58. A DICHOTOMY OF EMOTIONS ( 1991)

STRESS, SUCCESS AND EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN 

The Highs and Lows of A Woman’s Journey in the Corporate World

CARE: This is Chapter 58 of my book Stress, Success and Everything In-Between. These are individual anecdotes but to understand the professional journey in totality, I would recommend reading the book right from Chapter 01 onwards.

The morning at the Branch was as chaotic as usual, a cacophony of ringing phones, shuffling feet, and the occasional customer outburst. As the newly posted Chief Manager, I was still finding my bearings when a shrill male voice cut through the din, announcing a new disturbance.

I came out of my office to find a customer, face flushed with anger, pointing an accusing finger at a beleaguered assistant. The man was demanding immediate closure of his savings account.

The assistant, a young woman named Kanupriya (not her real name), explained the situation with admirable composure. The account was less than a week old but swollen with multiple large deposits received through clearing. Caution demanded scrutiny before allowing the closure of the account. The customer, however, saw this as a personal affront.

I ushered the irate fellow into my office, hoping for a quieter venue for his rising temper. The man launched a tirade about his right as a customer to close the account and the incompetence of bank staff. After some smooth talk and a cup of tea, the storm subsided.

Once he had run out of breath, I calmly asked him about the source of the deposits. A resident of Chhapra (Bihar), he had come to Delhi to perform the engagement ceremony of his son. He shared these details with a smug smile. The deposits in the account were all shagun money, a gift for his son received on his engagement. The amounts ranged from fifty-one thousand to a princely five lac rupees.

Intrigued, I inquired what his son was doing. The answer was swift and decisive: Indian Administrative Service. My eyebrows must have shot up because he misinterpreted my expression as disbelief.

“He is brilliant, you see,” he assured me as if reading my mind. “He has appeared in the prelims. Just waiting for the results.”

I struggled hard to stifle a smile. “Ohk, your son has not joined the IAS yet?”

His face turned red. “No. Not yet. But so what? Not everybody can appear for Prelims. But he has. When he clears the IAS examination, and I am confident he will one day, I will not settle for a measly ten lakhs. It will be at least a crore, I tell you, nothing less than a crore! हमार इकलौता लड़का हमार हुण्डी बा। (My only son is my Promissory Note.) Why should I not encash it?”

It was hard to keep quiet, but I decided discretion was the better part of valour. I focussed on my objective of garnering deposits for the Bank instead of lecturing the customer on the malice of dowry.  I convinced him about our policy about closing a newly opened account soon after opening it. I also persuaded him to keep the amount in a fixed deposit to be used when he comes to Delhi to perform the wedding next year. With a nod, he approved the idea, much to my relief.

As he beamed and exited, I could not shake the feeling that I had just seen a greedy father seeped in the malice of dowry with no qualms to encash his son.

The day passed as a blur of forms and figures. But the image of Mishra ji, his face etched with the certainty of a man who had already counted his chickens even before they hatched, stayed with me.

I was also reminded of what Major Solanki had said in Meerut that I was sitting on a goldmine as I had two sons, hundies to be encashed at the appropriate time.

It was a crude reminder that in professional life, one comes across people whose values differ from yours. Yet you resist indulging in arguments and discussion and keep quiet for the sake of professional behaviour. I was upset the way the customer  unabashedly sought and accepted dowry but was happy that I succeeded in getting a big deposit for the Bank.

A dichotomy of emotions!

(To be continued....)

*****

57. A NARROW ESCAPE ( 1990)

 STRESS, SUCCESS AND EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN 

The Highs and Lows of A Woman’s Journey in the Corporate World

CARE: This is Chapter 57 of my book Stress, Success and Everything In-Between. These are individual anecdotes but to understand the professional journey in totality, I would recommend reading the book right from Chapter 01 onwards.

Along with a junior officer, I was going to a distant village to investigate a robbery case in the branch. The journey was long and tedious. As we started from the headquarters early in the morning, we decided to take a bio-break at a branch in Ghaziabad city at around 8.30am.

