It’s time I let it out to the world…

This is something which needs courage and when I say courage, I mean a hell lot of courage. It’s taking the whole of me to be able to type these words… I don’t know what to call it “workplace harassment ” or a gradual “torture” that I faced while I was doing an internship (PS-2) at XYZ company. I am not taking names, because that is not where I want you to take dear reader. By this, I wish to take you to the inner world where the mind struggles to understand the right and wrong.

 

About 8 months back I started my internship with the XYZ company, as a part of my college course structure. I chose that place for one single reason, “I wanted to stay at home.”  The company claimed to be “cool” and asked employees to wear whatever they wanted to… However it didn’t take a month to understand it was all just a swamp…

Well this is what I am talking about-

Sometimes we feel, when I can fight for so many, I can definitely fight for myself. Uhh, I wish that were true, but for most of us it isn’t. I remember how as a kid, I used to give scary looks to those street lofars who stared at my mother, or how in my college days, I took good care of some school kids and made random stalkers regret their actions.

Here at the internship, I didn’t raise a voice for 4 months. A frustration has started to develop inside so much so, that staying at home wasn’t fun for me or my family. It took me so long to realise the real reason of frustration. I knew they couldn’t harm but the very little gestures everyday were making me hollow inside. You’ll know why-

 

I sincerely thank one of my friends, who encouraged me to do this. She said one thing, “If you bear one torture today, you’ll bear bigger tortures tomorrow and never be able to break your silence“. Just what I wanted to hear.

Thanks to my institute, I never had to go back  to that hell again. But it took me about two week to realise that it was finally over. My mail did follow allegations on me and weird questions, but all these din’t affect me so much once I was done writing the e-mail. By some I was asked questions like, “Did you use this in your advantage to take extra leaves?”, “Why did you write the mail to the complete PS-2 division? Do you even know many people must have read it, the clerks, all the professors?” Back then I had no answer to the questions. The answer to the first one should have been a tight slap on the face.  The second question has an answer today… I don’t care how many people read it. It wasn’t my fault. Why should I be embarrassed? In fact, I want people to read it and understand that at times no one but only we need to be our own saviour.

“When you take the right stand, you stand stronger than ever before.“

Dear Reader, I sincerely request you to not sympathize with me or comment with rage. I don’t want this to be another story where people say, “Oh some men, some companies are so bad, let’s revolt, blah blah” We have a lot out their already and we all know these don’t work in the real world.

Well I wouldn’t mind you saying things like “Bravo”. But what I’d really love is you (if a female) fight such situations with more strength and come out stronger, because we all know the world isn’t so safe anymore or (if a male) help your friends fight their fears and encourage them to take the right actions.

On a lighter note, when this was all over, the wind blew and made me smile yet again 🙂