It’s Normal — A Cyber Bulling story

“Don’t bother yourself by thinking about such losers. They have nothing else to do in life other than trying to pull you down”, said my uncle who I told about my ordeal. Not just him, my family, my friends, colleagues, relatives, everyone had almost the same response. And were they right? We’ll get to that in a bit.

We have all read news about crime against women. Someone’s getting cat called, eve teased, groped, molested, raped, murdered or have to die of suicide in shame. It’s become so common that we can now talk about these crimes without feeling a lump in our throat. Good for us! We’re headed towards the path of equanimity, path of maturity and enlightenment. Trivial things like a woman in a far off village getting molested should not bring us down. It’s not an ideal world. They should take better care of themselves. Their parents should keep a check on what they’re doing, who they meet, what they’re wearing and how they behave. If anything is left unchecked, it’s on them. Real men are biologically wired to take what they deem theirs and we should empathise with them and if attacked, cede control to them. Shouldn’t we?

Now what if a woman has put herself in check? What if she’s an introvert who talks to very limited people and minds her own business. Let alone that, she barely goes anywhere but to work and her home where she chats with her close friends over Whatsapp, uses a bit of social media, reads books and watches Netflix. She won’t be put through the torture that is ‘Crime against women’. Boy, I wish it were that simple!

The internet is one of the best inventions of man for me. Yes, it’s better than Biryani or planes or elevators. Don’t try arguing, I’ll fight you to death. Despite what I’m going to tell you, I can’t hate the internet. I probably never will.

I’m used to telling stories in excruciating detail, so bear with me.

We do not come from a very conventionally progressive society (and by that I’d generalise it to the point that almost our whole country, in fact the subcontinent is similar in that regard). I grew up in a small town under the protection of my parents, relatives, friends and family. I was liberated enough to be able to go to school, coaching classes, food joints and have fun with friends without having to worry about my safety because I had so many people to take care of me or fall back on. If anything happened, there was a guarantee of consequences for the perpetrator. Despite that, I had to face the occasional ogling, letters from strangers stuck on my bike seat, being followed, stopped on the streets, bike being punctured and seat getting cut with a knife in the tuition parking lots. I somehow normalised it in my head and moved on, moved on to a new city, a city seemingly bigger and better.

In the new city, I was there to pursue higher education. Motivated by my own anticipation of what’s in store, I was excited. And trust me, the city didn’t disappoint me. It gave me more than I deserved. On my first day in the city, I underwent the infamous ragging by strangers on the street while I was out to buy books. These strangers, on a later day, beat up a college classmate who they saw me speaking with (this is more common than we think). The classmate was then after my life trying to know who beat him up, not agreeing to believe that I don’t know and can’t possibly know. This incident was followed by multiple other scenes where there are strange people standing and ogling at the college bus stop for straight 4 years, people following my bike on the streets, rejected college guys threatening to beat me up and burn me alive for I refused to talk to them and hurt their ego, strange man flashing at me in a secluded parking lot, guys trying to sing derogatory songs when I passed by. All of this happened for some poor men have their own eccentric coping mechanism for rejection. I could have done so much to prevent it, but I sort of had no support system in the city except a few friends who were also dealing with similar problems in their lives and I didn’t know any better back in the day. The glorious days of college somehow came to an end and what followed was a new life in an even bigger, better city.

The new city was nothing like the previous one. People were more civilised, men were less manly and more gentlemanly. They treated women with respect, I could be out in the open, alone in the middle of the night and nothing would happen. Sounds surreal, doesn’t it? It was surreal until I
realised that the ways of the city were different, they were more subtle and less scary (for the lack of a better word). People would usually ping on office communicator and say shady things or reach out on Whatsapp to make uncomfortable remarks/compliments on my photos or physical features. While most compliments are welcome, some are evidently unwelcome. Initially, I stayed quiet in most cases but corporates have a policy of ensuring workplace safety and I gathered courage to reach out to the right people who could take care of it and I wasn’t disappointed. I have made 2 workplace harassment complaints in my career and they have been dealt with perfectly. I have also seen some younger colleagues go through similar issues and encouraged them to stand up for themselves. Some people would also use my pictures to create profiles on hookup apps and I’d in turn get messages on Facebook by people who were really interested. That was also handled by asking them to report such profiles. I like this system in a modern society where you can be a problem owner/problem solver. You face a problem, you have/find a step based solution that you go through with and voila! problem solved. You don’t have to endure the pain and the uncertainty of when and whether you’ll ever be free from it or if you’ll have to leave the city to escape it for good.

While I was living in my ideal world, I discovered my Facebook filtered/others messages (also messages on Google+ etc). Women will know what I’m talking about and men can look it up if they don’t. The content of these messages made me lose my sleep for a night. I was never a person who would lose sleep over anything stupid. But, I couldn’t comprehend how a human could talk to another human with that amount of love and intimacy. I was overwhelmed. Initially I thought that I should raise a complaint against every single individual who I can track down, set an example and show them what is unacceptable. When I shared the idea with my friends, I was laughed at. I was made to believe that this is normal, we have to ignore it and live our life with absolute abandon for such aberrations. I agreed and went on with my life, putting the idea of 1000s of strangers (even some acquaintances) digitally molesting me, conveniently behind. I was successful in moving on until something else happened.

