What it is like to live in ‘Most dangerous state for women’

And I thought sadness is the worst state to be in.

1. If you are expecting rhetoric paragraphs, this won’t be.
2. Having spent most of my life in a place considered as ‘dangerous’ for women, I never knew what was the danger about: unless I found what ‘safe’ is.
3. You might wake up to ‘…and was killed’ or ‘…found dead’ (you don’t want uncover the ellipses, just like the cases) on a daily basis.
4. You will practically feel your heart shrinking, but you will anyway have a coffee with the right amount of sugar and go on with your day. You will look at your five-year-old cousins, at yourself, then at your grandmother, just to make sure they are safe and there.
5. If at all you are stepping out (danger alert), you will cover yourself fully because there are ‘men’ around. Your shoulders can be arousing, who knows. You will dress to look like you are not asking for it.
6. When you walk, you will take slow steps so as to hear the ones behind you. Is someone in a hurry? Is someone too slow? Are they syncing with yours? Is it a rapist?
7. You will grab your pepper spray and the knife your friends ‘gifted you’ (no kidding, I have received a handy defense knife as a gift). You will stop for a while, analyzing the potential areas he could grab you in, only to realize it was a non-rapist. You will still grab your weapons and walk faster.
8. At work, you will try to not argue with your colleagues, specially males, because you remember how a woman was killed for saying no. You will try to appear powerful, but not too much, because it can be taken as a challenge too. ‘Women shouldn’t try be too much’, as they say. So, you will try that.
9. You will try to finish everything before it’s dark and the predators can freely roam around. It will get dark anyway and you will take your male friend to accompany you. But what if even he is killed? Just like the one you read about last day.
10. You will reach home, if you are lucky. You will think about how it is just a mere percent of what it is all about. You will wake up the next day feeling lucky, only to see the headlines again.