Column

After much coaxing and cajoling by my friend recently, I finally went to a hot new bar in Colaba for the first time last Saturday night.

For some reason the dodgy location had given me an impression that the bar was a men-only kind of place — two women walking in could give the wrong impression.

But I was pleasantly surprised to find the place cosy, classy and quite kosher. Just as I was beginning to think that I ought to stop giving free rein to my hyper-active imagination, in walked an ex-colleague with a friend, and the first thing she said to me after the Hello Darlings were out of the way was, “Oh thank god! Another duo of girls! I was so afraid that if the two of us walked in here alone, there would be a price put on us immediately!”

‘Hooker paranoia’ is not new to the urban woman. A couple of girl-friends always think twice before dressing up and going to a bar or a nightclub on their own and a single girl almost never does it alone.

‘What if someone mistakes me for a hooker’ is the commonest fear. It’s for the same reason that many girls I know think twice about wearing bright red lipstick. Too /R Chameli as one of my friends puts it.

But as I learnt really early in life, men don’t need telling symbols to assume anything. Almost a decade ago when we were geeks in college, my friends and I were at Bade Miyan’s on a Christmas Eve at our scruffy worst, sitting at one of their booths and tucking into our bhuna ghosht rolls when two portly balding men came and stood in front of us.

I was almost about to say hello to one of them recognising him as the proprietor of a nearby jewellery store I frequented when I realised that he hadn’t recognised me as a client; he was hoping to become our client!

Mortified at the upcoming proposition, the only person I could turn to was God . . . . . literally! The minute I loudly asked the girls what time we needed to head to church for Midnight Mass the two lotharios beat a hasty retreat and as always ‘mujhe bhagwan ke liye chhod do’ saved the day!

Sad as it is, ladies and gentlemen it’s a sorry truth that even the most bindaas city in the country is still notoriously coy when it comes to dealing with single women. The woman has just about got her Green Card in the workplace (though the PMS jibes will continue till doomsday comes) and the real estate jungle of rents and leases (though maids and watchmen remain faithful moral watchdogs), but a woman out on the town is a different kettle of fish altogether.

Because at the end of the day, beneath all that hoopla of modernity, Bombay is just a cluster of very parochial communities who are as hierarchical and patriarchal as they get. If the lady is out alone to bring home the bacon, that’s fine, if she’s out to eat the bacon, well then she’s a ready piece of meat!

Fact is that there are a lot of single girls in the city. And they might want to go out from time to time to grab a drink or meet interesting people, or simply dress up and feel good about themselves.

They may not be nuns but it does not mean that they are hookers.

But try as we might, social conditioning isn’t that easy to beat. And I discovered exactly how ingrained in us it is when I was at a fancy five-star joint in south Mumbai the other night alone, waiting for a friend to join me and looking as discreet and expectant as possible (glancing at the watch every few minutes).

Sure enough, almost as clockwork some middle-aged chap, a few tipples down, came up and tried to make flirtatious conversation. As I was trying to stave him off I looked across and saw an older woman, heavily painted, in a gold lamé mini-dress alone at the bar, and wouldn’t you know, the first thought that sprung to my mind was, “Definitely a pick-up!”

That’s why prejudice is the hardest evil to beat, because all of us — yes, us victims too — have it in abundance.