What do you take to office with you? Laptop? Files? Pen drives? Some women on night duty take knives.

Some others carry bottles of pepper spray and deodorant, one for each hand, in case they’re attacked by more than one person. They carry safety pins on their clothing, that can be unfastened quickly, used to stab an assailant and make a run for it. But most of all, our women carry on their lips a prayer, hoping to evade the filthy grasp of predators and return home untouched. Night after night after night.

The lady doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital may have succumbed, but countless other women live in fear that they might be next.

Night at police station

Sampreeti Chakraborty is a theatre and television actress who often finds herself returning from studios in Boral and Pailan late at night. And her experiences are harrowing.

Sampreeti has had men following her to the railway station, she has stepped into ladies compartments of last trains and felt even more unsafe there as they were empty. She has stepped into app cabs reeking of alcohol… “Once at Garia I was stranded without any transport. It was so hopeless I actually walked to the police station, prepared to spend the night there,” says the BA Block resident.

The cops helped her find a ‘shuttle’, but she cannot decide if it was for better or worse. “On the road the shuttle was blocked by goons, who tried to force passengers out and ride their bikes instead,” Sampreeti shudders.

Another time the lady was stranded outside EZCC after a show and had to walk home. “A letch started following me on a cycle and making lewd remarks. I was petrified but kept walking. When I reached PNB Island, that had a few people around, I turned around and beat him with my slipper,” says the lady who doesn’t leave home without a knife, two sprays, safety pins and an app that enables her husband to track her whenever she feels unsafe.

Streets of terror

How many hours in advance should one reach the airport before a flight? Nandini Sharma goes eight hours in advance sometimes. “I’m a businesswoman and often need to travel. But I don’t trust cabbies at night. If I have a 6am flight, I reach the airport by 11pm and wait,” says the AA Block resident.

Esha Chakraborty, her neighbour, too has to return home late from work but ironically, she starts feeling uneasy as her auto nears Ultadanga.

“Salt Lake gets deserted after 9pm. Auto drivers appear drunk and ask us to ‘reserve’ their vehicle and travel alone when it takes time to fill up,” says the lady who has been molested in the very lane outside her house. “If I catch such offenders I slap them but often they flee on cycles.” Jina Basu of Karunamoyee feels unsafe even if she is driving at night. “When other cars don’t obey signals at that hour what’s the guarantee they won’t try to do something to mine? Despite being an otherwise empowered advocate, as a woman I feel helpless.”

Unsafe at work

“Don’t we ring up our loved ones and ask if they have reached home or office safely? It’s because we assume there would be danger, if any, on the way. Once they reach office, we assume they are safe. Alas! Not any more after this incident,” sighs Nandini. Swagota Bhattacharya of AJ Block has witnessed first-hand how office environments can be toxic. “When I was in the HR department of a Sector V office, women employees once approached me, asking for an escort to the washroom as it was accessible only via the staircase, where some male employees sat during their breaks, leering at them,” she recounts.

“I accompanied them and found their concerns true. Later that evening, the women returned, expressing unease about their night shift as their cubicle door lock had broken and they feared those men might try something. I had to relocate them to a different common area that night and made formal complaints against the men,” Swagota says. Doctors, as we have seen, are not safe either.

Dr Adrija Rahman Mukherjee has stopped making house calls, except to homes of known individuals, for more than 10 years now. “Twenty-five years ago, I would take auto rickshaws and walk home from the hospital, even after midnight, without feeling threatened. But things have changed now. Although I haven’t faced anything personally, I feel unsafe reading about such incidents. My family also became concerned and asked me to stop traveling at night,” said the doctor from BB Block.

Collars blue & white

It’s not just doctors and IT professionals who are threatened. Rama Hajrah, who runs a domestic help centre in CK Block, says she has to be doubly careful about women on night duty. “Some of them come from as far of as Bongaon line and the nights are not safe for them on the train. So even if customers ask for ayahs from 9pm, I request them to take them in from 8, as the later it gets at night the more deserted our streets get,” says the founder of RS Seba Kendra. She speaks of being women being followed by cyclists who ask for their phone numbers. “Sometimes they ignore it; once in a while they protest. It has also happened that the homes the women are called for duty at night have a single middle-agedman living whose intentions are not honest. If I get such complaints I refuse to send ayahs to them again,”Hajrah says.

Tapasi Das, Duttabad resident and CA Market vegetable vendor, has to walk to the Muchibazar wholesaler every night at 3am. “I’ve been doing this for 25 years and am used to having men in cars stop and ask me to step in. I have to shout for help. I always carry a tough pair of slippers as I know I may have to use it to hit them any night,” she sighs.

