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...)

*****