As soon as we entered the branch, the junior officer accompanying me disappeared. He was familiar with the branch layout and headed straight to that much-needed facility toilet.

I looked around and asked the Guard on duty where the toilet for women was. The Guard immediately directed the sweeper to escort me to the ladies toilet. The sweeper beckoned me to come and walked out of the branch, and I followed him. We crossed corridor after corridor until I asked him, “Bhai, where are we going?”

“Madam Ji, just a little farther. No ledis tailit in the branch. All the ledis go to this gorment aafis tailet only,” he clarified.

It being a Saturday, the Government offices were all closed, and the place was deserted. He pointed towards a door and said, “Ledis Tailet,” and I walked in.

I was surprised to find two anterooms, one after the other. In the second one, there were four individual toilets. I entered the nearest one, but it would not bolt from inside due to bad alignment. I came out and stepped into the next one. Ugh, it had a broken latch. Out I came and tried the third one. It was leaking badly from the top, and I would have got drenched if I had stepped in. I stepped back to try the last one. It was so dirty that I felt like puking. Why are people so reluctant to flush their excreta? I had tried all four of them, one after the other, but none was usable.

I came out in disgust and bolted the entrance door to the anteroom from inside. The bolt was fixed at a height, but I somehow slid it up. Secure in the knowledge that I was now safe, I used one of the toilets without the latch and came out. The dry tap in the wash basin was a common issue. I was used to such inconveniences. The sanitiser in my bag was good enough, I thought.

My tale of woes had just begun. It started when I tried to come out from the anteroom. The door had slammed into its frame too tightly when I had bolted it from inside. I was shocked when I realised the door had jammed in the frame and would not open. There was no handle on the door for pulling it inwards. I quickly scrutinised the entire door and found that the only fitting on the door was that small bolt (chatkhani) at the topmost end, which I had slid up a few minutes ago. Despite my tall frame, opening the jammed door by pulling that tiny bolt with my index and middle fingers was next to impossible. The bolt was placed at an unusual height, and I had pushed it up hard to bolt the door from inside. Something that was a source of comfort to me a few minutes ago suddenly became my unanticipated stressor.

I bent down to see if I could pull the door from below. Surprisingly, there was not even half an inch of space between the door and the floor. Sitting on my toes, I tried to push my fingers below the door to pull it inwards, but in vain. The stark reality dawned upon me that I was trapped inside the toilet. The weather was hot and humid, and I was sweating profusely.

Realising the door would open only if somebody pushed it from outside, I started knocking at it. And then I thumped it, bashed it loudly and banged it desperately, Alas! There was nobody to evacuate me from this self-created prison.

Many minutes passed, adding to my desperation. The oppressive heat and humidity were also contributing to my discomfort. As I was getting frantic, it occurred to me to explore in my bag. A woman’s bag often carries solutions to many unanticipated problems. Sure enough, the bag came to my rescue as I found a Swiss knife in one of its many pockets. Yes, it will work! With the help of that small but sharp knife, I managed to carve a tiny niche in the door and leveraged the knife to open the door, much to my relief. Sweat was trickling down all over my body, not due to the weather alone but also due to the physical effort of shaving the side of the door.

At last, the door opened, and I stepped into the outer anteroom. The cool breeze outside swept my heavily perspiring face as its door was open. But before I could breathe a sigh of relief, I was dumbfounded to see three lecherous-looking men in that enclosed area. They had lusty expressions on their faces, and one of them had a rope in his hand. Seeing me coming out, one of them swiftly moved towards me and tried to grab my right hand, the hand in which I was still holding the open knife, unintentionally pointed towards him. This took him by surprise. I cannot say with certainty whether the fellow got a cut on his hand in this melee, but I managed to wriggle out of the spot.

