The so-called respectable men: let me introduce you to one of them

Immense shock and disgust faces us when ugly instances of respectable men of learning raping and molesting their students, come up in the papers. Educated, honoured men, well known, looked upon in admiration as the makers of the future of the country can stoop down so low? Learning is supposed to better and enlighten a person at least that is what we know of it! Though it now seems quite doubtful, more so because two of my friends and me are undergoing an unbelievable experience of witnessing such cheap behavior of a renowned professor assigned to guide us in a project and one is recommended by our HOD himself!

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On day one of the project, I didn’t notice anything unusual in his behavior except that he touched our hands and at times on the shoulders in the process of explaining things, it was not anything indecent on his part and we concluded him ‘friendly’ by his way of helping us out. The following day, I got a bit late for the lab and found my friends sitting with clouded brows. On being asked, Simmi (name changed) said the prof. had touched her twice on the thighs and Neha said something similar. I tended to over look it as an accident and nothing more.

However, I gradually started noticing how he would touch us at the slightest opportunity, without any reason, with an intention that was dirty to say the least. On another unfortunate moment of our absence he passed his hands over Simmi’s chest in a pathetic pretence of reaching for a box. I began watching his moves carefully which confirmed to our suspicions in the firmest manner.

One day while working along with that animal, he smoothly passed his hands over my back, and I do not have to add, that it was no accident. I burnt inside with anger and could do NOTHING. Like most girls travelling in crowded buses, travelling alone, I have had my share of experiences of being groped but when some Mr. Respectable Professor, highly paid and even highly educated focuses more on how to find a chance to molest than to explain some scientific working, it becomes more than unbearable.

I couldn’t concentrate on my work for the rest of the day, disgust and agony reigned supreme and I had to behave normal all the time while inside I was imagining ways of hurting him the most. There have been numerous times when I had criticized girls for their lack of courage to come in the open, it is truly said that the wearer only knows where the shoe pinches because now I am in the position of those abused female students and I realized for the first time, how difficult it was, I feel completely helpless and am in a dilemma as to my next course of action as a reaction to such an indecent act.

I realized it is very easy to shout and say “be bold, protest, speak up against such criminals and such acts” when one is a mere spectator but it’s altogether a different story when one is at the receiving end of such acts. I can’t do anything to expose this Sac of Filth, because the tag of ‘a popular professor from one of the most eminent Universities’ will back him up and accuse me of being outrageously ill.

He may file a case against me naming those actions to be “purely accidental”; I have to expose my identity which can affect my career which still is in the formation process, in the worst ways dashing every hope of my parents; he is a ‘dear friend’ of my HOD and dear friends are seldom inclined to look beyond their friendship, at the truth; it won’t take much for such a man of influence to prove my allegations false by obvious and easy means, which would mean the end of everything for me and along with, my friends. They thus are not willing to come out in the open to expose this beast.

It is generally believed that education can provide a solution to all social ills. But I got a proof of something quite the contrary. I wonder how these highly educated people with many degrees attached before their names can harbour such cheap thoughts? What is it that got missed out from their education procedure? These people who could learn so much somehow failed to learn the most essential lesson of how to become good human beings.

I kept asking myself that day onwards what is it that went wrong which makes the most educated men of our society such indecent, dirty-minded psychopaths? One such incident is enough to shatter a girls self-esteem, self-confidence and trust in the so-called respectable men of the society.

It is difficult to put up with it but there’s simply no other option and we clearly know that the police and the whole of the society will be siding along with him because of his power and position. I wondered whether is this the extra price we have to pay to get education just because we are girls? is it fair?

The belief that education alone can eradicate such evils is terribly wrong and the very common cases of doctors sexually assaulting their patients, teachers their students are burning examples.

These people are supposed to be life givers and in their hands lies the responsibility of bringing up the citizens of tomorrow, but if these people will remain so grossly corrupted the situation seems to me to be quite hopeless for our future generations. I really don’t know what the solution to this is but you who are reading this might suggest some.