Advocating for men I cannot look at
Bhoomika Ghaghada
Collage by Khaled Alqahtani (@khaledsoart)
Disclaimer: Please opt in to read the ‘trauma footnotes’ only if you are emotionally able. They can be jarring, and do not affect the flow of the story.
I called him bhaiya, and asked him a question about the plant he was trying to sell me. He answered to my breasts, unblinking, unflinching. I pretended not to notice—standard mode of operation. Walking back from tuitions, in long arcs around groups of men. An eye straight ahead and another over my shoulder or tracing the paving pattern of bricks under my feet. Headphones plugged in with no music.
I was taught not to meet their eyes. I can’t recall their faces. “Dangerous” strangers. Molesters, after all, can only be hosted by sweaty bodies. They can’t live inside your home.[1]
***
Broad daylight. I was six, waiting for my school bus to arrive. My mom didn’t come downstairs to wait with me—my newborn sister had kept her up all night. Mom had warned me about strangers early on, fueled by fear[2], in a land that wasn’t her own. Stay by the elevators, don’t wait outside! But I couldn’t see the bus arrive from the inside. What if Ashraf Uncle drove on by, because he didn’t see me waiting?
I stepped out, standing close to the neighbors and their kids. I had all my subjects, so my bag was especially heavy. My blue tiffin box felt like lead, carrying the hateful apple slices that would turn warm and mushy by break-time. Today, though, they came with my favorite soft cheese block.
The neighboring kids’ bus arrived. They climbed on and their parents, still in nightdresses and slippers, shuffled back upstairs one by one. Now standing alone, I hugged the wall, hiding from view. A man saw me, came up, and tried to talk to me. I don’t remember what he said. His eyes bore into me. Panic in a little chest. Frozen. I didn’t look at him. The straps of my bag dug deeper into my shoulders as I rushed back to wait near the elevators. I tried to shrink myself and my limbs creaked. When the bus floated into view, I sprinted, glad to see Ashraf Uncle’s face.
That evening, when I took my bicycle out to practice in the rough parking lot, the stranger was there, standing by the phone booth under the building. I ran the bike up. He followed me to the elevator.
Maybe I’m still half-expecting him to turn up. I startle so easily.
***
Pitch black. Faraway blinking lights. I was on a video call with my sister, walking on the street in my brand new bougie Dubai neighborhood. It was 8pm and I was surrounded by construction sites. My sister had just said something incredibly funny and I was laughing, gurgling sounds from my stomach. Carefree. I felt, rather than saw, a looming figure close behind, by my right ear.
I let out an ear-splitting, blood-curdling scream.
Stock still. The air was still ringing with my voice. What I had judged to be a ghost, leapt and was stiff, like me. I turned to see the man, a construction worker walking to or from his work site. His face was shell-shocked, confused, wordless. I had given the man such a fright. His eyes were bulging like my sisters'. Relief. I exhale-laughed and chanted, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” What else could I say? His shoulders relaxed, he laughed, mumbled something resembling “it’s okay” and walked ahead of me.
I had frightened this man, I thought later, with the sound of my voice. A phone call. A blue and red siren. This frightened man held in a stuffy room, deported? With the sound of my voice. Real danger or imagined. I came home to tell my husband about how dangerous my voice could be.
***
I was standing inside the open front door of my new home. Anna was putting her shoes on outside the door. She came to clean the apartment every two weeks and always brought her own mop because she doesn’t like mine. I was asking her if she had everything she needed when I heard an abrupt, booming voice from the corridor say “You can’t leave the trash there!!”
I hadn’t heard that edge to anyone’s voice in this neighborhood. Rude. Addressing a non-human. Anna’s face registered no shock, as if the man had made a gentle request. As she replied “Yes, I’m going and taking it with me,” I peeked out.
It was the suited doorman who politely greets me “good evening” in the reception every day. Heat in the chest, tingling in my arms. Rage. I didn’t say a word. I froze. The moment passed.
I am angry with myself. Where is my voice? Why can’t I scream? How can I still be in shock? Sometimes, kindness steps in. Next time. I need practice speaking up. I shake off generations of “this is how it has always been” ringing in my ears.
This isn’t how it should be.
***
I was taught not to meet their eyes. I can’t recall their faces. They’re not a they, but they were to me.
Blue blurs and frequent dwellers of hyper-lapses.
They sit still enough in photographs though. Nameless faces, hanging in a Dubai Design Week kiosk, on a gallery wall in AlSerkal, on a presentation slide of March Meetings at Sharjah Art Foundation. When I finally meet their unmoving eyes, I want to scream. All I’ve managed so far is a croak.
***
[1]: They can and did. One of them never smelled sweaty, just of toothpaste. I still hate minty-fresh breath.
[2]: The fear that leaped off newspapers. Reports are always about dangerous, lawless strangers (most of whom are easiest to deport).
Bhoomika Ghaghada a researcher and writer, born and raised in the UAE. She writes about gender, urban spaces, and media, often focusing on structural inequalities and its everyday manifestations. You can read her latest work here, and latest in Jadaliyya here. She has an MA in Media Studies from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, and was a recent resident at Warehouse421, Abu Dhabi.
Edited by Fatima AlJarman
Listen to Bhoomika’s stunning reading of her piece below: