Accommodating The 'Other': Making Workplaces Gender Friendly

In the context of the Tarun Tejpal and Justice Ganguly cases, which not merely occupied the centre stage of media discussions, but also raised uncomfortable issues that have been lying unaddressed for a really long time, it is important to turn a keen gaze on the matter of sexual harassment at the workplace.

With the Vishakha Guidelines, court orders and a legislation in place requiring a Sexual Harassment Prevention Cell in every organisation, it may be believed that what needs to be done has been initiated. However, that is not really the case. Given that the gender imbalance in favour of men is getting ironed out in most workplaces and that growing westernisation is creating a fairly casual culture, it is important for most forward looking organisations, to go beyond merely instituting a cell to address the issue were it to be brought to its notice, by taking measures to prevent sexual harassment at the workplace, in the first place.

With longer working hours and increasing situations for working together, it is important to generate the right atmosphere, where women feel safe and wanted and can put their best foot forward as working professionals, without feeling debilitated by their gender orientation.

And for this two simple steps need to be taken – the first being to make the workplace gender friendly with suitable infrastructure and policies that accommodate/address the specific needs of women and the second being to imbue gender sensitivity in all employees, to make them aware of what constitutes ‘improper’ behaviour, in the context of gender, the consequences of violating these norms and being proactive in penalising those who overstep the boundaries rather than pushing the matter under the carpet, so that women are given their due place and freedom in the workplace.

An Inevitable Choice

I was up that day a little earlier than usual. The decision I was to take was to change my entire life. This was not the first time I was taking a responsible decision and given the way my life had spanned out, I knew that what came after may be very different from what I had in mind. And yet I knew that I had to take a decision, be at the helm of affairs, take charge of my own life. For, I was never really a drifter, one to shirk responsibilities or blame others for what happened in my life. That is perhaps why I had long since lost my name; for everyone who knew me always called me  Jiddi – strong willed.

I wonder whether that defined my life or shaped it. Something I will never know. Like everything else, which is just defined by perceptions, this too was the way you chose to look at it – a matter of perspective.

I thought I had lived what I had stood for: fought my way through life for what I believed in, never given up on challenges, tried to put my best foot forward in every task I accepted and took on.

And so would this decision be. One that would be true to me. On the one hand was the life of a child yet to be born, on the other a slim hope that modern day medicine would cure me. And I chose the former; for only that seemed fair, though I did not know whether my beloved and my little one would ever forgive me for it. And so when the doctor came, I unhesitatingly told him not to treat my cancer; for if I were to treat it, it would definitely affect my little one. I knew it would ravage my mind, destroy what I had struggled to remain true to and build up; but this was a decision I had to take. And so, at the risk of displeasing two of the people who mattered most to me: I chose death in life. I do hope my little one that tomorrow when you grow up in a world which might make you wonder whether it was worth it being born and living, you see my decision as the only one a mother could take. For, Dearest, isn’t that what life and decisions are all about – do they shape us or do we take them?  One will never know.  

A RATling Experience

Life is always known for its unexpected twists and turns and any change, whether in personal or professional space, is bound to come with its challenges. But I was always a veteran and thought I could tackle such changes easily, having shifted my house 22 times in a span of 43 years; yet, what I encountered recently left me RATtled.

I was quite excited with shifting to the 8^th floor and lent hand to my colleague,s who were either busy or less experienced, in tackling this daunting task. The first thing we noticed was the change of view, the calming sea spread out in the distance and a new place - all to ourselves. Well but that was not to be; while we were almost looking forward to visitors, in the form of our 3^rd floor colleagues and students, we were taken aback by a totally unexpected visitor – a RAT!

It wasn’t as if we hadn’t noticed the two holes that lined the outer wall of our office and we had even made efforts to tell the Maintenance about them, but well, they too were busy trying to ‘manage change’, so as days turned to weeks and weeks to months, we let it pass by.

Often visitors are noticed by their presence and their unwillingness to leave, harassing the hell out of the people they visit, but here we were, in a predicament, unique to ourselves. Our visitor was noticed by his/her absence (see I can’t even identify the gender, so unseen was s/he), underlined by the traces, s/he left for us.

In the beginning, it was crumbs, then large chunks of food, then upturned dustbins and finally the place being littered with s**t and p** (you see s/he wasn’t toilet trained)

At first, like with guests, we were tolerant; armed with sanitizers (a cleaning boon for the modern citizen), we cleaned out our workstations, after the housekeeping had swept out the remains (of all sorts) of the previous day.

Then the problem grew worse and so did our desperation. Our actions were now supplemented with phone calls, which were greeted with affirmations without action... (so typical of an Indian setup) and then by emails that brought authorities rushing up to our rescue.

The holes, after a quarter year of sustained, relentless and untiring efforts, were finally plugged. But you see, they were closed only partially and our guest had, by then, learnt the intricacies of the layout. S/he had become more familiar with it than us (after all s/he was equipped with the age old wisdom, ‘when the cat is away the mice are at play’ – the only change being there were many cats (many of us) and it was a mouse – only one.  

We thus had become strangers to peace, the proverbial hunters, equipped with varied degrees that specialised in management (except, of course, on how to manage rats)

Finally, our murderous instincts took over and we decided to poison our guest – for that seemed the only way.

Yet, much to our surprise and awe that soon turned to chagrin, our guest had digested the rat poison, we had set out for him//her and, as a vengeance, left a mark on each table. We beat a hasty retreat. And so the battle continued - human beings (man) against nature or the modern battle of space and we hoped that all management, we had ever learnt and taught, would help us to tackle this issue.

Ganpatis had come and gone along with their vehicles - the mooshik (rat), but our friend continued to be our guest. Currently the battle seems to have swung in our favour, for s/he has not been seen or heard (of) recently. We hope that unlike the Atithi in ‘Atithi Tum kab Jaogey’, we are not forced to make him/her a part of our life... 

STRAY THOUGHTS ON DEATH AND DYING

Like many others, I too had been inspired by Steve Jobs. Having known the importance of picking up the pieces of one’s life and carrying on, I somewhere deep within felt a sense of bonding, one that established a connection that obliterated all notions of scale. Reading and learning from the words that were now finding increasing space and visibility, my mind was arrested by one striking line that stood out from among many others and urged me to cross the boundary from reflection to expression: We all — in the end — die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories.

I had always been fascinated by death, as somewhere down the line we all are – maybe by its elusiveness or maybe by the sheer mystery that surrounded it. Every time I heard of it what arrested me the most were the reactions of those living – their manner of approaching death itself as also their reactions to that particular situation and most importantly to the person who had just died. For me the paradox of death lay in the fact that it somehow seemed to bring out the value of the person’s life. All that the person had said or stood for suddenly seemed to acquire a value that was far deeper than anything that had gone before. Without really undermining the emotions that people expressed, I wondered whether all that was said on the occasion or after it really mattered. All that the person had done suddenly seemed to acquire new meaning and depth with all faults being wiped out, possibly in the light of an unconscious realisation, somewhere deep within that one would now have to suffer them anymore.

Was death really then the end or was it actual awareness that it was not the end of the presence of another but being made to realise the value of what the person meant to you and what the person stood for. And then would being able to witness the reactions to one’s death not be the most valuable moment of all....... and since that would not really be possible would it not be better to react to other’s as if they were dead rather than living, giving the other a different sense of who s/he really is or then possibly affording him/her the scope to actually become that way, making life more meaningful than death.