N is for NO.

No.

A combination of two alphabets that make a really strong statement. It clears the air, and most importantly it clearly demonstrates your intentions to not to do or ant something.

But still, saying NO is the hardest task in the world.

You can’t say No, to your boss because you fear your next promotion and bonus. You don’t say No to your children, lest you face a retribution for not spending enough time with them. You don’t say No to that friend of yours, who you know always puts you down and is leeching off you, and your life, fearing a lack of social life.

No, is the negative word, and we all fear it for all the wrong reasons.

As a woman here in India, I am a privileged to have had a supportive family and now a supportive husband, who understands when I tell him, No.

No, maybe for a trip, a meeting with friends or family for that matter, and even when I say NO, to doing the household chores and sex.

But, alas, there are so many of us, who do not stand up and say No, No to the domestic violence, fearing the stigma attached to walking out from your husband’s house, No to submitting to his urges of sex , fearing a slap from him, irrespective of your own condition or mood at that time.

No, to that male boss, who is a lecher, and will talk to your boobs rather than to you. No, to that bastard on the street who will watch you from a distance, and unclothe you every time you walk past him.

We women have been fed lies all our lives, about the stigmas, about the shunning and about the society in general. Had we started saying No, earlier, had we started fighting against the unwanted gaze, the unwanted touch, that first slap in the fit of anger, we would not have been struggling now.

But alas, there are so many of us, the ones, who are always taught to say yes because they have never been exposed to the world where a No exists. But, I pity for the likes of me, the ones who have the education, the malls, the travelling, the friends, the internet.. and yet they choose to stay on. In an abusive work environment, in an abusive relationship;  struggling, daily to look in their own eyes and unable to answer their own conscience.

I wish that we all could give each other the strength to say the word NO.

To walk with our heads held high in a society of equals.