Friends, Colleagues and gentlemen

There are times I think “he must be crazy”, on a retrospect not sure if they were the crazy one. Here are a few such incidents.

It was a rainy day, I opened my umbrella as I got down from the cab. After taking a few steps forward I realised someone stepped out from the cab behind me, and was trying to shield his eyes with his hands and taking big leaps to escape from the rain. As he kept leaping I extended my arm when he was right beside me so that the umbrella covered both of us from rain.

Startled would be a small word to explain his reaction, he froze and stared at me for a clear 10 seconds and uttered a feeble thanks and started leaping this time even faster and disappeared into the subway. I thought to myself “what a crazy guy”, what kind of person would skip an umbrella and use his hands to cover his head? I wasn’t trying to make myself feel like a philanthrope but sharing an umbrella is the least human thing to do (kudai vallal lam illainga chumma kuduthean). Only after freaking out a few other men, I realised maybe it’s not them it’s me. But it was just an umbrella, I didn’t expect an umbrella to make men uncomfortable, crazy isn’t it?

And then there are those men who ping on Office Chat to ask if they could call me on my number displayed in Employee Profile. Most times I wish I could ask them “Why do you think the phone number is displayed in Employee Profile? duh!”, some even take a step further and inform they’ll be saving it as a contact. I wish I could say “Why do you think I’d even care to know that” and I always thought they must be crazy to ask silly questions.

And on one occasion we were discussing about an on-campus drive and my team manager said “dei! let her decide if she is coming” I could see he was hinting at something, but I didn’t get the hint. Later I understood he was giving me the choice to opt out of the trip because I was the only woman on that trip (if I didn’t want to go, I didn’t have to). And during the trip my boss with his usual bossiness — just that this time bossy in a nice way — with his typical “can you show a demo of this feature? style, asks me to show the keys, check the doorknobs, check the push locks, instructs me to show if the doors to my room were locking; apparently he was checking if my room was safe.

Even my friend who when I die would otherwise say “Sad didn’t expect her to leave us so soon, but can I have her headphones now?”, seemed to care for me. Every other colleague on that trip were awfully sweet. Turns out when you’re the only girl amongst a group of men they’re more worried and paranoid about you being lost, abducted, kidnapped or maybe even teleported to another planet; god knows what went through their crazy mind, all of them suddenly turned so caring.

Then there are those men who’d give up the front seat in the cab, the one that has the best view, crazy isn’t it? I once took a seat in the 4 adjoined seats in the back of the cab, 3 were already occupied by men and the cab was full, in no time there was a quick reshuffle of seats and I was given the front seat. I’m not sure if I made those men uncomfortable or they wanted me to feel comfortable, either way, I felt like I was given the royal treatment.

On another late night trip to Tambaram as we were about to get down at the last stop, I heard someone yell “hello” at least a thousand times over the phone, my ears were tired with his hello I wanted to get out faster from the cab, but then I saw a figure wave at me still yelling hello, that is when I realised he was not on phone. I stepped back into the cab there was sheer terror on his face as though he witnessed a murder; he pointed to a back seat where a woman was asleep but based on how he reacted I wasn’t sure if she was just asleep. I assumed he wanted her to leave as we were in the last stop, I gave her a gentle tap on the shoulder and she woke up. I wanted to ask him if he thought woman are a different species who wouldn’t respond to shoulder taps and why he didn’t do it himself? It was pretty crazy to see an adult man frighten over waking up a woman.

To all those true gentlemen wish you all a very happy Men’s day.

But I wish one day you’ll understand we’re (women are) just another human like you.