I have read with little amusement the development over Alwar BJP legislator Banwari Lal Singhal’s comments and following outcry that skirts be banned in school in order to stop sexual harassment. Here are my thoughts on the issue.
Even after being publicly vilified and being offered a skirt in return for his comments, Singhal remained defiant. “I have seen many instances of boys on streets passing lewd comments and clicking pictures of girls waiting for school bus,” Singhal argued. He claimed he had received support from all quarters of society.
Last year, I visited Alwar, a small dusty town in North Rajasthan on my way to Bikaner from Fatehpur Sikri. I can say with complete authority that men like Singhal, whose thinking about women and man-woman relationships does not go beyond sex, are abundant in this city.
On my visit, I was accompanied by M, a charming 30-something woman from France. We had earlier met in Vietnam and decided to travel together for the sheer convenience of it – she would get a local Hindi-speaking guy in India and I would be able to save accommodation and food expenses. We met in Agra after hailing a train immediately after landing in Delhi and me travelling from Bharatpur to Agra, the petty-mindedness of Indians was evident pretty soon.
The hotel front desk asked me to write a letter saying that M and I were sharing the room of our own accord and the hotel management would not be responsible for anything. After initially standing my ground, I had to give in to this strange request. But the main point is that we found common ground after arguing.
In Alwar, of the many places that we visited, there was no common ground at any of the hotels we turned up at after a very dusty second class train ride from Deeg. All the hotels on my Rough Guide and her Lonely Planet turned us down one after the other for the flimsiest of reasons. While it was a wedding party had booked ‘all’ the rooms in one, the manager of another actually forced us out after initially letting us in ‘because I have changed my mind’.
Ironically, the only hotel that was ready to take us in was the government-owned subsidiary of Rajasthan Tourism that cost five times as much for the same service. Obviously, we refused.
It got so exasperating that we finally landed at the last two remaining hotels in the whole of Alwar. We decided we would do what the locals in Alwar wanted and book two different rooms if they persisted. Which is exactly how we got to stay a night in one of the dirtiest hotels by the main bus stop at Alwar. To her credit, M never complained about any of it and like a true traveler accepted the situation with the sageness of a saint.
When we finally got together in ‘her’ room to decide the plan of action for the next day, an attendant began knocking in two minutes and asked me to go to ‘my’ room. I was tired of the bullshit from all the hotel owners through the evening. Coming as it did after a detour to Deeg and a lengthy train ride, the evening was probably the most tiring and dispiriting of the journey. I flashed my Press ID card and threatened to call the police station if they harassed me further.
To which the attendant said, “But sir, I am telling you to go to your room because the police might come here anytime. If they see you in the room with her, it will not be good.”
I gave up on Alwar after that, as I believe the rest of you should too.