Taking long strides, or should I say, almost running in the corridors of the office building, I reached the safe territory of the branch looking most distraught, my short hair dishevelled, some sticking to my face with sweat, and others flying in all directions like an aura. Looking at me in this state, the officer accompanying me asked, “What happened, Madam? All is well?”

I told him how I was locked inside the toilet and managed to come out with the help of the Swiss knife, censoring the potential danger I had encountered on my way out. What he said next was bloodcurdling.

“You should not have gone there alone. Last year, there was an incident of gang rape in these toilets. So these were locked for a long time, but now it seems they have reopened it …….” He was going on, and I was not hearing anything for fear of divulging what was transpiring in my mind. Was there any way to camouflage my shaky voice and pounding heart except by remaining silent? 

It is difficult to say with certainty whether this loo escape was a mere chance or my good luck. But I had to maintain the façade as if nothing had happened. I did not want my colleague to get wind of it lest the news should spread across the Bank like wildfire. It was a stark reminder of how vulnerable a woman can be in seemingly safe environments. If the people in the organisation knew about it, it would have reinforced their views that women are a weaker gender and, therefore, should not be assigned responsible positions. This would have become self-destructive for the career path of every woman in times to come. 

(To be continued...)

*****

56. A TWIST IN THE TALE OR A TWISTED TAIL? (1990)

STRESS, SUCCESS AND EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN 

The Highs and Lows of A Woman’s Journey in the Corporate World

CARE: This is Chapter 56 of my book Stress, Success and Everything In-Between. These are individual anecdotes but to understand the professional journey in totality, I would recommend reading the book right from Chapter 01 onwards.

My tenure in Meerut was marked by numerous challenges, none more demoralizing than the barrage of anonymous complaints that descended upon me. In my entire service span of about 39 years, I never received as many anonymous complaints against me as I did in Meerut.  

These anonymous complaints came with a flurry of accusations typed in Hindi and cyclostyled on official legal-sized paper. Every Monday morning, I would find a neatly folded letter in the top drawer of my office table, finding faults with my functioning or casting a shadow of suspicion over my decisions and making malicious allegations. Initially, I dismissed them as baseless and tried to ignore them. However, my strategy did not work. Soon, the content of the letters escalated from veiled insinuations to malicious attacks, tainting not only my professional reputation but also making personal attacks on me. It became a regular nuisance, which I had to face every Monday morning, their content and regularity turning into a source of anxiety. However, the menacing complaints became so vicious that I could not ignore them anymore, and they started causing me immense stress. Ultimately, I reached a stage when I dreaded opening the table drawer on Monday mornings lest a complaint against me should be waiting there. Apparently, the culprit was succeeding in his mission.

Gradually, I also learnt that these letters were placed on every desk in every section on Monday mornings, and the people read them with interest and discussed them scandalously the whole day. 

Despite my efforts to find out who was behind this menace, I failed to do so, and the perpetrator remained elusive. My superior, seemingly unfazed, advised me to disregard the complaints, claiming it was a "common occurrence" in the region. 

Despite sincere efforts, the source of these attacks remained under a veil of mystery. The accuracy of basic facts convinced me it was the job of some insider. Yet, the accusations were fabricated, leaving me with a frustrating puzzle. Each Monday loomed, a dark cloud threatening to unleash another wave of negativity. The constant stress began to take its toll, adding a permanent layer of anxiety to the already demanding workload.

It was clear that someone was deriving some sadistic pleasure by trying to demoralize me. I was consumed by helplessness and anger but could not locate the source of this weekly nuisance.

After a lot of brain-storming, I could decipher only two clues. All the complaints were sent by the same person as they were typed on the same typewriter, which had a couple of broken keys and did not print a couple of alphabet clearly. But there was no such typewriter in the entire zonal office. The second clue was that the complainant was aware of every action of mine. The needle of suspicion thus pointed towards the Head Clerk, who was in charge of despatch and maintained the master file of all the office copies. However, these were only insinuations without solid evidence for confronting him or initiating any action. 

And then suddenly, a phone call changed everything, and the tide turned.

