Arko Datta / Reuters
For the last few days, a YouTube video of a heated exchange between the residents of Pilot Court in Gurgaon's Essel Towers has been doing the rounds. It shows a male resident screaming at a woman, demanding to know who her landlord is so he can inform them that their tenants are "supporting prostitution in the society".
His iron-clad argument is couched in solid evidence — the woman resident was objecting to his harassment of other women who were visiting their male friends in the society. So if you see nothing wrong with men and women mingling at hours deemed unacceptable by a random stranger, you're obviously supporting prostitution. It's a miracle he didn't ask for her father's number to tattle on her.
Any half-decent, rational human being would bristle at the accusation the man flings at the woman with such callous insolence. It makes you wonder if you're time-travelling and have landed in 1917. Who are these people who, despite all their education and exposure to the world, find it so hard to wrap their heads around the simple fact that not all interactions between men and women are sexual in nature? And even if they are, as long as the interaction is consensual, it is none of their business?
This kerfuffle and attempts at moral policing aren't new to Essel Towers. In April this year, the gated society earned the ire of unmarried tenants when the residents welfare association (RWA) suddenly decided that visitors of the opposite sex would not be allowed into the society's premises after 10 pm. Guards started showing up at single tenants' houses for questioning and to rudely ask guests to leave. One woman reported that she was asked what "business" she had, taking her uncle to her "bedroom" by a woman resident. How about first asking the woman what business she had, poking her wholly uninvited nose into someone else's bedroom?
If the same treatment was doled out to guests of families within the same society, there would be unbridled chaos. A guard or two would probably lose their job. Such disrespect is unthinkable to most of us. Why is it so difficult to treat the guests of single young tenants with the same dignity? Those of us who live in housing societies are used to seeing young men and women tip-toeing out of their friends' houses without making eye contact with neighbours and guards as if they've committed some unpardonable crime. It is sickening that this is how we make people feel for the crime of... What? Socialising?
If you've ever tried to rent a house in India as a single person, unless you're very lucky, you'll encounter a bizarre number of humiliating restrictions.
But why single out Essel Towers alone? Housing societies and buildings across the country are guilty of being obsessed with monitoring who goes into and comes out of single people's homes. If you ever try to rent a house in India as a single person, unless you're very lucky, you'll encounter a bizarre number of humiliating restrictions you'll be expected to agree to before the rent agreement is signed. From pets to non-veg to alcohol and cigarettes to loud music to overnight visitors to visitors of the opposite sex to simply any visitors at all, there is no telling which aspect of the single person's life the landlord might decide to scrutinize and disapprove of.
Sure, an argument can be made that as the owner of the house, one should have the right to have the final say in what flies in their houses. Yes, yes, Article 25 of the Indian Constitution upholds our rights to practise our religions freely, which pretty much means that dietary and lifestyle restrictions can be imposed on tenants citing religious beliefs. But is it not as much the government's job to protect people against discrimination as it is to safeguard their religious freedoms?
It will probably never happen, but even theoretically speaking, the day a law is passed to ban discriminating landlords from renting out their properties, my guess is they will find it in their hearts to be okay with all the things they previously found so abhorrent. Their inclination to poke around people's plates and bedrooms is likely to be significantly lower when they stand to lose tens of thousands in big, fat rent cheques each month.
Unfortunately, since that isn't going to happen any time soon, landlords and RWAs continue to impose outrageous rules on single men and women in the name of 'morality' and 'decorum'.
It's true that youngsters' parties can get noisy, but are they any noisier than kitty parties and family gatherings?
The most commonly used refrain to justify these rules is that youngsters create a ruckus with their partying and late-night visitors. It is undeniable that having insensitive neighbours who play loud music and slam doors at all times of the day and night is a hellish experience. Yes, many youngsters are guilty of that crime, and sure, there need to be rules to ensure that doesn't happen. But it is breathtakingly unfair to limit this rule to young people alone.
What about the self-proclaimed pious, who wake up at dawn and LOUDLY listen to religious hymns and clang cymbals and ghantis while offering their prayers? Who will stop them? Youngsters' parties may get noisy sometimes, but so do kitty parties and family gatherings.
Even so, while it is terribly unfair that most written and unwritten rules about noise are directed only at single people, at least they address a real problem. I, for the life of me, cannot fathom what sex has to do with anything. Few among us having sex in our bedrooms (or living rooms or kitchens) are capable of being louder than these 'noble' pursuits.
So clearly, decorum has little to do with these random impositions.
One has to just whisper the word 'prostitution' or 'slut' or 'sleeping around' to get other equally nosey preservers of 'culture' to come rushing out of the woodworks.
It's purely about imposing the majority's idea of virtue on an already harassed, burdened minority. Self-appointed custodians of young India's moral fibre come up with these hare-brained ways of making unmarried tenants' lives miserable because they know they're not going to be held accountable for anything they say. Sex, of course, is the easiest sword to dangle over their harried heads.
One has to just whisper the word 'prostitution' or 'slut' or 'sleeping around', never mind that they might not have a shred of proof to substantiate the accusations, to get other equally nosey preservers of 'culture' to come rushing out of the woodworks.
It's the oldest trick in the book, shaming people into submission by attacking their characters that will be "exposed" if they don't fall in line. Since our society is anyway geared to think of the young as deviant and morally bankrupt, usually just the threat is enough to do the job. Most single tenants would sooner get a root canal than have strangers tell their parents they're hosting friends of the opposite sex. Nothing has to actually happen, a carefully timed snide suggestion is enough to earn them panicked phone calls from parents and relatives lamenting about how the freedom has corrupted them and how their reputations will be forever ruined if they don't immediately course-correct. Seriously, can you blame anyone for opting out of the jhamela instead of fighting back?
Unfortunately, these peeping toms know that, and they use the knowledge. So many of us, fed up of the constant judgement and persecution, simply pack up and leave. Even as India thumps its chest about becoming the world's youngest country by 2020, we have to ask ourselves — what exactly are we so proud of? It is unconscionable that in this day and age, simply existing, living in peace without strangers butting into our lives, is such a big ask.