This is a blog post from
I bought a doll a few days back. Nothing fancy. Just a regular blonde, pink-lipped, fair-skinned little girl. Her face was slightly smacked up so she tended to look scary at night. But that was about it. I’d bought the doll as a gag gift for a guy friend.
There was one special feature about the doll. Everytime you pressed her chest, she’d squeak. At first it was funny. Now, it isn’t.
As I sat in the room playing with the doll, squeezing her breasts, I was reminded of the first time I was made aware of mine.
It was the summer of 1999. I was entering seventh grade. We had gone on a vacation to Haldia, a port town in West Bengal. That afternoon, a bunch of us boarded the State bus to Bagha Beach, a few hours from Haldia. I was sitting on the aisle side dressed in a loose brown skirt and sleeveless top. I hadn’t even had my first period so my breasts were barely existent. I wonder why then that everytime the wind blew into my top, the guy standing next to me looked down to get a peek.
School began. A few months into seventh grade, I got my first period. It was painful and embarrassing.
Along with the blood came the breasts.
The first few years were spent hiding it under tight sports bras. Even though we were all experiencing breasts for the first time, the girls in class never discussed it. Back home, the girls in the apartment moved on from playing catch to other games that wouldn’t draw too much attention to our breasts.
That was when my neighbour, a young man married to the most beautiful woman in the apartment, began spending more time with me. Until then, he would hang out with only the older girls. I had officially entered the elite club.
He was our Mr. Popular — he’d play cricket with the younger ones, take the older boys on joy rides in his numerous cars, and talk to us girls about things we were interested in. We loved him. Until one by one, we discovered the wolf under his benign clothing.
On many summer evenings, he and I sat on the terrace tank talking for hours about the books I read, the movies he watched, and the grown-ups that annoyed us. At times he would put his arms around my shoulders. In the beginning it was harmless. Gradually, the arm lingered longer, entering uncharted territory. At first I wasn’t sure what to do. Was I imagining things? Was it intentional?
Whatever it was, it felt wrong. I tried to protest quietly by pushing his hand away. He would put it back on my shoulder a few minutes later. Finally, I mustered the courage to tell him I was uncomfortable with his touch.
Now, my breasts have a radar of their own. They know when to get out of the way. They knew when to take cover under the scarf. And they know when to whip out the pepper spray.
He was shocked. He asked me how I could think so low of him? It felt like an act but I wanted to believe him. How could my favourite person behave this way?
Soon, I started avoiding him. I’d run in the opposite direction every time I saw him coming. I refused to make eye contact with him. But I missed our conversations. A huge part of me would have willingly forgiven him if he had just apologised.
But my breasts had come in the way of our friendship.
As the years passed, they grew bigger and with every change in bra size, they drew more and more attention. It didn’t matter if it was a tight sleeveless top or a thick shawl. They always had more than a pair of eyeballs on them.
I tried looking away. I tried staring back. I tried raising my eyebrows questioningly. I gave up. With these roving eyeballs nothing would work.
Since that first bus ride, I have had my breasts touched, pinched and grabbed. I have shouted and slapped. But mostly, I have cried into the pillow.
Now, my breasts have a radar of their own.
They can sense danger from a distance. They know when to get out of the way. They knew when to take cover under the scarf. And they know when to whip out the pepper spray.
Now my breasts are prepared.
If there’s one thing the world has taught me, it is that breasts aren’t meant to be taken lightly. And that a doll with squeaky breasts isn’t a gift, even if it was meant to be taken lightly.
That doll shall not go to my friend. It shall be perched on top of the cupboard to remind me that there are hundreds of such dolls out there who are having their breasts violated every day. And that is no joking matter.
