NEW DELHI: It is almost every Indian woman’s nightmare, lived daily when in public — a stream of obscene comments, physical harassment and then being blamed for causing the sexual violence.    

The gang-rape and beating of a 23-year-old student by six men on a bus in New Delhi may have sparked days of protests and demands for authorities to take tougher action, but for women in India it is just an extreme example of what they have to live with.

Many in India’s capital and across the country say they are constantly on guard, fearing everything from eve teasing they suffer on public buses to far more violent assaults. Some say they have structured their entire lives around protecting themselves and their children. Here are the stories of three women.

Gita Ganeshan, a 52-year-old bank worker, moved to New Delhi with her husband four years ago from the central city of Bhopal to protect their oldest daughter after she was attacked in the Indian capital, where she was studying.

The young woman had been out for a morning walk in a park near her house when four men surrounded her and began harassing her, Ganeshan said.

She said she and her daughter would go to the park when she visited the city.

“This was a park where we would walk every day. The girls would jog or run and we would walk along,” she said. “Just that one day, she went alone and this happened and it changed our outlook as far the safety of our girls was concerned.”

Her daughter gave up jogging and wouldn’t leave the house alone for months. “That was when we decided that protecting our children had to be our first priority. We’ve given them a good education. We cannot now tell them now not to pursue their careers because it is not safe to be out working late,” she said.

She has trained the young woman to be alert.

“Now, Ganeshan is thinking of moving to the central city of Indore to protect her younger daughter, who got a job there. But for now, she has arranged a special plan to watch over her from far away.

Every evening, her daughter calls as soon as she gets off the bus on her way home from work. The two talk for the next 15 minutes while the young woman walks the kilometre to her home, Ganeshan said.

“Every day, I wake up and my first thought is of my daughters and their safety. I call them up, or they call me,” she said. “It is a real fear we confront when, even for a few hours, we are not in touch over the telephone.

“Sandhya Jadon, 26, a lawyer from the northern town of Agra, said the harassment starts as soon as she leaves her home.

“For most men, any woman who is out of the four walls of her house is fair game,” she said.

Last week, she was repeatedly harassed on a public minibus. She shouted, made the driver stop and got off. But the man continued sitting in the bus. Not one of the 10 other passengers came to her help. “Most looked away,” she said.

For the next few days, she avoided public buses for fear she would run into the man again. She feels relatively safe at court, in her lawyer’s robes. But she still doesn’t stay late at work and asks her parents to meet her at the bus stop to walk her home.— AP