Link is here : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...63831.html
This is doing the rounds on my facebook feed. Comments from everyone who has ever been to India suggest they too have encountered IRT. IRT is not considered charming; in fact, he is perceived as rather quite creepy and perverted.
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Ms Hemmings, who was travelling in India for three months and has since returned to the UK, wrote about the experience on her Lucy's Miles Away travel blog in March.
She was sitting at a bus stop in Mumbai when she noticed a man move closer to her.
“From the corner of my eye, to my horror, I realised that he had pulled out his penis and was masturbating, staring intently at me,” she wrote. “I felt sick.”
Ms Hemmings wrote that although she respected Indian culture by covering herself completely in loose clothes and had followed safety advice about travel and conduct with strangers, it was not the first time something similar had happened. Ms Hemmings said groups of men can become intimidating in India. Photo: Lucy Hemmings Ms Hemmings said groups of men can become intimidating in India. Photo: Lucy Hemmings
On a previous visit to India in 2012, she and a female friend spotted another man masturbating while watching them from bushes at an ashram. They laughed at him and moved on.
When it happened to her second time as she waited for a train, she alerted fellow travellers and he disappeared.
But Ms Hemmings said that the latest incident “felt different” and affected her far more, making her nervous walking alone and avoid eye contact with strangers.
She told The Independent: “I found it really frustrating because I’m someone who really loves interacting with people and I really struggled because suddenly I was afraid to look at people.
“I kept on thinking: ‘Is it going to happen every time?’
“Of course it doesn't but for about three days I really found it difficult.” Ms Hemmings said she found the next three days in Mumbai difficult
After deciding that she would not allow the man and his “tiny penis” to affect her, Ms Hemmings decided to write about the experience and discuss it with others, which she said was “cathartic”.
The former Bournemouth University student said she had no idea of the impact her blog would have and hopes it will encourage other women to talk about their experiences of sexual harassment around the world.
“It could easily have provoked a really negative reaction but it’s been absolutely wonderful and so humbling that people are writing to me to say they are sorry,” she said.
“There are very few countries in the world I can think of where that would happen.
This is doing the rounds on my facebook feed. Comments from everyone who has ever been to India suggest they too have encountered IRT. IRT is not considered charming; in fact, he is perceived as rather quite creepy and perverted.