Come on man! Stop it

In India, mothers and sisters are goddesses. All other women are fair game — for sexual harassment!

Amrita Nandy-Joshi Delhi

Born and raised in Delhi, I grew up sooner than my body did. I had to — I was born a female. Like many other girl children, I experienced the male gaze and lust when I was far too young. As a child, I was inappropriately felt and fondled by known and unknown people. I was shy, terrified and very confused. Something told me that all this was wrong, but I did not know why and how. I was not supposed to know. Something as innocuous as a short walk close to the house had once led to a molestation attempt! The streets, parks and markets were my spaces too. Yet, they violated and threatened me. For some women, the house is a safe haven and the outer world, a menacing predator. For many others, the corridors of the house can be as unsafe as the lusty streets outside. Millions of women in our cities and towns have no safe spaces. I found it impossible to escape 'me'.

As I started my working life, in my naiveté I assumed that the professional environment of an office would be free from the surreptitious touch of the street.

I was proven wrong, and how! The head of the institute I worked for, now an internationally-acclaimed scientist, turned out to be a despicable harasser. A vortex of intellectual charisma and power to most, for me he was the proverbial wolf in a sheep's clothing. Despite my turning down many of his serious advances, he persisted. His flirtatious behaviour and liaisons with some women in the office had always been legendary corridor talk in the institute's decades-old history. (During my stint there, a woman mysteriously stopped reporting for work soon after she returned from an international working tour with the boss). To my utter shock, I found that the organisation had no grievance cell. So I complained to an elderly male colleague, one of the senior-most in the office. He refused to believe me and instead asked me to forget what had happened and pray to God (because I am an atheist). When I announced my decision to leave the organisation for a degree at the University of Oxford, he threatened to get my admission cancelled! Having taught at an Ivy League college himself, I was worried he could actually do this. However, I could not be quiet; I had a responsibility towards other women in the institute. I turned to our HR team. I was rather disturbed to know that this women-only unit was also being treated improperly by the same harasser! All they offered me was sympathy.