'I'm moving to Delhi'.
Looking back on the doomsday when I uttered those words, I can only sway my head and 'tsk tsk' myself. The age-old Mumbaikar saying 'You can never adjust to Delhi once you've lived in Bombay' was brushed aside as a mere cliche. What I'd perhaps forgotten was the fact that all cliches are born because they are true more often than not. The realisation seeped in day by day, as I got used to the perpetual warnings attached to each conversation, about how I must live/behave while in the Dreaded D.
For the benefit of girls who might want to repeat my stunt, I've drawn a list to save them the trouble:
P.S: The following charter is nullified if you have a boyfriend/husband/full-time bodyguard to chauffeur you around 24x7. Or just get yourself a Rotweiller.
Do's & Don'ts
1. Be appropriately dressed at all times. Nothing you wear must be too tight/too short/ too flattering. Going by this, your Bombay wardrobe is totally disqualified, even if it's actually none of the three.
2. Remember Rule 1 even if you are just stepping out for 5 mins to walk to the nearest general store. When I had to do the same, I added a wraparound and a stole to what I was already wearing and then waltzed to the store looking like a cross between an Afghani women and a Hare Krishna devotee- no offence to either.
3. Remember Rule 1 even when you are at home. You never know when you might have to get the door for a courier boy/delivery man/ neighbouring uncle. Yes it's the same everywhere, but this is DELHI you see. Take NO chances. Cluck cluck.
4. Delhi despises solitary behaviour. Do NOT be unaccompanied, especially after sunset. And AT sunset. And before. Always be with another human being- boy,girl, group of girls & boys. Or at least a pepper spray.
5. Never walk too close to the main road, lest you are pulled in by a speeding van. Even on the pedestrian path, keep swaying your head like an owl in all directions to watch out for those who don't have a van to molest people in so choose to walk instead to brush past you.
6. Watch out for pickpockets. While you are trying to save your bottom from being pinched, someone might just pinch your wallet. When the same happened to me, I was told I was not 'careful' enough. True. I was lost in trying to protect my assets and juggling my shopping bags and positioning my stole appropriately time and again to avoid Stargazers.
7. Don't, in general, make heads turns. If something happens to you, it's probably coz YOU were standing out enough to attract bad karma.
All this is not to say that Bombay is the safest place on earth for women, it's just this general air of acceptance and respect I've experienced there, even at the most crowded local railway station, that I will have no qualms in bidding goodbye to the life and times of the Capital. There is a general 'alert status' in any city that women have switched on at all times, which makes me think at times how much better off I'd be born as a fish. Then I'd be quite comfortable in just my skin, literally. More importantly, everybody else would.
