Why did 'victims' continue to work for Akbar?

"In the '80s and '90s we never thought about our colleagues as men and women."

"Wake up, wake up!"
I was puffing and panting as I tried to wake my wife up in the dead of night.
"What happened? I need to catch some sleep before the alarm goes off at five," she groaned.
"I had a dream. It's so scary. Get me some water."
"Close your eyes and chant a prayer a hundred times. What's it about anyway?"
"A giant steamroller. As tall as the Burj Khalifa."
"Steamroller?  Are you mad? You shouldn't be having more than a drink. You are past that age."
"No man. The wheels were as big as the India Gate. People were running helter-skelter. It mowed down so many."
"Don't you feel so lucky? Thank God a hundred times."
"You bet! There was no place to hide. There's #MeToo written all over the machine. There's blood everywhere. I ran for my life."
"So #MeToo is the issue? Then there's nowhere to hide, man. Your sins, if any, will soon catch up with you. Call it karma."
"I may be a joking flirt, but I am not a predator."
"Don't sing your own praise. God only knows who has got your name on the list."
"So I saw a pantheon of heroes going under the steamroller. Former editor and Indian minister MJ Akbar, journalists KR Sreenivas and Prashant Jha, many from the Bollywood like Nana Patekar, Rajat Kapoor, Alok Nath, Vikas Bahl, Kailash Kher, Subhash Kapoor, Varun Grover, Gaurang Doshi, Vivek Agnihotri, Utsav Chakraborty, and writer Chetan Bhagat. A lot of blood is spilled."
"Don't expect me to sit beside you at a Presscon tomorrow, explaining how good a husband you are. Don't even come home."
"But listen darling."
"No darling-honey business, OK? Let #MeToo begin at home."
"Yes, boss. In the '80s and '90s we never thought about our colleagues as men and women. We were a fun-loving crowd. That was the Bombay (now Mumbai) newsroom culture."
"Are you giving me the same old brother-sister story?"
"It was the golden age of journalism. We were trained by venerable guys like Nihal Singh, Vinod Mehta, Rahul Singh, and PNV Nair. After the edition at 1am, the night was always young. We roamed around looking for the best joints in town to eat and drink. We debated issues over supper in the din of pubs and back in the quiet of office till the dawn broke. Some nights, we camped outside the Oberoi Hotel keeping track of film stars streaming in for parties. We relished the gold-laced meetha paan made by the Bihari Chacha outside the Oberoi. We, boys and girls, slept in the office. There wasn't a single incident of gender harassment. We were a force. We woke up in the office and watched morning shows before taking a noon train home, only to come back at 6pm. There were no predators among us. Nor among the editors we worked with."
"You thought I wasn't aware. I had my own moles. If you had misbehaved, Danto, Shenoy, Nandan, or Ajay would have tipped me off. Women operate at a different level, boss."
"I am not worried about those days. I am worried about my present WhatsApp. Remember what happened to Chetan Bhagat."
"Are you panicking? Chetan is not a saint."
"He was not a pest, just a flirt."
"What do you mean? He was looking for action."
"He was just trying his luck. Like a woman colleague told me, trying luck is fine as long as you back off immediately if luck fails. I am thinking about all of Akbar's victims."
"What about them?"
"There are more than 10 of them. Why did they take a few decades to call him out? Not a single woman bothered to blow the whistle?"
"Urban pretensions, selfishness, greed and condescension. Priorities were different. Profession was more valuable than self-pride. Don't tell me any of the women would have died of starvation if they had not worked with Akbar. What was the need for Priya Ramani, who was harassed by Akbar during the hotel room interview, to take up the job? Why did Ghazala Wahab continue to work for him swallowing the daily dose of molestation for six months? Why did senior editorial members like Seema Mustafa give silent approval to Akbar's sexual adventures inside the office? Didn't she have the social and moral responsibility to bell the cat and rescue his hapless victims? And you call yourself a journalist?"
"I have no answers. Had it happened to any of our colleagues in Bombay, we would have cut him into pieces. Such was our camaraderie."
"Listen my husband, had this happened to me, or your daughter, or any other small-town people like us, we would have made sure he was locked up forever. You go to a village in Tamil Nadu and try to mess with a woman, they would send your body home. Wasn't there anyone in Ghazala Wahab's home to file a case of attempted rape against MJ? This is not justice delayed. This is justice unwanted."
"I agree. We are a society that has forgotten to react which has let a breed of people like Akbar grow on the profession like cancer. #MeToo shouldn't end up like a passing fad. The movement is not just to call out names, but to send proven predators behind bars, but no one seems ready yet. Journalists are supposed to be sentinels of society. If they cannot fight for themselves, how do you expect them to fight for others?"
"Why are you still fiddling with your WhatsApp?"
"Checking again. Just in case..."
"There isn't anything libelous in there. Rest assured. I already had a check."
"How dare you touch my phone?"
"Not me. Your daughter. Hubby, are you sleepy?"
"No, tell me?"
"Do you remember the Rafale scam? Whatever happened to it?"
"Looks like #MeToo has run over it."
"That's his brilliance. If you want a good wink of sleep, shut your eyes and chant NaMo a hundred times."
"NaMo, NaMo! Good night"
- suresh@khaleejtimes.com