I received a screenshot (of a message from an obviously fake account) from a good friend indicating some details about my life that I wouldn’t assume a lot of people would know for I am an extremely private person. Someone really close was apparently trying to play with my ever over-thinking brain. I lost my sleep and peace for a little while but then I was back to normal. What followed was a plethora of messages sent to me, my family, friends and God knows who else, indicating a lot of details of my personal life accompanied with a load of beautiful trash clearly blackmailing in nature. The contents included the details of my travels, the hotels I stayed in, people in my life, my friends, what they’ve been up to and threats of publishing non existent tapes and photos. The messages also included how I’ve been a bad girl by outrightly rejecting some people’s advances and how I should be punished through violation of my body by the said author who claims to have been rejected by me and will destroy my life by putting up everything on the internet (I’m sparing you the harrowing details of the messages for obvious reasons but they’re worse than I could imagine, worse than anything I’ve heard of or seen in news etc.). This went on for years, step by step, string of scary messages and orchestrated blackmail was carried out by some lost soul sitting in the corner of a presumably dingy room dwelling in hatred and vengeance. I wasn’t my usual kind and forgiving self after all this time. I gathered all the messages and decided to get to the bottom of this.

Looking at the messages, it was someone I clearly knew well or someone known to my close ones. I decided to cut ties with most people I knew for that would help avoid any information leaving myself and I’d feel safe. I reached out to cyber police and lodged a complaint at the local police station. I went to the station 5 times before realising that this cycle is never going to end. I hired a private investigator for good amount of money and that left me disappointed. I underwent counselling with a cyber psychologist only to realise that the right to a dignified life is a myth. I reached up to the relevant ministry and women’s commission and failed. I tried to find the IP address of the perpetrator and succeeded only to learn that the perpetrator was smart enough to use VPNs with IPs spread across the globe. I tried reaching one of the messaging platforms support directly through a friend (who was an employee) only to see them refuse to help. I reached out to the collector’s office, contacted my friends in administrative positions and even tried to get in touch with ethical hackers in my desperation to find out who could possibly do this to me and out of what motivation. I have always lead a simple life without any invitations to complications. I failed at every attempt after speaking to 100+ people who were lawyers, hacking enthusiasts, cyber experts, people from law and order, women’s commission and many more only to be given hopes that got shattered every single time.

I started reflecting on my life, finding reasons for what could have caused this. This lead to a self loathing, unforgiving state of mind where I hated and blamed myself for any moment where I had deflected from ideal. I had stopped trusting almost everyone I know. I could see a potential jealous/hateful backstabber in them. The whole episode rendered me schizophrenic to the extent that I am not present on any social media anymore and I fear talking to people and sharing more than required. I don’t seek validation or want to dwell in the old time innocent public display of vanity as long as I can be safe. I think even that is too much to ask for.

I know there must be women (and men) who have faced more and worse. There may be teenage girls who sent their objectionable photos to boys who’re now blackmailing them for money or worse, to sleep with them. There may be girls who had their boyfriends share their photos/videos with their friends and now they’re being ogled at every time they walk in their class. There may be many other women undergoing abuse in real life and not through some harmless messages over the internet. There may be ‘13 Reasons Why’ and ‘Dev D’ being made in some women’s real lives but they’re dealing with it better. They’re probably stronger than I am. I don’t like being numb to abuse. I’m wired to resist it (What sort of an overtly combative woman am I?).But, I have tried my best to overcome my instincts. Now I know that this is how things will be. We’ll have to work around them and keep moving. My idea of ideal is of no importance and that should be OKAY.

Now, coming back to the first question if my uncle was right. Yes, he was and so was everyone else in my support system. I can’t waste my time thinking about a loser I don’t even know (or most likely do). It’s easier that way. It’s easy assuming they’re losers when I’m the one sitting here, rattled by them, living in the fear of every social media platform that was used to bully me, not walking out of my house much, getting uncomfortable and teary eyed every time I tell someone about the episode and the messages where I’m told what would be done to my body and how.

I so wish they weren’t right. I wish it was okay to think and obsess about a bully, track them down and put them in place or even forgive them and obtain the closure that I wanted. I wish this post was a success story where I wrote about my heroism and how I finally won over evil. I didn’t get what I desired and find it hard to make peace with it. That’s what probably makes cyber bullies and harassers too.

P.S. — This is neither a sob story nor a piece of art written by a professional author. It was meant to be a personal write up in my diary like many others. But, after suggestions of some friends and well wishers, I am publishing this in hope of making people aware of the repercussions they may be causing through presumably harmless fun they have in the garb of easy anonymity. In fact, excuse me for my lack of subtlety, but I’m hoping for them to try not doing anything if they have nothing good to do.

This is also for women and girls who are going through a similar problem. I won’t be giving false hopes that you’ll always get the solution you want. Not even if you go after it with all you’ve got. I hate to say this, but, maybe knowing that there are more women going through similar problems can help you normalise your pain and eventually move on if nothing else. You’ll probably even encounter occasional victim blaming or insensitivity or smart people teaching you how to make a propaganda out of your ordeal, but that’ll hopefully get better or you’ll learn to live/deal with it.

For anyone reading this, please try not to make speculations or inferences about people, places, websites or authorities that aren’t named. I understand they have their reasons and limitations as do we all. And, the intent here is not to to defame anyone.

Mad Love,

Soumya