That weekend, I was in Delhi, where my family stayed. Late on Sunday night, as I was about to sleep, a call from an unknown number shattered the quiet of the night. The caller informed me that he was calling from Meerut and that Mehra ji, the Head Clerk in my department, had met with an accident and had been rushed to the Emergency of the local Medical College. When I asked him how the accident happened, he replied that Mehra ji fell from the local bus while boarding it and was run over by a passing vehicle. He was seriously injured. The caller further told me that Mehra ji wanted to meet me urgently. When I asked him who he was, the caller claimed that he did not know Mehra ji and had only called me out of humanitarian concern as Mehra ji requested him to contact me and gave my phone number to him. The anonymous caller asked me to visit the Emergency Room of the local Medical College the next day morning before going to my office. Saying so, he hung up the phone.

I immediately called back that number to learn more, but it kept giving an engaged tone. When the number was finally connected, I was told it was a PCO, a paid public call booth in Meerut. The PCO operator did not know who the caller was.

I could not sleep after that phone call and kept thinking about it for a long time. I felt sad that the gawky-looking Head Clerk, silently sitting in the corner of the hall opposite my room, had met with a dangerous accident. Suddenly, questions started popping up. Why has he conveyed this news to me? How come he had my Delhi residence number with him? Remember, there were no cell phones in those days. Why did he have to use the services of a stranger to convey this message? Why did he not ask any of his family members to call me? But why does he want me to visit him in the hospital before going to the office? Why? Why? Why? My mind was getting lost in the whirlpool of questions.

It was late at night, and I was about to fall asleep when something struck me suddenly. Wasn't there a familiar hint of stammering in the caller's speech? I got up with a jerk and started thinking again.  The stammer was typically that of the Head Clerk Mehra, but the voice was not his. He sounded different. Could it be Mehra himself masking his voice? Could he be talking after covering the mouthpiece with a cloth or paper? The stammer definitely resonated with his speech pattern. I suspected that he was Mehra himself. The detective in me was now active.

If Mehra had met with an accident, why should he want to see me of all the persons? Why should he ask me to reach the Medical College alone without entering the office building? And if the caller himself was Mehra, why was he playing this game?

Something did not sit right. The secrecy, the urgency, the camouflaged stammer. It all led to suspicion. Was I being led into a trap? Before rushing into this fabricated scenario, I decided to investigate.

The next day, I reached the office with a clear sense of purpose. I did not go to the hospital but sent a trusted colleague there to verify whether any such accident had taken place. Once in the office, I noticed that Mehra was not present, although he was usually the first to reach the office.  The staff attendance register, under his custody, came to my desk during the routine course at 10.15am. A glance at the register revealed Mehra had marked his presence against his name, a curious detail considering no one in the office had seen him. It was apparent he came early, took the attendance register out of the cupboard, marked his presence, and left before anyone else came in. It became crystal clear: this was a deliberate ploy.

An hour later, the officer I had sent to the hospital returned and reported that no such person had been admitted there during the last twenty-four hours. He also informed me that Mehra was hale and hearty and had been sighted by the cleaning staff in the office at around 9 am. The web had unravelled, and the picture was clear. I was specifically asked to come to the hospital before going to the office. Had I done so, I would not have seen the Attendance Register. The confirmation that no such accident took place with Mehra solidified my suspicions. His early arrival at the office, solely to mark attendance, was an attempt to establish an alibi. His intentions remained ambiguous, though the manipulation was undeniable. As he had marked himself present in the office, Mehra could get away even with murder and not get caught: his presence in the office would have ensured his security. What were his intentions towards me? A chill went down my spine.

It was amply clear that Mehra was trying to play some game with me, and his intentions were highly suspicious. By 12 noon, Mehra quietly slipped into the office and started working on his desk as if nothing had happened.

I confronted Mehra, but he refused to engage in any dialogue. I drafted a memo and called for his explanation for his absence from the desk for an unduly long period. He refused to receive the memo and vanished. I sent an officer to paste the memo at the door of his house, which was done.

