This essay is based on a true incident as told by my friend Rashmi J, who became a mini celebrity for a while in Delhi for standing up for a fellow female passenger on a crowded Redline bus.

Rashmi stared out of the crowded bus with her eyes slightly out of focus. She was staring at the turns and twists that the bus was taking as it neared the bus station she wanted to get off at. She gripped the sweaty pole harder and willed her mind not to think about the hard penis a stranger was pressing against her butt.

She told herself again and again that it would soon be over. If she raised her voice he might do something even worse and no one would come to her aid.

Her bus stop was a just a few kilometers away. "Patience" she told herself and tried to continue hanging on in a bus so crowded that there was hardly any place to breathe much less stand.

"Stop it!" she heard a voice scream with a slight accent.

"Bus rokho(stop the bus)!" a male voice bellowed.

"Bhahan chudh, rokta hai ke nahi (sister fucker, will you stop the bus or not)?" another male voice bellowed coarsely.

Rashmi craned her neck to see what the commotion was all about and her heart sank at what she saw.

A beautiful black girl was being molested by a group of men and no one was stopping them. One man tore her shirt and mauled her breasts, another grabbed her by the hair and yanked her towards the back door.

She was crying and trembling and they were preying on her vulnerability.

"Oye Bhahan chudh bus rokho! Nahi to tujhe bhi nahe chodenge (stop the bus or else we will beat you up too)." One of the fat men screamed a warning at the driver who complied.

The bus pulled over and the men got off the silent bus with the woman.

She screamed and fell on her knees. They dragged her and began to rip her clothes. The people in the bus watched silently. Rashmi watched silently in horror and fear.

The fear in the young woman's eyes mirrored the fear Rashmi smelt in the bus.

No one was going to come to that girl's aid. She was going to be raped in broad daylight in front of more than thirty-odd male passengers.

Anger suddenly gripped her heart.  "How dare they!" she thought and the scream in her mind turned into a warring cry that left her slight frame and she began to struggle against the sweaty bodies that swelled and crushed her.

"Let me through!" she screamed and pushed. "What's wrong with you men? We have to save her!"

She managed to get off the bus and ran towards the predators who were pillaging the innocent.

"Stop it you bastards! Stop it right now!" Fearlessly, she approached them.

They snarled at her and one hulking brute even approached her.

His foul breath fanned her delicate face.

"Tujhe bhi utha lenge. Ja! Bus mai baith(we will grab you too. Go sit in the bus)." He warned her.

Rashmi, a five foot three inch, first year college girl glared back and said, "Fuck off, let her go."

He grabbed her, but by then the passengers from the bus started pouring out and shouted at the men to let the girls be.

They turned and saw men approaching. They tried to run but were caught by the angry crowd. The women covered the victim and comforted her and the men beat up the anti-social elements.

The bus was taken to a police station, a report was written against the men and Rashmi became a hero for all of us and was even featured on the newspaper.

When I asked her what prompted her to do something so brave, she shrugged and replied "It was the right thing to do."