Like every transgression of womanhood, running comes with its punishments.

In the four years since I bought my first pair of serious (read: expensive) running shoes, I’ve been groped, hit, pulled, pushed, stalked, videotaped, and photographed, all against my will. Every incident has ended in rage or tears, never much else.

I was running in the outskirts of Bangalore when a man on a motorcycle hit my butt hard as he passed me. The force threw me off the road. I ran to catch up with my friends, swallowed my tears during breakfast, and later broke down in my bathroom. He’d left a bruise and it hurt to shower.

Another time, a man impersonated a city marathon organiser to talk to me. He had seen me at a race, tracked down my number, and called me when I was attending a friend’s wedding. The call transitioned too quickly from talk of races, to talk of meeting for coffee. When I pressed him about his marathon credentials, he finally copped to the fact that he was pretending to be an organiser to talk to me. Apparently he’d seen me run a race in my Arsenal jersey and decided I was his “soul mate”. When I realised he was an imposter, I asked him to leave me alone. He then yelled at me for “showing too much attitude”, told me to shut the fuck up, and reminded me I wasn’t beautiful enough to be so headstrong.

Once, while I was on a run in broad daylight, a man followed me on his bike, grabbed my breasts and squeezed them hard, and sped away before I could react. I noticed his ID card, the same one worn by many IT employees in the area, myself included. I knew he must work in a neighbouring office. I forced myself through the workday; I didn’t want to make a fuss in front of my colleagues.

I also remember, while I was running up the famous Nandi Hills alone, a group of visibly drunk guys on bikes slowed down, took out their phones, and started video-recording me as I ran. (I pray, to this day, that I haven’t ended up on some running fetish porn site or subreddit.) After that, they tried running me off the mountain. They laughed as I cowered, scared. And then – you guessed it – they sped away.

