Going for a run can be strenuous enough without having to deal with getting catcalls from random blokes on the street, right? That's exactly how Veena Ashiya Chindlur felt when her morning jog in Bangalore, India, was disrupted by a bloke harassing her.
Instead of jogging on, sucking it up and accepting that 'eve-teasing' (that's the Indian term for public sexual harassment) is an inevitable part of life, she called bullshit on having to put up with it. Chasing her attacker down the street, she yelled at him: 'I will not let you do that, you bastard. How dare you do that? How dare you do that? You want us to beat you up, you bastard?'
All through out, the heckler sheepishly apologises, shuffling along the road as he is chased, clearly having lost all of his bravado and swagger the moment Veena shouted back.
Her friend films the altercation as Veena gets the man down on his knees and kicks him in the head. Now, we're not condoning violent vigilante attacks, but there is something so satisfying about seeing this prick get a bit of comeuppance after, we're guessing, years of being able to heckle women in the street unchecked.
'Around 9:30 a.m., my friend and I were jogging when he made strange noises and eve-teased me' Veena told The Bangalore Mirror: 'I tried to scare him by running after him. He tried to flee, but I chased him and hit him. However, he managed to escape.'
Luckily, he was identified by her friend's mobile phone footage as K.R. Suryaprakash, and he was arrested within 40 minutes of Veena making a report. Entrepreneur Veena uploaded the footage to Facebook with the comment: 'Taught an eve-teaser a tough lesson! I was eve-teased this morning by a guy in a park where I run regularly. I chased him, hit him hard and filed an FIR [First Information Report, made to the police].'
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'Police were extremely supportive. I am posting this video for women to know that change will happen only when we want it to happen!'
However, she got some haters, who claimed that the video was fake (check under the YouTube entry of the video to see more accusations of this being a publicity stunt or a joke). To them, she responded: '[It] is called orchestrated by some on FB, which is very sad. The fact that women can react and hit back is just not acceptable in our society.'
On the plus side, Veena says the police were 'quick, polite, prompt and respectful' and the heckler was arrested for making the lewd gestures. Hopefully this can serve as a cautionary tale to other would-be catcallers? We wouldn't want every woman who gets eve-teased in India to have to incorporate kickboxing into her daily jog.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.