Things

I never was especially interested in the Take Back The Night vigils that occur periodically at my school. I never felt like I needed to take back the night because I thought I already had it. I’ve been nervous at times (particularly during those late night half mile walks from the bus stop in Arlington), but I’ve always felt more or less safe, and that feeling has never been challenged by a bad thing actually happening to me.

So walking around alone after dark in India, especially Ranthambore, has been a new sensation for me. It’s scary. Not just scary in the rational this is unsafe kind of way. Scary in the oh-my-god-I’m-the-only-woman-on-the-street-and-every-man-knows-it kind of way. You feel like you don’t belong. Like if anything bad happened to you it would be your fault, you would have been asking for it. It’s a fear based on who you are as much as where you are, and it’s given me newfound empathy for the people who don’t believe that the hours after dark belong to them.