It was 2013. I was 20, graduating from St. Xavier’s College in Ahmedabad. Between lectures, my friend and I had gone to Bhadra Fort – I went to the Bhadrakali temple while she stayed outside, checking out earrings at stalls in the Bhadra market.
When I came back, I saw her trying hard to get herself out of a man’s hold. He was a hawker in the Bhadra market. He held her by the wrist, touched inappropriately and kept saying lewd things. When I tried to get my friend out of his hold, he held me too and repeated the same. I slapped him and moved back (must have been a funny scene because he was huge and I am 5’3). Bystanders watched and no one intervened to help.
Why did he do this? Because my friend refused to buy earrings she had checked out at his stall because the price he quoted was too high.
A day later, another follow-up story was published in Ahmedabad…