Problems seem to be cropping up from left, right and center these days. If you remember I told you about the nosy neighbours in the new apartment that I have moved to. Well...its worse now. The society men in general seem to have a bone to pick with women- Single women in the society.

Since the day I moved in, there have been problems. First, I was not let to take my luggage to the appartment by lift. I had to get my brother and some help to do it manually- carry the refridgerator, the bundles of clothes, tables, tv, everything by stairs.
Then came the problem with water. They kept on telling my landlady that the taps were open and I was wasting water. Even when I and my brother were not present in the appartment and were not even in the city!

When I was in Mumbai and my mother came to stay with my brother for a few days; my sister who recently got married came to stay there too..after all, she doesnt get a lot of chance to stay with her parent anymore! When my brother in law came to see her at night, he was asked questions in the rudest manner possible by a couple of drunk men sitting-one of them was the Society secretary. My mother was furios and my brother-in-law angry as hell.
Today, my friend Priyanka moved in with me. Her room, the third bedroom in the house which was empty was occupied today. And this is what happened today:

We have certain hours when the water is given to the block of appartments which include 2 hours in the morning and 1 hour in the evening. She cleaned up her room in the morning and in the evening set out to clean her bathroom. She had the flush on and bamm come these drunk men( yes drunk again today) and start banging on the door.

We were all shocked and we opened the door with me, Priyanka and my brother standing at the door asking these 5 guys what the matter was. One of them barges into the house and and starts looking at the taps in the house. Finds them closed tight. Says the water is still running from somewhere and then, starts getting rude. One of the men starts shouting that we are irresponsible; what is to be expected, after all, we're just single women, with no understanding. Priyanka gets angry and retorts back asking him to mind his language and telling him off for wrongly accusing us.

The other men in the meanwhile are staring at us. I am wearing a short skirt and Priyanka is wearing her shorts. Then, they start getting rude. One other among them tells us, that this collective society is not meant for women who are living alone. Well..we says, go talk to the land lord.

The man threatens to get us vacated. My brother is furious and says, we wouldnt want to live in the society where there are ill mannered people anyway. I try to be polite and tell them to go and talk to the land lord if they have any problem with us staying there and get the plumbing of the society checked. Obviously it is faulty since we have our taps closed. They disagree loudly. The lady next door comes out, scared and tells us not to talk to them.
The men start going down the stairs. Mind you, this is no youth, they are old men...leering at us. They go down and start telling off the other other single girls living just below us. Same scene repeated with some obscene language as well this time. The girl mutters and closes the door on their faces.

Her flat mate comes out in a minute and starts shouting when the guys are leaving. Priyanka goes down to her and finds out this is a regular occurance. With girls living alone, they get an opportunity to shout at them and try to create a scandal. Priyanka and I are furious. We are not going to live in this appartment for more than this month. This is too much.

One of the men from the group comes up and starts talking to us calmly. We try to respond calmly telling him to please ask the others to behave in future and not come banging at our doors when its no fault of ours. A lady comes up and tells the men that if one more time a woman is shouted at in this block of appartments, all the women will stand up. The men dont pay much attention to it. Here is one woman who stood up and I respect her for that. The other men come straight up, dont talk just stare. We felt like there were insects crawling all over our legs. WE CLOSE THE DOOR repeating again to talk only to the land lords.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED AN HOUR BACK. I am surprised and shocked. What is this city coming to? The more advance it goes, the more backward it becomes! At one time, I used to feel the safest in Ahmedabad and in my home. Is there no security anywhere now?
I wonder what is happening. On one hand, we're talking in India about Equality, awarding women who are at the top position, revere their hard work and determination and consider them more than equivalent to men. On the other hand, we face these problems. Isnt this the biggest ever shame of my country then? To treat women like this? Any answer to this?

I feel agitated today after I went through this. The rest of the problems are personal. But this is general problem. I am proud to be born an Indian but today it gives me a bad feeling. My country cant be like this! There was a time when it was blind and went on with killing daughters and widows with their husbands. But I thought that stopped long back!! It was the work of the uneducated or tyrants who wanted to rule people in the name of castes.We have politicans to do this today. But the public in general-I thought, we are civilised now. THEN WHY THIS??