Meanwhile, my boss was transferred, and a new dynamic officer replaced him. When I apprised him of the case, he gave a practical solution: a transfer to a remote branch. The daily commute, he was sure, would serve as a more severe punishment rather than a mere warning, which a temporary absence from the desk would have attracted. I quickly but discreetly got his transfer orders issued for a distant place and served him the relieving letter.

Mehra promptly marched to the new Regional Manager but was told to go to me. Soon, he stood before me with folded hands, seeking an apology. However, his lack of remorse and refusal to explain his actions left me unconvinced, and I refused to budge. He was asked to go and report to a far-off branch.

With his departure from Meerut, the anonymous letters also ceased, and a semblance of peace returned during my remaining tenure in Meerut.

This experience underscored the importance of being vigilant at every step and trusting one's instincts, particularly in the wake of unseen threats. This incident again confirmed that even a hardened criminal leaves a trail of clues behind. Though the mystery behind the motive for calling me alone to the Hospital Emergency remains unresolved even today, the resolution ended a period of immense stress and uncertainty for me.

As I finally managed to twist his tail, I felt satisfied that I could bring a twist in the tale.

(To be continued...)

*****

55. DON'T TRY TO TAKE ME FOR A RIDE! (1989)

STRESS, SUCCESS AND EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN

The Highs and Lows of A Woman’s Journey in the Corporate World

CARE: This is Chapter 55 of my book Stress, Success and Everything In-Between. These are individual anecdotes but to understand the professional journey in totality, I would recommend reading the book right from Chapter 01 onwards.

In the Meerut office, a ploy used by Sharma ji, one of my team members, was to bring the proposals for approval when I was about to leave office and insist under the garb of urgency that I sign them immediately.

One evening, he rushed in with a fat file and a long note containing five legal-size pages covering a complex issue. He asked me to quickly put my initials on it so that he could carry it to the boss for sanction. When I refused to sign the note without reading it, he tried to prevail that the boss would be livid if I delayed it. I insisted that I would not put my initials unless I read it. Sharma ji made a dramatic tongue-in-cheek remark, “But Madam, you would not be able to understand a word of it."

“Why? Why would I not understand it?” I frowned.

"Because Madam...," he declared with the air of superiority, "...the Note is in Hindi. We in Meerut write pure and intricate language. And you, being a Convent-educated person, may not comprehend it."

Aha, Meerut! Pride in the language! Little did Sharma ji know that my formative years were spent not in an elitist Convent school but in the mundane classrooms of government-run Hindi medium schools. 

"Let me at least try, Sharma ji," with a mischievous glint, I took the file from his hands.

“I will give it to you first thing in the morning,” I assured him, stuffing the file in my overflowing briefcase while rushing out of the office.

On my way back, a flashback ensued, transporting me back to 1962 in the eighth grade in Dehradun. My favourite Hindi teacher, Miss Nidhi Varma, had been transferred and replaced by the formidable Mrs Sharbati Devi.

On her first day in the school, Mrs Sharbati Devi entered our classroom, quickly scanned it from the front to the last row and boomed, "Who is Ranjana Sharma?" Startled and wondering why she was enquiring about me, I stood up.

"Come here," she ordered, gesturing towards the blackboard. "Write down all the words I dictate."

And dictate she did!  कर्म, क्रम, कार्मिक, क्रमिक, क्रमशः, कृत्य, कृति, पराक्रम, प्रकृति, प्राकृतिक, प्रवृत्ति, प्रारब्ध...and I kept writing them all confidently until the black-board was full. Finally, she ran short of words, and a smile appeared on her serious face.

Fast forward to the present. Sharma ji received his Note the next day with a liberal sprinkling of cross marks in pencil adorning each page. My remark on the first page read, “कृपया वर्तनी शुद्ध करें।".

Days passed, but the file did not come back. Finally, I inquired about its whereabouts from Sharma ji, "What happened to that note you brought with so much urgency that evening?"

