I am an 18 year old woman. I don't know if should call myself a woman or a girl. Both seem appropriate and yet inappropriate. My name is Sunaina. It means one with beautiful eyes. My grandmother named me Sunaina, since I had large eyes when I was born. They are still large and the most prominent feature on my face. I live in Calicut with my family. My family is a huge one. My father's family, my Patti, and my father's two brothers with their families stay with us. They call it a joint family, but I don’t think we are joint in anyway.
I have a very peculiar problem. I don't know if I must call it a problem or a worry. A problem or a worry means the same thing. The thing is that I don’t want to worry about this problem I have, since I don’t think its a problem at all. The people around me make me realise that I have this problem. I am a woman with a small build. I don’t have huge breasts. I have been ridiculed and made to feel small because of this. My Patti tells me that I can never satisfy a man and I am a shame to the family. She even asked my mother take me to a doctor to solve this problem of mine. The doctor shouted at my mother for putting me in such an embarrassing situation. She told me not to worry about it and said that it was perfectly alright to have small breasts.
Every day I travel by bus to college. The bus often is crowded. The bus is so crowded that people fall on one another. Sometimes the pushing gets very bad. Many a time a few men take advantage of this situation. On the pretext of moving, they rub their genitals on my back in the process. The feeling is miserable. Many a times they have pinched and fondled my breasts. It hurts a lot both physically and mentally. I try resisting but sometimes I cannot prevent myself being touched. I once told my boyfriend about these incidents in the bus and he ridiculed at me by saying “You have such small ones why would anyone do that?" I felt miserable about myself for an entire week after that.
I wonder why these men do this to me. What is their intention? Do they do it because it gives them pleasure, or they think it gives me pleasure? According to my grandmother, I could never satisfy a man. Then why do I get fondled each day?
If a man has small genitals, no one would even know except his wife. He wouldn't suffer a complex about it. When I get touched and fondled, I wish I can pull down the guy’s zippers and do to him the same things that are done to me. I wish I can pass on the misery I face each day. I wish I can comment on the size of his prized masculine possession and other things. But I know I would never be able to do it.
Women's liberation to me is not about banishing female infanticide or the women’s reservation bill. Liberation to me means looking at a woman beyond just her breasts.
