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Sunetra Choudhury is Associate Editor, National Affairs, NDTV 24x7)
It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my working life. It was my first job in a newspaper and like many other nights, while hunting or waiting for a quote, I was late in returning home. I was in my early 20s, single and living with my parents, and however much I'd tell my parents that my job required me to work late, they'd stay up, worry and crib.
On this particular night, when it was close to midnight as I recall, they called my front office (as it was just before I got a cellphone), and harangued the receptionist till he passed on the line to my Editor. My poor boss, who had no idea about my whereabouts, patiently heard out my frustrated father's lecture on the responsibility of having women working for him. I hated my parents for reducing me to a helpless little girl in front of my boss but fortunately, the only harm it did, was to my sense of pride. Perhaps, my editor was used to receiving such calls from his women employees' families!
I recall this story on a day when I go back to feeling almost as helpless as I did that day. It's been 15 years since - I've learnt to drive, I have my own car, I am responsible for the safety now of my own child, I'm no longer answerable to my parents and can spend the entire night working or partying or doing whatever I want, and yet, the sad part is, I am yet again answerable to someone back home whose valid excuse for checking up on me is that they are worried about how I'll get back home.
For a few years there, we working women in Delhi were living in a mirage of safety provided by radio taxis. We all loved the idea that whenever we knew we'd be late, we could pay a professional group to arrive at our office, at our friend's, at the bar, and take us safely where we needed to go. No more negotiating with fathers about deadlines, no more begging your brother to pick you up, no more of indulging the 'chipko' male friend because he had a car that would drop you home. There was also the end of negotiating the fare and whether a distance was viable for the taxi driver or not. We thought that if our cellphone number, pick up-drop-off location, the driver's name and phone number is fed into a 'computer system', we were safe, weren't we? I guess the air-conditioning in these cabs compared to the 'kaali-peelis' had made our brains cool down too because women like me were satisfied and we couldn't get enough of such a service.
My younger colleagues no longer had dads waiting downstairs at our office for them. They would frequently have girls' night outs and their sullen boyfriends were replaced outside the bar by more reliable ones named Meru and Ola and Mega with flexible pricing. I remember I heard about Uber when my colleague told me, "I thought I must be drunk because I called a cab and I saw an Audi outside!" Yes, suddenly we Delhi women thought we were citizens of the world, living lives we were always meant to be. I could come home from work with my driver and then let him go home as I was supposed to, taking a cab later, if I was going for a movie or dinner with my friends. For my night out, I could wear whatever I wanted to, and not worry like I would had I taken the metro. I would sometimes think about forwarding my cab details to my husband but I became so trusting that I banished even those thoughts soon.
And now those thoughts are back. My years of independence as a modern woman living in a global city like Delhi seem to have disappeared like the illusory mirage that they were. The Uber rape has killed my urge to step out and explore my city as an adult like I should. I'm back to requesting another man, my driver, to drop me after his shift to where I want to go. I mourn that loss of independence as my colleagues tell me they deleted their Uber apps, women who said they cancelled their late-night plans this weekend for lack of a safe option.
Maybe our fears will evaporate soon like our sense of outrage and we will go back to using these cab services. Many of us won't have a choice so for our sake, I just hope they fix these safety loopholes soon. I know taking lifts from male acquaintances isn't an option for me. Have you forgotten? More than 90 per cent rapes are committed by men we know.
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