears pouring down my face. I could not move, I could not talk. Just scared to death of being violated. I told the girls quite incoherently that my chain was gone. My sister in law said that they had seen the man come close to me. They moved away thinking he was an acquaintance and wanted to surprise me from behind. My sister in law started running in the direction that the man had fled. As we fell behind her, I was gripped with more fear that she may come to harm. Passers by stopped to ask what was wrong and some even offered us rides for a chase on their motor bikes. I realized that would mean more trouble. Meanwhile as my hand kept straying to my neck, I suddenly realized that the gold chain had broken and was sticking to the inside of my shirt. I screamed for the last time that night, at my sister in law, to come back. The man had disappeared into a dark building under construction and we thought it was best to quickly return home. I cant remember if the police was informed because we never expected them to do anything. But I returned home to continuous nightmares. I could not sleep at night. I kept thinking of the man, how he must have watched us on the street, how he must have zeroed on me as his victim. I asked Abhijit to shut all the windows and kept having awful dreams for the next so many days. The whole incident filled me with fear for empty roads and dark streets for a very long time.

Several years later we are in the car. Abhijit is driving. Ankita is 6 years old and sitting behind in the passenger seat. It is noon time. We are on a bridge crossing from Delhi to Noida. The lights are red. There are cars packed in front and behind us waiting impatiently for the lights to change color. I am wearing a light Fab India kurta and a pink pearl necklace that Abhijit has brought for me from Hyderabad. It is hot Delhi summer, the car windows are down and I am telling Abhijit about my recent US trip. I feel a hand come from behind my neck. I continue talking as I assume it is Ankita's. She would run her hand from behind my back like that at times, while we drove. Next thing I realize the hand has a grip on my neck and in a second has yanked a part of my shirt along with the pearl necklace. I am screaming continuously, the lights have turned green, cars are honking and the pearls lie strewn all over the car floor. I continue to scream. Cars are whizzing by and people are staring at me. The assailant has escaped. I come home for more miserable nights and cannot believe that it has happened to me the second time.

I keep telling myself that I should enroll in a self defense class that is offered by Delhi Police but Abhijit advises against.

My first RAD class and the officer is telling us why we should cut bushes near our windows to below the sill level, he is showing us what to do if encountered by an assailant inside a room, how to buy time and how to create a witness rich environment. In that small police office on Penn Street, Cpl Griffin shoots his arms out and lets out a cry,"STAY BACK!!!" We literally jump out of our skins. 12 RAD classes. We began with simple things in life: check your doors and windows at night, carry your car keys to bed in the prospect of having to use the panic button if not anything else to buy time, keep any small weapon like a baseball bat or a fork close to your pillow, talk to your kids about escape routes, identify a neighbor for emergency calls, have the local police come check your area, walk confidently on roads, make eye contact with people around you, use your car keys as a weapon, hyperventilate or throw up to distract attention and always keep verbalizing loudly for others to hear you. Cpl Griffin would narrate us instances when women have escaped out of situations that seemed dead ends. The fact that a man was teaching us to how to escape from bad men made it all the more believable. I looked forward to meeting him every Monday and Wednesday because it instilled in me a faith for the police. That they were real people and were interested in listening to my fears. We slowly branched into small physical techniques of escape. That I could use my head, hands and legs to my favor were new things for me. I asked him one day, "Officer, when I am so petrified when I see this man, how do you think I will be able to get physical with him?". Cpl smiled and answered "You said you had a 7 year old. If 'he' said 'he' was going to kill her, would you still be scared and frozen? No, I am confident you would fight tooth and nail to save your child. You have no idea how much strength your brain will send to your limbs to fight that man".

We learnt to kick, to snap out of neck chokers, to field ourselves from the ground, to use our fists to pound the soft tissues on 'his' face, to stomp and graze, to grab and seize. I came back home twice a week to teach Ankita and Anu the techniques. I carried the precious lessons to parties and told my female friends. I was surprised at how many of my gender were eager to know what I had learnt.

On the last day we went to the Univ gym. It was Racquet ball court. There was only one door. It was very hot inside. Two other officers helped us into knee, elbow paddings and helmets. Cpl Griffin was completely padded up. Officer Weems and Brown took videos of our one-on-one simulation test. Each one had to fight a different scenario. We had to fight our way back of the clutches of Cpl Griffin in that hot Racquet ball court using all that we had learnt. It was one of the most rewarding experience of my life. We took pictures to commemorate our empowerment and thanked RAD profusely.

I tell my daughters, "In creating us (women) God has given us the most precious gift. He has given us much more than he has given men. But there is one flaw to his creation. He gave us the highest level of intuitive power but forgot to accompany it with the confidence to use it! Therefore we have to gather this confidence from around us. RAD has served me with mine. I have hopefully passed on some of it to you. Be brave and be strong. We will survive and return home safe every night".