With embarrassment writ large on his face, he confessed his predicament. He had scoured the entire Zonal Office, seeking the meaning of this arcane word, वर्तनी. The whole of the Official Languages Department was also stumped and could not help him.

"But Sharma ji," I could not resist saying with a hint of mock surprise, "I thought you would know this word. If not, why did you not ask me instead of sitting over the file for so many days? वर्तनी, for your information, means spelling."

I wanted to say, "Do not ever try to take me for a ride!" But I refrained from doing so. Not everything needs to be stated explicitly.

He had tried to show unwarranted one-upmanship, but I had successfully showed him his place. 

(To be continued...)

*****

54. ONE WHO LAUGHS, LASTS.... (1989)

STRESS, SUCCESS AND EVERYTHING IN-BETWEEN (1989)

The Highs and Lows of A Woman’s Journey in the Corporate World

CARE: This is Chapter 54 of my book Stress, Success and Everything In-Between. These are individual anecdotes but to understand the professional journey in totality, I would recommend reading the book right from Chapter 01 onwards.

On a winter afternoon, I was busy clearing up the files on my desk. It looked like a competition where the inflow heavily outweighed the outflow, defeating it by a large margin. I looked at the clock. It was already half past three. It appeared I would have to carry a lot of work home today. I despised the idea but did not want to leave work pending for the next day.

Suddenly, the news came that communal riots had erupted in the city, which was simmering. The local administration had clamped curfew in most parts of the city. The news sent waves of fear through the office.

Many officers who commuted from Delhi to Meerut by a chartered bus panicked. They were anxious to leave the riot-torn city as quickly as possible. Some promptly dashed to the Bus Stand. Others, who were departmental heads, could not take this liberty. They rushed to the head of the office requesting permission to leave early, but he was reluctant to oblige. After prolonged discussions, arguments, and counter-arguments, the big boss relented and allowed all to leave early but not before 5 pm. Someone went around all the floors announcing this, but by the time all came down and the bus moved, it was already 5.15 pm. I also stuffed all the pending files in my fat briefcase and ran to catch the bus lest I get stuck in a riot-torn city. Nobody knew how many days the curfew was going to last.

As the rickety bus started rolling on the deserted road in the Cantonment area, the sun had set, and darkness had begun engulfing the city. All were tense and silent. The bus hardly moved for about two kilometres when we felt a strong jerk and heard a weird sound, bringing the bus to a sudden halt. The driver and the conductor jumped out of the bus to check the reason and returned to announce that the axle of the bus had broken down. Repairing it was impossible as the city had shut down due to curfew, and no mechanic would be available.

We all got down and started walking towards the bus stand. The men who were wearing shoes took long strides and moved fast. A dozen women officers, wearing chappals and saris, wrapped in shawls and lugging their heavy purses, water bottles and lunch boxes, were ill at ease while walking. I looked at my heavy briefcase and cursed myself. Why did I have to be so conscientious? Why could I not leave it behind?

The men were virtually sprinting towards the city to reach the bus stand and board a State transport bus to Delhi. The women, unable to keep pace with menfolk, decided to stick to each other. We did not know the route and were following the male colleagues, but the distance between them and us was increasing rapidly due to their fast pace. Delhi was eighty kilometres from the bus stand, but that was not the issue. The challenge was to reach the bus stand safely and board a bus to get out of the city burning with communal hatred. Anything could have happened to us in that communal frenzy. We were scared but continued to walk, with every footstep echoing fear.

There was a sudden glimmer of hope as I sighted a local transport bus approaching us from behind. We frantically waved, requesting it to stop. The driver of the bus obliged us by halting at an unscheduled stop. Seeing the bus, the men dashed backwards and hopped on before all the women could board it. Unfortunately, the bus was to terminate at the next crossing only, which was still quite some distance from our destination, the main Bus Stand.

