Crossing the line1

Ankita Singh returned from Australia a few months ago following a messy divorce and took up a job in Mumbai as a content writer. Word somehow leaked that she had separated from her husband, and the news spread like wildfire in the office. Her apparently educated and sophisticated female boss took it upon herself to ferret out details. Singh was grilled about what went wrong. “I realised I had become fodder for gossip. The sordid details of a traumatic phase I was trying to forget were being dredged up,” says Singh.

She had thought that a job switch would put an end to the humiliation brought upon by her boss's and co-workers' unhealthy curiosity. Within a week of joining, she figured the new office was no better. Singh's case is not unique. Under the pretext of 'getting to know a colleague better', people often transgress the boundaries of propriety, hunting for salacious details to make their discoveries worthwhile. 

Men, too, have been sliced up by the scalpel of curiosity. When he was a bachelor, Mrityunjay Singh used to work in an NGO where he had to regularly fend off questions about his single status. He was much sought after among the girls because of his looks and polite demeanour. “Though I did enjoy the attention initially, it soon became evident that if I went out for a drink with a female colleague, the entire office would be eager to know if we had hooked up.” 

Speculation stopped when he began dating a co-worker whom he married two years ago. Today, he is a relieved man in a different workplace, thanks to the sign of his marital status on his ring finger.

It's definitely a lot harder for women who choose not to wear the trappings of marriage. Nilanjana Chaudhuri's steadfast refusal to flaunt her marital status in a 21st century workplace elicited varied responses, ranging from whispers in office corners to offensive queries into her personal life. “It's amazing that even in this day and age, people with whom I share professional relations would rather focus on why my appearance is different from their notions of a married woman, than my work,” says the talent acquisition manager of a global brand. 

She ascribes it to the urge embedded in traditional practices of labelling a relationship. A married woman without the typical symbols is considered to be of dubious morals. These assumptions lead people to wonder whether she is bagging promotions by trading sexual favours with the boss, she says. “Not only is her competence at work under the scanner, her career too may suffer because of such perceptions.”

It’s apparent that the attitude towards a colleague who doesn’t conform to the stereotype is coloured by the prejudices that dictate our personal relationships. The lack of sensitivity for a person’s privacy shows that it takes little to remove the carefully cultivated veneer of sophistication.

(All names have been changed to protect identities)