I was not looking forward to going to Delhi. In preparation for the trip I had memorized an entire sheet of scams: 

• Beware of friendly men in Connaught who want to practice English. 
• Beware of men in official uniforms saying the train station has closed or burned down, and try to lead you somewhere else. 
• Beware if poop ends up on your shoes and a shoe shiner magically appears.
• Never let your taxi or rickshaw driver bring his friend.

I really did not want feces on my shoes and get ripped off at the same time! But these are minor annoyances compared to the daily, horrific violence that happens to women in India. Yeshe—an American teacher—had told me that while she was in Majnu-ka-tila, a taxi driver broke the knees of a female tourist in order to steal her bag. She warned me, “Don’t go anywhere alone!” The publicized gang-rape and death of an Indian woman in 2012, and the gang-rape of a Danish tourist in 2014, had me wishing I could bypass Delhi altogether. Then, the day before before I departed McLeodganj, a group of men gang-raped an Israeli female tourist in a moving car.

Before it gets too heavy, let me backup a bit here.

It was my last day in McLeodganj, India, where I had spent three months volunteering as an English tutor. I spun the prayer wheels one last time, ate at my favorite restaurant, and said goodbye to the young Nepalese guy on my way home. He was seated on a motorcycle outside the motorcycle shop where he and his friend worked. I’m not sure what they did, but it involved a lot of banging. Each time I walked by they would be sitting on the ground banging, and yell, “Hello ma’am!” with giant grins on their faces.

Upon returning to the apartment, I saw Da—my landlady— who said she would call a taxi for me. It was a gorgeous day and I could have wheeled my suitcase down the road, but I obliged and let her order it. We stood waiting with her six year old daughter, her nephew and two dogs. It was so kind of her to see me off, but the taxi was taking a long time to arrive. She is a busy lady, and I wanted to tell her to go in, but she was chatting away and I didn’t interrupt.

When the taxi came, I turned to say goodbye. That’s when Da pulled a katak from her pocket! This time I was familiar with the procedure and bowed my head with my hands in prayer while she secured it around my neck. Ever the protective mother, she draped me in a blessing for safe travels, but vocalized her exhortation just to make sure I understood.

“Be careful in Delhi! Make friends with Tibetans on your bus and tell them to escort you to your hotel. Don’t walk alone!”

And with that confidence booster, I left the monkeys, monsoon, and McLoedganj.

Majnu-ka-tila is the enclave for the Tibetan refugee community, located in northern Delhi. It is a labyrinth of extremely narrow alleys that swerve in near-complete darkness due to three-story high buildings that block out all sunlight. During monsoon season, the alleyways routinely flood, forcing pedestrians to wade through raw sewage—a slurry of animal excrement, human excrement, rubbish, rodents, in addition to grease and oil from rickshaws.

I was astonished—after my eyes adjusted to the darkness—to see that I was in the midst of stores, cafés, guesthouses, and a temple. From a distance, the labyrinth had appeared as a greyed-out, desolate maze. In fact, it was bustling with local life: beggars littered the ground, Tibetans cooked local snacks, while shopkeepers appeared bored. The staring was unnerving; it was startling to turn a corner and realize there were a pair of eyes staring from a darkened doorway.

I had been sitting in a café when I overheard a woman discuss how she ordered a taxi through a guesthouse to pick her up from the airport. I would have to get a taxi to the airport in a couple of days, and had already ruled out walking to the main road to hail a taxi on my own. I had no desire to face a gang of aggressive male drivers, all shouting at me, tugging on my suitcase, and fighting over who would get my fare. I was still unnerved by my experience of flying into Delhi, where even though I booked a government taxi, aggressive porters seized my suitcase before I could comprehend the situation, wheeled it a mere three-feet to my taxi and demanded “You pay me $1!” 

Even after three months in India, Indian men continued to intimidate me, especially when they outnumbered me, and shouted at me, which constituted the majority of our interactions. Indian men dictated the terms of nearly all of my transactions, because it was they who sold sim cards, made passport copies, took my food orders, sold me groceries, and drove the taxis I needed.

I considered using Uber, since the drivers were tracked by GPS. It could be safer, but it wasn’t fool-proof. Two years ago, an Uber driver raped a woman in Delhi. He did not have a GPS, and had not been properly vetted by the company. I was wracking my brain on how to get to the airport not driven by a man. There was the option to take the metro, but if I got lost, the last thing to do would be lugging my suitcase around asking for directions. That’s how the Danish tourist got raped; she got lost and asked for directions.

