India's Sons, (India's Daughters) - Part 3

Story 1

The year was 1998. I was doing my summer internship in Delhi at a large Indian pharmaceutical company. Delhi, even before it became known globally as a ‘rape capital’ had already built its reputation in India as a city unsafe for single women.  I was a single woman living in the company guest-house. I was in Delhi.

One day, I was walking back to the guest house after work- a distance of about 1 km.  It was dark already and as is with most Delhi neighbourhoods, somewhat quiet and eerie. Why was I walking back, when I knew it was not the smartest, safest thing to do, you might ask. Well, the answer was what most women in my situation would give you.  There was no other viable option.

Suddenly, I heard a car come and stop right next to me. I panicked. A greying old man rolled down the passenger window and asked me to get in. This man was not unfamiliar to me. I had seen him around in the office. A dour, grumpy person, whose name I do not recollect even today. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, because that man, who was barely an acquaintance at work, was telling me ‘Why are you walking alone at this time. It’s not safe. I will drop you to your guesthouse.’

‘Are you sure?’ I asked. I did not want him inconvenienced. Also, how did I know his intentions were good? ‘Yes, it is no trouble’ he assured me, ‘it is only a small detour’. ‘Besides’, he insisted ‘it is not safe for you to walk alone like this.’ An almost fatherly concern for a young lady he barely knew. I took up his offer. 

He was an ordinary Indian man. So ordinary, in fact, I am ashamed to admit I don’t remember his name. He had nothing to gain by reaching out me that day, except the inconvenience of a detour. And yet, reach out, he did. To keep me safe.

Story 2

It was October 1998. Gandhi Jayanti – the birthday of Gandhiji – was around the corner and we were to be gifted with a 5 day long weekend. I was in my 2^nd year in business school – a time to party and to make merry. A bunch of us friends : 3 women and 2 men decided to take a road trip across the Gujarat that would culminate in the tiny Union Territory of Diu.  Diu was Gujarat’s watering hole. The only place where alcohol flowed freely and where residents of the ‘dry state’ of Gujarat routinely descended to gain legitimate access to liquor. 

I was a curious 22 year old. I had tasted alcohol on a few occasions, but I had one unfulfilled itch – to experience what being really, really drunk felt like. My other two girl companions on this trip were blissfully devoid of such lofty aspirations and decided to stay out of my way. 

My two male friends – platonic mates of the best kind - decided that the safest way for me to experiment would be under their expert tutelage, in one of our rooms, not in a public place. They mixed my drinks for me and tutored me on how I should consume it for the desired outcome. Under their watchful eyes, I gulped down awful tasting rum, followed by some cheap vodka. When they felt I had had enough, they shut the tap. Get really high, I sure did. So high, I spent the better part of the rest of the night sitting at the edge of the bathroom, waiting for vomit that threatened to gush out, but never did.

Why am I telling you this story? Because modern ‘western’ common sense suggests that male friends and alcohol are a potent combination: a sure-fire formula for molestation, at the very least. But at the time I did this crazy experiment, it did not occur to me even for a second that I would be unsafe. To the contrary, these friends were my safety net, who would look out for me while I allowed myself to cut loose. Is it not beautiful that it did not occur to my friends either ? These were ordinary, average Indian men, who cared enough about their mildly deranged friend to let her have her way, all the while taking it upon themselves to ensure that she was protected while she played with fire.

Story 3

It was August 1999 and I was visiting my brother in Mumbai for a few days, while still working in Delhi. A couple of my male buddies (yes I had and continue to have several close mates of the opposite gender) and I decided to watch a play at Prithvi Theatre, one Saturday evening. The play was an adaptation of ‘Death of a Salesman’ by Arthur Miller. As is common with young people, that group of 3-4 eventually grew and became a large gathering of friends and friends of friends. It was a wonderful play, but an unexpectedly long one, and by the time we were done, it was almost midnight.  

As the troupe disbanded, it suddenly occurred to me that I was now alone with 7-8 of my male buddies. Some in the group were close friends, others I only knew a little. I wanted to go home to my brother’s house, but he lived in distant Chembur. My friends were also reluctant to make the trek across the city in a cab to drop me home. Everybody was on their first job, and nobody owned a car.

I was now faced with a dilemma – I could go back with my friends to their apartment which was a short distance away, or I could cab it back to my brother’s home in the eastern suburbs alone. I did not want to take a cab all by myself. Even though Mumbai was a relatively safe city, the route from Juhu to Chembur would go through areas that were not well lit, through sections of Dharavi – Asia’s largest slum. I was also pretty sure that my brother would be furious if I went to my friends’ home, even though I trusted them implicitly. He did not know all of them, after all. 

I hesitated, but eventually decided that I would be much safer in the company of my friends than with an unknown cabbie at that time of day. The men, for their part, could not figure out what the fuss was about. I had always been one of the boys as far as they were concerned. We went to the apartment, where the men all kept awake through the night, chatting away – mostly with each other, but also since I was around, with me. I know for sure that my presence was inconsequential to everybody except me. So immaterial, I am pretty certain that none of the men present that night even remember this incident.

Even though the optics of that decision didn’t look good (a young bachelorette spending a whole night in an apartment full of bachelors, tch tch), and I got fired at home for it, I can say with a hand on my heart that I know I did the right thing.

So why am I ‘coming out’ with these stories now? Stories that, even after almost two decades, especially after almost two decades, seem more like idiocies of youth than anything else? Stories that will likely get my family all riled up and upset with ‘what will people say?’ Stories that mums (including myself, probably) will use to tell their daughters ‘Don’t you dare try that.’

Precisely because they are probably idiocies of youth. Idiocies of youth that –from others points of view- could have gone terribly, badly wrong, but did not. Not because I got lucky, but because of the nature of the men involved. Ordinary Indian men, to whom the idea of violating the trust of a friend or an acquaintance did not occur even in a remote corner of their brain.

Having attended co-ed school, having gone to graduate school in a mostly male environment, having lived alone as a single working woman in two cities (including Delhi), having worked in predominantly male environments, having had dozens of male buddies through my life, I have experienced hundreds of instances of everyday ‘chivalry’. Chivalry is probably not the right word, because for most of the men I have known, this is the only way they know to be. This is who they are, every single day of their lives, with every woman they know.

I have also experienced molestation, unwanted sexual attention, (from, obviously, a different set of men) but the instances of everyday chivalry far outnumber those handful of incidents, probably in the ratio of 100 to 1.

Were the men in my circle somehow unique, or different from the average- a consequence of there being many different ‘Indias’s in a heterosocial, heterocultual country like India? Or has the benchmark for acceptable Indian male behaviour somehow moved, so that what used to consider as the baseline is now, suddenly lauded as exceptional restraint?  Or maybe, just maybe, one incident and one documentary has blurred the vision and distorted the narrative to the point where we are no longer willing to sift through heaps of grain to remove the worms and would rather just brand the entire crop – RAPISTS.