Last weekend, I drove to a five-star hotel to attend an event by an ‘ethical’ diamond company. To enter the hotel, I cut right into the path of traffic that was heading past the hotel. This is the usual practice and not wrong by my city’s unfathomable road rules. Ours not to question why!
As I turned, I saw there was a log jam of cars ahead of me. I had become a traffic stopper albeit unintentionally and was blocking a bus whose driver was enraged and furiously kept sounding the horn. It seemed to signal that if I didn’t get out of his way pronto, he would ram right into my car. I tried to move but other drivers were sidling up to edge past me through the gate. I fretted why no one from the hotel’s security had realised the jam its guests were causing. I was irritated by the delay and was sorely tempted to return home but was hemmed in and couldn’t reverse or turn. The only way was ahead.
When I finally got through to the porch, I demanded to know why the hotel hadn’t hired extra valets for the event. Other guests talked about the frustrating experience while indulging a bit much at dinner. Food soothes the jangled nerves and so forth.
Come Monday, I was debating if I should email the general manager of the hotel and crib about this experience. “Certainly not what one expects at your hotel, am really surprised, you must get your act together”, the phrases were composing themselves in my head. My thoughts were interrupted by a phone call.
It was the eminent theatre personality and playwright, Prasanna. He was in town for some meetings and we planned to catch up in the evening at Koshy’s. But it wasn’t to be. And here’s why – Prasanna went to the secretariat for a meeting in the late afternoon. As is his wont, he didn’t use his fame to get through quickly but diligently stood in line at Gate No 3 which is the common entry point for three government buildings. There were a couple of hundred visitors in the queue from across the state, many of them women clutching babies in one hand and their Aadhar cards in the other. It started to rain. The line barely moved. There was just one official to check the IDs. At 5.30 pm, visiting hours came to an end and the people who had been waiting for hours were told to go home. When the women protested, they were driven away by the police. Prasanna was the last visitor to be let through but seeing the state of the women who weren’t allowed through, he refused to move. Distraught, he had decided to sit in dharna.
It made me pause and reflect on the privileges that we assert and the perspectives we have. Was the bus driver not right in being pissed off at the 5-star guests intent on their evening’s entertainment and unmindful of the inconvenience to other commuters? Was the strapping man in a dark uniform who I had mistaken for a hotel employee not right to be irked by a privileged memsahib? (I had asked him to open the second entry gate to let us enter the hotel faster. Turned out that he was the gunman of an IPS officer who was there as a guest.)
PS: I have been struggling to write the usual clever or cheerful conclusion, and I realise that’s because at the back of my mind are the women of Manipur. Tucked away in our cocoons of privilege, how do we assuage our conscience about their plight? How is it that women in a mob reportedly encouraged men to rape other women? As my fingers tap away, a voice in my head says, “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand”.
Sandhya Mendonca is an author and host of the ‘Spotlight with Sandhya’ podcast.