Vijayawada railway station wears a deserted look due to the 48-hour rail roko. EPS
It was another night after a long day’s work. The bus was late and I reached Nungambakkam railway station at 9.20 pm — the time I usually walk home from my destination railway station. Concerned calls from my family come every single night ever since that fateful day poor 24-year-old Swathi was hacked to death on the very same platform that I board my home-bound train every day.
Ramkumar was stalking her, the reports said. Shudders ran through my spine the moment I read that particular statement. Why, you ask? The memories of being stalked as a school girl rushed back to haunt me. Those days of riding a bicycle home and being carefree were daunted by senior boys who bicycled behind me.
“Don’t you understand? He loves you,” a friend of his told me once. I never understood. I was all of 15 anyway. “What does love have to do with following me around,” I mused, until I realised how scary the whole situation was. Was I supposed to swoon over the fact that an unknown person, who not only studied in the same school but knew where I lived, could cause me physical harm, or worse yet make me the reason he committed suicide? I remember being scared, and the distinctive feeling of making my friend (lest he get the idea I’m interested in him) look over our shoulder every corner we turned.
<noscript><a href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/9465387/">What would you do if you were stalked?</a></noscript></div><p>I didn’t know it then, but it was the beginning of a series of similar ordeals.</p><p>In one such incident of ‘love’ when I was 17, I decided I would not let a man spoil my everyday ride to school and back. The bike-stalker, whose name I never knew, not only followed me around on my way to school and back, but also found my mobile number somehow. At a time when things became too hot to handle, I decided it was time for me to act. I gave him one tight slap.</p><p>Eight years later, now as I walk the dimly lit lonely one-km stretch home from the suburban railway station, little am I relieved at the blinking red and blue lights of the stationed police van. How far and how well can two policemen on their night duty guard me? Involuntarily, I pick out my Swiss knife from my backpack and by muscle memory open the knife out of the many tools. The grip tightens every time a bicycle passes by, every time a shadow lurks in the dark, and every time I hear the crunch of a footstep.</p><p>(The writer is a content writer with www.newindianexpress.com)</p><p><strong>Have you been stalked? <em>writetous@newindianexpress.com</em></strong></p>