The office of the owners’ association of the Bypass housing complex. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

The letter to the police commissioner

The following is the verbatim reproduction of the note Yishi Chakrabarty wrote to the Calcutta police commissioner and emailed from her father's address with opening and closing notes by him. The sentences in bold are those emphasised by Yishi. Yishi told this newspaper she can be named.

(Amitava Chakrabarty)

Good evening Sir,

I am here to report a mentally debilitating incident that my daughter (who is 22-years-old) faced on 22nd July, 2019, inside the housing complex, by the name ‘Ruchira Residency’ (369, Purbachal Kalitala Road, Kolkata-700078), an apartment inside which we own.

She has written a letter describing the traumatic experience. Kindly consider her predicament as I believe no young individual should have to go through the utter helplessness and trauma that she had to go through.

The following is what she had to say about the incident:

Just to let you know a few basic details about me, I think I should inform you about my occupation. I have just completed my undergraduate programme in History Honours from Presidency University.

I would like to talk about a situation I have found myself in that has wreaked havoc with my mental health and self-perception. A situation that not only highlights the status of one of inferiority based on gender but also transcends the parameter of moral compass to involve negligence and misuse of power of an insidious nature.

I returned last evening from a doctor’s appointment to find my bathroom tap dripping streams of water at a constant rate. Naturally, I immediately asked a plumber (from UrbanClap; I admire their prompt service delivery and work ethics) to come over and fix it. Wasting water in any form in today’s circumstances is no less than a crime.

When the plumber arrives, one of the complex security guards (I live in one of the apartments of the housing complex, ‘Ruchira Residency’) informs me over the phone that they are going to send him off because their policy is not to allow service professionals after 6 PM.

But the urgency of the situation (the Chief Minister herself views wastage of water with rightful condemnation) made me negotiate the terms of the policy with them. Letting my tap leak like that throughout the night until the next morning when I could reschedule the plumber’s appointment seemed like a sin. Especially when fellow citizens of the country in Chennai are grappling for water and it has been predicted that India is going to exhaust an enormous percentage of groundwater by 2025.

The security guards refused to speak further on the topic at all, claiming I should talk about my problems with the office instead inside the complex. With the plumber waiting patiently outside the complex even for a presumably failed appointment (also I’m paying him by the minute) and the urgency of the situation at hand, I wasted no time and immediately went downstairs to talk to the people inside the office.

Let me highlight the next words I am about to type. There are no female officeholders inside that building. A group of men ogled back at me in such a way as I walked in that I realised for the first time since leaving my house, that in my haste I had headed out in the clothes I wear at home (a pink ‘Disney Princess’ top and shorts).

As I started to speak about my problem and whom is it exactly I should address among all the men, I noticed all of their eyes on my body rather than on my face. The man who spoke next had an especially conspicuous stare of perversion.

The first thing he said was that he did not feel like talking to a girl like me because I’m not dressed according to his satisfaction. I am that kind of girl who should not be listened to at all because I have no more sense than dressing like a woman of the streets and walking into a roomful of respectable men. He said that I am dumb and I should not be engaging in a conversation with him because his intellect is not meant for that.

When I responded with fury over how he could muster the morale behind this poisonous treatment, he dismissed me immediately and shouted at me to get out of the office. In response, I could not control myself and shouted back, saying that I am not obligated to any of his orders. At this point, most of the men shouted at the top of their lungs in unison and shooed me with the most disrespectful gesture possible. (All that I am detailing here can be evinced by retrieving CCTV footage of the date and time; 22.7.2019, around 7 PM)

They, never, for once, asked me about my reason for entering the office at all. I realised it was of no use, spending my energy over being heard and obtaining their permission over something so urgent and I went back to the gate and politely asked the plumber to come in and fix the tap for me. The plumber even assured the guards that the job he was going to do was not going to emit any sound at all, it would be extremely quiet and would not disturb a single neighbour.

The plumber was shocked at the response from the guards when they held him by the collar and tried to shove him physically far away from the gate. In other words, they handled him like they owned him or something.

To this, I immediately responded with calling the police. When the policeman finally arrived, he only talked about how he was powerless over a community’s policies and politely requested me to reschedule the appointment. He conveniently never tried to address the harassment and discrimination that I faced. The literal bullying that I was subjected to over a completely harmless situation simply owing to the fact that I was a woman.

He left without concluding the matter and hence I am here to talk about this joyride of abuse, prejudiced misogyny and cruel dismissal that not just ruined my evening but also a huge part of my self-confidence, emotional well-being and no doubt the Earth’s ecosystem, along with all of that.

