The night buses are the only way to get from around when you have to travel anywhere between 300-500 kilometres distance, you have choice of buses from luxury semi-sleeper video coach to the standard no windows, hard benches, knee to the chest variety. Do not get taken in by the title of “luxury semi-sleeper video coach” as it is no more than a three time more expensive ticket for a seat that is inclined to reorganise the spinal column in a manner that evolution has not managed in a million years, with windows that do not open when the A/C fails after the first 50 kilometres and with a video that will play some kind of hectic action movie from a scratched VCD with a sound system that will enhance the viewing experience. I have always wondered at the bus body designers intentions, do they deliberately position the bolts, rivets and welds to ensure that your elbows, knees and shoulders are provided a lasting souvenir of each bus journey.

I was dropped of by a friend at the office of the luxury bus coach office in the outskirt of the town for a bus that was supposed to leave at 10.00 pm. There were half a dozen men moving bales and crates into a couple of buses parked on the road while traffic swirled around them. On the steps of the shuttered shops adjacent to the office were some people with bags and water bottles with the look of equanimity that comes from having accepted the fickleness of fate and life. On enquiry it turned out that the bus was going to be late but the person at the desk was unable to provide more information as he was busy on the phone catching up with some urgent family business and had no time for petty people with anxiety issues about bus timings. I sat down next to a woman on the steps of the shop outside to wait it out for the elusive bus that would come soon! The clouds of mosquitoes buzzed with frenzy, driving their sting through jeans and sweatshirts to bite in places that are uncomfortable to scratch………elbows, knees and back of the ankle. The repellent only seemed to encourage them to explore uncharted territories like the eyeball.

“If you scratch they will bite more” “what?” “I said that if you scratch yourself they will bite more” said the woman who I was sitting next to. I looked at her, her dupatta draped over her shoulder and tuck around her feet. She had made an envelope that prevented the cloth from touching the body by anchoring it in a few places like a tent. The mosquitoes had given up on her as they found their sting only encountering air when they went through. I found out that she was also waiting for the same bus, she did this journey every week as she worked in the city and came home for the weekends and returned by the night bus to be at work on Monday morning. “It must be tiring to do this every week, sitting in the bus for eight hours each way?” I said, “Well, you get used to it and anyway I cannot do other vice as I need this job”

“You cannot find a job in the town here? What do you do?” I asked

“I studied biochemistry and work for a pharmaceutical company in the city, here I would have got a job in a pharmacy and my family would have been embarrassed to have me working in a shop” she said. “You see, we are middle class people, there is not much choice in terms of the kind of jobs you can have if you are a woman.”

“Your family lives in this town and you come back for the weekend? Married? Kids?” I ask. “My mother-in-law lives with us and my husband has a government job that he got when his father died. She takes care of my 2 daughters when I am not there. This way we can afford to have things that we cannot have with a government servant salary.”

“But at the cost of not being with your girls?” I say.

“No, it is not like that. If I was staying at home then I would have to behave like a good daughter in law even if it is my salary would make up for most of the family budget. Also, you see this way I can say that the rent in city with my daily expenses justifies my holding back part of the salary. I can save without any one knowing, for my daughters’ future. If I lived at home I would have to lie about my salary to be able to do that. And how long can I lie? Yes? They would find out sooner or late.”

“But it is your salary” I say, “You have a right to do what you want with it, it is your decision, you have to stand up, how long do we women have to sneak around to do what we feel like doing……….”

“You must be one NGO or empowerment types, right? I see women like you on TV and they think that by “standing up, shouting and fighting things can be different….hdnhg!”

I was intrigued and the bus arrived, talk about timings. I told her I want to talk with more with her and will go to see if I can get a change of seat. She gave me a look of resignation mixed with exasperation. The bus company told me that I will have to manage the seat change with the bus conductor and not to bother them. In the bus I ask for a change of seat and the conductor is dismissive but then goes to the person sitting with the biochemist to request the change.

The bus starts to roll and I turn to her and ask her name, she tells me she is “R. Malathi” and 39 years old. Her daughters are in 9^th and 12^th standard. She got married after she finished her post-graduation in biochemistry at the age of 22.” Here, I give up, I am at a loss how these women tend to finish with post graduation right after they are out of middle school age. “You are interested in biochemistry because you were fascinated with organic chemistry?” I ask.

“No, if you are a science graduate then the types of grooms available for marriage are with engineering or medical degrees. I am not even interested with science let alone biochemistry. It was the only science course that was available without field work and my parents told me that it was the best as then I do not have to field trips like with agriculture, botany or zoology courses. It would not have been possible to go for the field trips as then the neighbours would have talked about me. This could have spoiled the marriage chances.”

She then went on to tell me that for women like me who need to make a noise about living our lives, making our decisions and being in control, it was lot harder as we spend more time fighting but in the end we live the same as all the other women.

“How is it so?” I ask.

“Do you really have a choice?” She asked. “Look, you also cover up with when you have to take a night bus. You also studied for a job that give you status and is acceptable to your community. Only difference is that you are noisy when discriminated against but you are anyway, yes?. The same conditions apply to your type as to us. The best is to allow the men to think they are in charge. They take can take your salary every month and decide on the amount of house money, lay the morals down for you and your daughters. But they and the family have no idea of what you think, do and live if you do manage your public behaviour. My husband is an engineer and he thinks that he is very clever because of that title. But he has no idea about the world I live in. In the women’s hostel in the city where I live with other women I have more time for myself. I can go out with them; we can watch the movies we want. We even eat out sometimes. We are all of similar background and family situation so we watch out for each other.

What have we got from being liberated? Right to work, but we were already working and now we have to also get educated to have a job to work with men who boss over you. You know, when my husband’s relatives visit I have to be twice as subservient as a normal housewife to show that I not neglecting my duties as a wife and mother just because I have a job. I am not too sure that all this liberation is not a new way to make us work more while making us more socially guilty. The little room we had to manoeuvre as housewives’ nagging our husbands is denied now to us.”

As she told me about how she and other women like her carry on a subversive life while they continue to exhibit the mode of behaviour that is socially acceptable I realised that I better change my ideas of micro-financing of homes where the women would be given the loans and house-ownership deed, find a more subtle in approach for the workshop I was going to attend next morning. When I examine the categories that the so-called liberated society uses to classify the other half “castrating bitches” “slut” ....... who are we fooling. At least Malathi is not indulging in self-deception. If she is passing on her experiential learning to her daughters then maybe they will go out into the world armed with the publicly acceptable “mask” that is needed to make it in the “Incredible India” to avoid the “shroud”.