It’s a cliché, but so true that India holds extreme contradictions. It contains the holiest-of-holy, to the most depraved and sadistic. I had become friends with an Indian man while in the southern region of Tamil Nadu. When I told him about a rickshaw driver who was following me around, he launched into a long lecture about how no Indian man is to be trusted; not shopkeepers, not sadhus, not my landlord—because they all want something. It was stunning to listen to him warn me about his own people, in one of the most holy pilgrimage sites in all of India.

After torturing my brain for hours, I still had no good ideas of my own. Thus, I approached the table where the woman was sitting to ask where she ordered her taxi. I figured that guesthouses must use the same drivers, and so there must be some trustworthiness. Plus, she had lived to tell about it, so there was that. She invited me to join her at her table.

She asked me, “Did you hear about the Israeli tourist who was raped?”

“Yes,” I nodded, “the tourist thought it was a group taxi and got in, but it wasn’t. There were six men in the vehicle.” The men raped her for hours before dumping her out on a random road.

There was a heavy silence. We too, were women traveling alone in India. We too, needed taxis and busses and whether we liked it or not—the help of Indian men.

It turned out that Sani was also from Israel, on a two-month holiday. It was her first, solo international trip. Having spent a day in Majnu-ka-tila, she had plans to go further north. She would be getting the overnight bus that evening. 

Sani said, “I’m stopping for a couple of days at a holy community before continuing on. I think it will be good to get grounded.”

I agreed. Whatever it takes, getting grounded in a holy community, praying, receiving a katak—taking blessings for our onward journeys. Sometimes it was the only way to continue in the face of insane conditions.

We tried walking around. It was not pleasant with beggar children hanging on our elbows and splashing sewage water on us. We ducked into a tourist shop, said goodbye, and parted ways.

I had been instructed to wait in the hotel lobby. I clasped my hands together—unconsciously—in a prayer symbol. My palms were sweaty. I checked my phone to make sure the batteries were charged. A skinny Indian man entered the lobby—my taxi driver. He looked at me, and without saying a word, grasped my suitcase. I followed behind. We walked to a parking lot where his taxi was parked. While he loaded my suitcase in the trunk, I helped myself into the back seat. The driver reversed out of the parking space, and just as we started to creep forward, a random Indian man jumped into the front seat. Literally, just swung open the door and got in. The driver didn’t raise an eyebrow, didn’t miss a beat, and stepped on the gas. Immediately, all the hairs on my neck raised and all I could hear was the warning, “Never let the taxi driver bring a friend!” 

My heart pounded furiously. “Who’s this?” I barked, which was completely out of my comfort zone or customary tone of voice.

“My friend,” said the driver. 

“Why is he in here? Why is he coming?” my voice drilled out like bullets.

“We are going to the airport,” he said, and continued heading for the parking lot exit.

“I know we are going to the airport! What is he doing in here? Why is he coming?” I demanded. 

The two men looked at each other and the driver said, “He wants to be with the air conditioning.”

“No!” I shouted, “I paid for this taxi, only I’m allowed to ride!” My heart felt as if it would explode. I was on a hair trigger.

The taxi driver finally stopped the car; his friend got out, and we departed.

My hands were shaking. Who knows if it was true, that it was simply an innocent intent of wanting to escape the torrid heat and sit in an air conditioned car for two hours. But I could not risk it. I could not, knowing what I knew. I felt Da’s katak draped around me. It gave me strength. I turned on my GPS loud and clear, so my driver knew I was following the route.

India had forced me to become assertive and aggressive to levels far beyond my conditioning. I had to mirror the aggression aimed at me, but channel the energy into clear communication, stating and defending my boundaries without apologies. In this way, India had forced me to be more honest. I had been raised with the conditioning of being a polite, Asian woman who put the comfort and safety of others ahead of her own. It led to a lifetime of giving dishonest yeses, and then blaming others and feeling like a victim. Some people say Asians are two-faced, but this is due to a rule of “saving face”—of never causing someone else to be ashamed or embarrassed. While this may have come from good intentions, the result is that individuals cannot say what they really mean and thus, speak from “two faces.” 

In India, I had to save my own face, and say what I really meant. It was not tenable anymore, to be fake polite. To survive in India, I had to be real. 

“This Taxi Respects Women” —photo taken on the way to the airport.