I would be grateful if you could guide me as I am still learning a lot from life over what a human being should do when they are not being treated like one based on the defaults that God gifts us with, at the time of birth.

I think the Preamble of the Indian Constitution would urge me not to swallow the injustice down stoically. But I would like to know from you.

Thank you for your time,

Yours faithfully,

Yishi Chakrabarty

The President of Ruchira Residency Apartment Owners’ Association and his entourage who tried to bully my daughter in the worst way imaginable has released an abominable statement to the Board of Directors in which even the key points of the incident were erroneous (E.g. the time of the incident, the treatment of the Police). To be clear, the police did have a prompt response and was never impolite to my daughter even once, although the policeman on the scene tried to avoid talking about the harassment.

I hope you take just action with regard to this situation because it bleeds my heart to find my daughter mentally broken because of a bunch of bullies in power.

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully,

Amitava Chakrabarty

A 22-year-old woman has alleged that an office-bearer of the owners’ association of the Bypass housing complex where she lives refused to listen to her complaint because he said she was inappropriately dressed, “like a woman of the streets”.

Yishi Chakrabarty, who graduated from Presidency University earlier this year, said on Sunday she was wearing a top and a pair of shorts when she had gone to the office of the owners’ association of Ruchira Residency on July 22 evening.

A senior office-bearer of the association, she said, asked her to leave the office because of the way she was dressed — “like a woman of the streets”.

The president of the owners’ association, Nibir Dasgupta, told Metro: “I did tell her that she was not properly dressed because several elderly persons were sitting in the office. I just advised her to return home and come back properly dressed so that we could have a conversation.”

Asked whether he had said that Yishi was the kind of girl “who should not be listened to at all” because she had “no more sense than dressing like a woman of the streets”, Dasgupta said: “These allegations are baseless. Our office is under CCTV surveillance and police can go through the CCTV footage to find out what was said to her.”

The police on Sunday started a case under the IPC sections related to outrage of modesty by words and gestures against a member of the owners’ association based on a mail Yishi had sent to the Calcutta police commissioner on July 24.

The woman had also written on chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s Twitter handle the previous day.

Yishi said she had gone to the association’s office to seek permission for a plumber from outside the complex to fix a leaking tap in a washroom of her apartment.

Water dripping from the tap, she said, had flooded the washroom.

According to the association’s rules, a resident has to inform it at least three days in advance if any plumber or electrician hired from outside the complex works in his or her apartment.

“Working hour from 7am to 6pm. There should not be any disturbing noise for neighbours during 1pm to 4pm,” one of the rules says.

It was past 6pm when the plumber Yishi had hired from an agency turned up at the gate of Ruchira Residency. The guards did not let him in.

“I had gone to the association office to seek permission for the plumber to work in our flat,” the history graduate recounted on Sunday.

“I approached an elderly person, who I later found out was president of the association. Before he could listen to my appeal and what was my exigency, he shouted at me that he did not feel like talking to a girl like me because I was not dressed according to his satisfaction,” she said.

The woman mentioned in her letter to the police commissioner that when he asked the plumber to accompany her to her apartment, guards “held him by the collar and tried to shove him physically far away from the gate”.

She dialled 100 (the police helpline), following which a policeman arrived from Garfa police station. “The cop did not take any action,” Yishi alleged.

The police later started a case against guards under IPC sections related to wrongful restraint and voluntarily causing hurt.

“I knew there are rules that bar the entry of plumbers not engaged by the association.... But I did not want to requisition the service of the in-house plumbers as we are not satisfied with their service. They hardly show up. Even if they show up, their service is unsatisfactory,” Yishi told this newspaper.

She wondered whether the office-bearer would have made similar comments had a man gone to them wearing shorts. “I guess not. They made me a target because I am a woman,” Yishi said.

Asked what if an emergency cropped up after 6pm and an outsider had to be engaged to fix the problem, a member of the association said: “We allow an outsider to enter in such circumstances following talks with the owner concerned. But in this case the unfortunate incident happened even before a dialogue could start.”

Engaging an outsider for work is a common practice at housing complexes across Calcutta and on the fringes.

Rajoshi Gupta, a resident of Sanjeeva Town Duplex, a gated community in New Town, said the owners were free to hire electricians, plumbers and carpenters from outside.

“There is no restriction on hiring professionals from outside. Only the residents who are hiring them have to keep the guards informed. The guards note down the name and other details of the professional and let him in only after the resident concerned confirms that he has hired him,” said Gupta, who is also a member of the residents’ welfare association of the complex.