Me and a friend (both women) came home late one night after a film.. a male friend dropped us till the gate since it was late.. around 1 am. The gate was locked and our watchman was asleep. After some knocking and shouting, he finally opened his eyes and lying on his bed he told us "badi jaldi hai kya" (in a big hurry?). we ignored it the first time. but he still didn't move. we shouted out to him again, he got up this time, came to the gate and looked at us demeaningly through the bars and said "badi jaldi hai kya". Our male friend told him to talk properly and the watchman started abusing him. We realised he was drunk. He started accusing us of coming late in the night often and how he was doing a favour to us by opening the gate for us every time. basically he had 'judged' us for being the kind of girls who go out late and being drunk, he had no control over his tongue and all that he perhaps thought of us in his sick head, became vocalised. A verbal fight ensued.
The presence of a male friend eventually did help, but there were other things we did which contributed in dealing with the situation -
1. shouting out LOUD that he was drunk, so that we would wake up people and bring attention to the fact that he's drunk
2. threatening to call the police
3. next day, complained to our landlord
4. i also went and asked another watchman what this guy's full name was and didn't explain why i was asking for his full name. I wonder if that scared him off that maybe i was going to complain to the police... coz he didn't show up for two days after.
5. i continue to go out at night after that, just to show that he doesnt intimidate me
Time: 1 a.m.
Action Hero felt judged, anger, fear, unsafe, helpless
Location: South Mumbai
Age: 28 years
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