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How many more Monalisa stories will it take for our society to respect boundaries and practice empathy?

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Piyush Singh
New Update
Monalisa

The incident where Monalisa Bhosale, a 16-year-old garland seller became the target of harassment at the Mahakumbh after a viral video, solidified the way society treats women, for merely existing.

Being a woman in India can often feel like walking on uncertain ground, where safety is never guaranteed no matter where you are. No matter what you do, there is always an underlying sense of vulnerability. The statistics are grim, but the lived experiences are even grimmer. Women are forced to remain cautious at all times, whether they are commuting to work, attending a cultural gathering, or, like Monalisa Bhosale, simply trying to make an honest living. The story of this 16-year-old garland seller at the Mahakumbh Mela is a glaring reminder of just how fragile women’s safety can be in the face of societal obsession and entitlement.

A single footage of Monalisa selling garlands at the Mahakumbh Mela was enough to turn her into a viral sensation. She became the talk of social media, with people comparing her to timeless beauties and referring to her as a modern-day Mona Lisa. But as we’ve seen too often, admiration for women in India can quickly cross the line into something more invasive and harmful. A now-viral video shows her trying to escape this suffocating attention. Her family members struggled to shield her from the mob, while Monalisa, overwhelmed and frightened, had to cover her face with her dupatta. What started as harmless attention became a nightmare.

This wasn’t just about losing her peace of mind, it was also about her business suffering. People started seeing her less as a garland seller and more as a viral celebrity. Crowds began to gather around her but not to buy garlands but to gawk, take pictures, and invade her space. The attention shifted from her work to her appearance, leading her father to send her home for her protection from the madness. While heartbreaking, unfortunately, it is also not surprising. In India, when a woman gains visibility—whether through her talent, work, or even social media fame—it often comes at the cost of her safety and dignity.

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Monalisa’s story highlights the culture that allows admiration to turn into entitlement:

Incidents like this reveal a larger issue in how women are perceived with the focus shifting from her identity or what she does to what she represents to the men around her. In this case, Monalisa wasn’t a garland seller or a teenage girl. She became an object to be admired and harassed without question. Incidents like these show us how all sense of respect for boundaries and empathy gets lost when people disguise their behavior as admiration, curiosity, or even harmless fun. Individual responsibility often disappears when people get swept up in mob mentality, and men who might normally hold back feel encouraged to act out. If anything, this incident should make us pause and reflect on not just on the actions of those men but on the culture that enables such behavior.

Monalisa Bhosale didn’t ask for the attention she received, and she certainly didn’t deserve the harassment that followed. The incident is a reminder that even in spaces meant for faith and reflection, women aren’t safe from the toxic attitudes that plague our society.

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