Reply to comment

Have you ever felt  that you noticed the same unknown guy everywhere you went? Have you kept receiving gifts from a secret admirer ? Have you ever been followed by a stranger down the streets of your neighborhood?  If you answered “yes” to all the questions asked above,  then most likely you have been stalked, without even realizing it.

With, or without being aware about what stalking is, we have all, sometime or the other faced it. Stalking is the unwanted attention given by individuals or groups of individuals to others that is often associated with harassment and intimidation. Most girls who face it are either unaware that they are being stalked or are too afraid to report it. Only when it takes a serious turn do people realize how dangerous stalking can get.

Individual stalkers most of the time believe that their victim loves them, a condition called erotomania and their actions are solely to draw their attention and to fulfill their longing of being loved. Often, though not always stalkers are sufferers of mental illnesses such as chronic depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia or even personality disorders. The actions of a stalker may, in themselves be legal, such as calling on the phone, sending emails, or sending gifts. But when the stalker resorts to threats and violence  it becomes difficult to deal with.
 
Stalking can turn out be a terrifying experience for the victims. Mrs. Gupta, a doctor in her late forties says,”I’d lost my sleep over this man who regularly sat beside me on the bus on the way to school. He was much too close for comfort. Other friends used to tease me about it, so I never really got down to sharing my problem. Neither did I tell my mother. But nights of sleeplessness led me to stop going by that bus ever again. It was almost traumatic.” Stalking places victims not only at the rick of psychological trauma, but also physical trauma. And it becomes increasingly difficult to break free from it, especially if it involves people already in an established relationship.  It leads to low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, a sense of hopelessness and even a sense of vulnerability that persists long after. 
  
Studies show that across the globe, women are stalked mostly, by men. While men are stalked too, and there are a subsequent number of reported cases, it is mostly by men too. In India, though, perhaps as a result of the superior position of men in society, stalking of men is quite uncommon. And women who are stalked seldom speak up against it, because of fear of further persecution from the stalker. There aren’t clearly defined laws, either to prevent such happenings.

I interviewed few men about whether they had ever stalked someone and if they had been stalked. While they vowed they had never gone beyond passing comments at girls, one of them did confess to have been stalked. An engineering student in his last year divulged, “I’d begun dating a girl who had been in a relationship in the past. And I happened to know her ex-boyfriend through common friends. Not only was I stalked by the guy, followed, persecuted, threatened, called up but also once almost beaten up by him and his friends. It was then that I decided that I’d had enough and reported him to the police. Nothing came off it, but at least he was scared to do it again. It was a tough time both for me and for my girlfriend to deal with.”

A college student recalls, “In high school, a guy I’d met at a fest joined every tuition class that I attended. I even found him waiting outside other places that I went to. I freaked out, but there was nothing I could do, because he was a common friend of many. It didn’t have a disastrous end, thankfully. But only much later did I realize I was being stalked. Had I realized it then, I’d have been more careful.”

“I’d never known I’d been stalked for about a year and a half, till I came across an article and got to know how disturbing stalking is, and how dangerous. It scared me” says an office-goer in her late twenties. Such is the awareness about stalking in the country. In the US, stalking is dealt as a punishable crime with very serious consequences. But here in India, some of it is taken lightly and to no bad effect, but even the more serious cases are sometimes overlooked.
 
What really happens is that, while the stalking is in the harmless phase of loading the victim with unwanted attention, he/she tends to ignore it. And when it takes a life-risking turn, it is too late to do anything. The difficulty in dealing with stalking is that victims either don’t realize it, or they don’t speak about it when they do. Another major problem occurs if the stalker is someone the victim knows.
Let’s all encourage people to speak up about this issue, which is slowly but steadily turning into a grave problem that society must address immediately. The US has sites such as the stalking victims’ sanctuary that enables people to share their trauma and to look for ways to re-establish normalcy in their lives. In many ways, stalking is like slow, prolonged mental rape. If there are any of you who would like to speak about your experiences, this is the right place! So open up, speak out, by doing that will you be helping loads of other people to over come their problems.