The Karunamoyee march at midnight was joined by a cyclist, who was a food delivery app boy. “We do have some women delivering food but they stop after 10pm. Thereafter some stretches in Kestopur become dens for men to drink in the open,” says Sam Das.

Bad now but worse then

Arundhati Bandyopadhyay has recently retired as general manager of a concern where hers was the first batch of women engineer recruits. “We knew we were entering a man’s world and that if we complained too much we would not be able to work at all. So we developed thick skin,” says the lady who joined service in 1991. They would work in the office as well as factory. Women were not given night duty, but in case of emergencies had to go anyway.” The construction workers would pass lewd remarks at them and their lifts soon had lewd message scribbled, including of their names. “The messages were in English, so they were clearly not by the labourers. One lady got stalked by a male colleague too.” But perhaps the worst was how the men openly considered the lady recruits as liabilities. “One of our bosses would ask for extra manpower since he had women in his team. They would say “mahila der diye hobe na.”

Step back for women

One of the guidelines issued by the government in the aftermath of the RG Kar incident, is to minimise night duty for women but this has received mixed response from the public.

Sreetama Ray, a food and beverage executive at Bakstage Gourmet restaurant in Sector V, appreciates how her employer tries to avoid giving women night duty. “We are usually off by 9pm but on special nights like the pujas or New Year, we have to work till 2am. Since the same management runs Beyzaa Hotel & Suites, we are then allotted hotel rooms to spend the night safely,” she said. On August 14, in fact, the company had let women off at 6.30pm so they could go join the midnight marches near their homes.

But other women say the rule takes women back several decades. “Women were doing so well for themselves, but now are we to hold them back by saying they may not go out after dark?” questions Nandini, sadly. “Their careers will suffer.”

Anamika Patra works from home, “but if I get assigned night duty I neither want to decline nor work in fear. I’m a tax payer and I expect security round the clock,” said the DD Block resident at the Karunamoyee march.

Dr Bhaswati Sengupta says removing women from night duty is akin to discrimination on grounds of gender. “When women have competed with men and earned their seats in medical colleges, how can the government deprive them from a crucial part of their career? We get many emergency patients at late hours and there is much to learn from them. Such a rule means the government is conceding that it will fail to provide security,” said the DB Block doctor who graduated in 1978.

Unmukta Shit, a nurse who had done her internship at RG Kar finds this directive laughable. “Hospitals have more nurses than doctors, most of whom are female. Our state barely has colleges for male nurses. If we do not work at night, who will look after patients?” asks the nurse who marched at Kestopur.

A New Town-based office, EMRI Green Health Services, tries to avoid assigning night shifts to women. “And those who do come in, do so by 8pm,” says a company official. “We have security guards at the building’s gate as well as on our floor who, after 6pm, do not allow anyone in without ID cards. We also have a strong POSH (prevention of sexual harassment) committee, and the IT department’s job every morning includes scrutinising the previous day’s CCTV footage to check for anything amiss.”

No night is safe

Crime against women has become so rampant that even at the August 14 march, intended to help women reclaim the night, participants were uncertain of their safety. Walking from their car to the Karunamoyee gathering, three women were overheard discussing where they should meet in case they got separated in the crowd.

“Let’s meet at the car,” one suggested. “No, that area is too dark; Let’s meet outside Vidyasagar Bhavan, it’s well-lit,” another replied.

Some women got exhausted midway but were too scared to walk back as the street under the Metro viaduct was now a deserted stretch. So, they pushed themselves to finish the march.

Arundhati wanted to walk at midnight, “but I live alone and am new to the neighbourhood. I was scared to go out at night, so I walked with another group in the afternoon,” said the Baguiati resident. “It defeats the purpose in a way, but I couldn’t take the risk.”

When Esha announced she was going to the march, her family members asked if it was safe to be going alone at that hour. “I saw social media forwards advising women to carry chilli powder and pepper spray, even to this event,” she sighs.

Where it hurts

Nandini’s daughter has moved out of town for work, and she misses her. “But after reading about the RG Kar incident, for the first time, I’m glad she doesn’t live in Calcutta,” the AA Block lady says sadly.

Rahman Mukherjee mentions a friend whose daughter may qualify for medical colleges this year. “But my friend, also a doctor, is now wondering if, for her daughter’s well-being, she should take up some general course instead.”

Urmy Palchauduri, a social entrepreneur, urges residents not to wait for the government to act. “You do your part to ensure women’s safety. Keep your eyes open and be proactive,” says the AA Block lady who once chased a car when she saw a man hitting a woman inside it. She also intervened when she saw a street youth getting uncomfortably close to a young girl.

“Once, my car was involved in an accident, and the other driver threatened me suggestively. I took the matter to the police commissioner, and the driver was brought to his knees,” she says. “So, don’t just talk about teaching your sons to be good. Be the change you want to see in your city.”