An anonymous young woman on a Dum Dum-bound train who took her harasser to task on Monday left many a regular commuter the day after wondering ‘if only...’

Shampa Banerjee, 26, was one of them. “I was reminded about the time last winter when I was harassed by a man on the last Dum Dum-bound train. When I had protested mildly he had ridiculed me, drawing laughter from the other men in the coach. I stopped taking the Metro at night after that. How I wish I had mustered up the courage to do what this young woman did,” says the content writer.

Shampa is not alone. Of the 500,000-odd Metro passengers every day, around 100,000 are women. Many among them bear silent tales of torment, ranging from being leered at to being felt up.

“People stare all the time. But thank god I have never been seriously harassed,” says model Madhabilata, who often takes the Metro. “I was pinched by the man standing behind me. I yelped in shock and stamped on his foot, but it was so crowded there was little else I could do,” says Ishika Nandi, 27.

Most women on the Metro deal with it as an occupational hazard — suffer the occasional harassment for a few minutes, then shut it out and get on with life. The gutsy girl on Monday did not and even dragged her harasser to the cops. But she is the exception. The rule is of suffering in silence.

Why? Because, says psychologist Anuttama Banerjee, from childhood she has been taught to be silent. “These women feel that if they protest they’ll be stigmatised. They’ll be questioned as to why it happened to them, were they sending out some sort of signal, inviting such harassment (by their dress or demeanour). And so they don’t raise a voice against these men.”

So how to stave off harassers without risking shame or scare? Rohini Sengupta, 34, does it with body language. “If you look confident and send out a ‘don’t dare mess with me’ signal, men will usually leave you alone,” she says. Not if they are drunk or in a group.

Satarupa Patra, a post-graduate student, prescribes a a more direct approach. “Whenever I feel a man overstepping his limits in the Metro, I protest. Women need to be encouraged to come out and expose these men and humiliate them publicly.”