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[00:00:00] I was working in 2013. I joined an organisation. This was the first time that I had come to Delhi to work. Before that, I had been working in other states, the North-East and the East.
[00:00:12] But that was the first time I came to Delhi for work. And I remember when I went for that interview, there were two people in that room. One was a lady and one was a gentleman.
[00:00:21] And the gentleman was excited, you know, oh, you're so good, your CV is so good, you're coming into our office, good, good, good, we are going to do this, we are going to do that.
[00:00:29] So he gave me something to seize upon, you know, a dream that, you know, this is the work that I'm going to do. And I was very happy because, you know, I used to work with vulnerable and marginalised women and children.
[00:00:41] And this was a job that offered me a scope to look at that. This was an organisation which had two absolutely powerful men at the helm of affairs. These two males were in complete control of an office which comprised of young girls, you know,
[00:01:00] I think I was the oldest out there. The office was built in such a way that the head of the organisation, or the CEO, had a chamber to himself, which was completely opaque in the sense that they were glasses,
[00:01:13] but the glasses were not transparent, I had a chamber to himself. And we all sat in one of the halls, you know, all of us.
[00:01:20] And I had a room to myself, but I was sharing it with the second head of the organisation, a male head of the organisation. So it was almost as if I was sandwiched between these two men who ruled the entire organisation and the work that it did.
[00:01:39] The language, the constant, you know, physical encroachment of your space, that used to bother me quite a bit. Calling girls, lesbians, you know, like if two girls would be giggling or would be laughing or would be holding hands.
[00:01:54] And I would just stare at them and wonder what exactly this, where did this come from? Two months later everything changed, you know, he would call me to his room without any work.
[00:02:08] It was a monologue where he was primarily talking about himself and his work and what he did and how people loved him. So I would just tolerate it and come off. But then physical touches happened, I would say no.
[00:02:21] And slowly this escalated actually. Escalated so badly that I would hide. He had this aura about it, you know, he would like, if you tell him, sir, maybe this is something wrong, you know, so, you know, he would just lunge at you so that you would shut up.
[00:02:37] I was so ashamed about what had happened to me that I wouldn't tell it to my husband, you know, like, I would always feel that, oh God, if he comes to know what is he going to think of me.
[00:02:47] You know, that thought was always there in my mind. Once he, when he saw me crying loudly at home that I don't want to go to the office, my husband didn't know the extent of damage that had already taken place.
[00:02:59] He said, why do you want to leave a job just because a man is nasty? And I start crying loudly. He took this man's phone number and called him up and said, unacceptable,
[00:03:10] you can't behave like that with my wife. And then immediately he was very contrite and he said, I'm very sorry, truly sorry, please tell her to come. And reluctantly I go back because, you know, this conversation has happened.
[00:03:20] I wish I had left the job then and there. I didn't. And I carried on with the job for six months. After I left, I just sat in my chair and I cried. But I was not ready to give everything up so soon, you know.
[00:03:37] So I wrote a letter of complaint to the governing body and wrote down everything, the way he used to shout at me physically, what he used to do. And so I wrote it. The governing body member, one of the members was very concerned about it,
[00:03:53] very conscious about it and said, I'm going to accept this letter and we will have an ICC meeting. And they organized everything. Any name that I would suggest to the governing body members, they would say, no, no, we already have witnesses. You don't need to suggest.
[00:04:10] And so it was a one-sided where they came up and said that this could be bad behavior or anger off the head of the organization but not sexual harassment. The report came after four months and I just sat down holding onto the report and crying.
[00:04:28] And I was so sick for one year that I couldn't get up from the bed. Mentally I went through a lot and then I started my treatment for depression and anxiety. But I was quiet after that because I didn't know what to do
[00:04:42] because sexual harassment is such a dicey subject and it's so broad that it's very difficult to make the complaint and it is very difficult to make the other person believe that this is sexual violence. I was very involved because I felt so ugly trying to commit suicide.
[00:05:02] So I've done all of that. That made my husband and my children very angry and we made a promise, I made a promise that I'm not going to kill myself. And I was slowly trying to get back with my life when the me too movement happened.
[00:05:16] And I remember reading Priya's story and I realized that it was sexual harassment and I had every right to get justice for that. I wrote it, I wrote it on Facebook and it went viral, people read it. International organizations read it. International organizations who fund
[00:05:37] the organization that I worked in, they read it and they were shocked and they said that we are going to have a second LCC meeting and we want to get to the bottom of this. One and a half month back there was a committee established
[00:05:50] a beautiful sensitive committee established. They heard me out, they heard all the witnesses out, those witnesses who had been asked not to open their mouth, they heard them out. They realized that this behavior had been going on for years and nobody had complained about it.
[00:06:07] In their report openly said that this amounted to sexual harassment has been sexually harassed. That day I felt vindicated, I was overwhelmed. I said, I want justice. I want them to give me a gender sensitive unconditional apology and I want them to give me an assurance
[00:06:29] that that organization is going to establish systems to address gender violence and sexual harassment. To all these four they have agreed. I don't know how to say that but I'm supremely happy and supremely confident and I feel so powerful.
[00:06:48] I've come up and said that I have been sexually abused and sexually harassed and that makes my day. I have nothing to be ashamed of.