Getting down from the bus at a deserted crossing, most men quickly walked away again. Each was fending for self, and no one had time to care for others. Women dreaded walking as some of them had developed blisters on their feet. We were once again stranded.

At the Chopla crossing, we desperately approached the cabbies parked there, but no one was willing to go to Delhi. Darkness was creeping in steadily, and our anxiety was growing.

On the verge of exasperation, some of us approached an open three-wheeler, locally called “Kowwa,” which could accommodate up to ten passengers on two narrow wooden planks and asked him, “Bhaiya, ITO chaloge?” Our excitement knew no bounds when the driver agreed to go to ITO for a mere Rs 200, almost the same amount a regular taxi would have charged from Meerut to Delhi those days. We heaved a sigh of relief. At last, some means to exit from the riot-afflicted town was available. Squeezing ourselves on the narrow wooden planks, the discomfort of sitting like this for the next three hours on a pothole-ridden road did not deter our excitement.

The kowwa initially moved on the main road but suddenly entered a small lane. Confused, we looked at each other. Hesitatingly, I asked the driver, “Where are you going? I do not think this is the route to ITO.”

The kowwa driver replied brusquely, “This is the shorter route.”

All kept quiet. None of us was familiar with the area. Maybe the kowwa driver was right. Perhaps it was a safer route. But fear gripped us as we entered the labyrinth of lanes and by-lanes. The doors and the windows of all the houses on both sides were shut tightly without any trace of life. Not a soul was visible on the deserted streets. All the residents appeared confined to the safety of their homes. The atmosphere was tense and eerie. Not knowing the religious leanings of the driver, no one could even verbalise one’s fears.  

Soon, we moved out of the residential area and descended into claustrophobic uncertainty. The kowwa had reached near a sprawling field, dark and deserted and surrounded by thick mango orchards. The trees were looming like monstrous dark shadows on all sides. It was not ITO. Where has he brought us? My heart was beating fast, and my throat had dried up. All of us were feeling helpless and horrified. A mass massacre appeared imminent. Will he butcher us all alone, or will others join him in this lonely place? We all were sitting stiffly when the driver suddenly stopped the kowwa and announced, “Get down now. You have reached ITO.”

This place was not our destination. Did we not know ITO like the back of our palms? I mustered some courage, “Where have you brought us? It is not ITO.”

“Of course, this is ITO. There it is!” He pointed towards a dark and deserted biscuit-coloured building. As we stared hard into the darkness, we deciphered the name of the office, “Regional Transport Office,” usually referred to as RTO.

Oh My God! Realising that the driver misunderstood ITO as RTO, we started laughing hysterically.  All were doubling up with laughter, holding our tummies. After the prolonged pent-up stress, the laughter was such a cathartic release. We laughed like people possessed. Standing in that deserted test drive field, the driver was confused, wondering what had suddenly come over this group of women. Moments later, when we controlled ourselves, we asked him if he could take us to the City Bus Stand from where the buses for Delhi left. He stared at us intently and said, “It will be another two hundred bucks.”

We hopped on to the kowwa again, reached the Bus Stand and finally boarded a bus for Delhi. But the story does not end here.

Seated comfortably in the deluxe bus, we wondered about the fate of our male colleagues. Some were critical of their behaviour, and others accepted that everyone fends for oneself when it is a question of life and death.  As the bus reached Bhud Baral, a chill went down our spines when we saw a big crowd of people blocking the highway and frantically trying to stop our bus. Have the blood-thirsty rioters reached here too, we wondered. The bus driver had no option but to apply the brake. The crowd started pushing and jostling to enter the bus. We were initially terrified but startled to find that they were our male colleagues who had deserted us earlier. The bus they boarded had broken down near Bhud Baral, leaving them stranded on the highway. Seeing their embarrassed faces, we all broke into another spell of laughter, which did not stop until we reached ITO in Delhi.

Looking back, I feel it was in these shared moments of terror and absurdity that our bonds with each other strengthened.

(To be continued)

*****