An exit plan. Comfortable shoes. 100% charged phone battery. Indian women tell Brut why popping out to have a drink with friends isn't such a simple thing for them.
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00:00Why aren't you drinking? Aren't you having fun?
00:01And I'm just like, I'm having fun, but I don't want to have too much fun
00:04because I wouldn't feel safe, you know?
00:06I have to get myself home, you know, safely in one piece.
00:15As someone who's a part of a large friend circle, predominantly made of guys,
00:19I realized really quickly that drinking out is a very different experience for men
00:25as opposed to for women.
00:27Taking precautions as a woman drinking out is like something of a universal concept.
00:32First thing is that we always inform somebody from the family.
00:35Especially if I'm going out on a date with someone new,
00:38I ensure that my friends know who it is, my friends know exactly where I'm going,
00:43they know when I'm going to come back.
00:45I usually make a mental checklist where I need to definitely have my phone charged up to 100.
00:50I would even shudder to think about going out of my house without my phone charged, you know?
00:56Then, of course, the area and commute, that we choose something nearby.
01:01Definitely have liquid cash, a debit card, an identity card.
01:05Generally, I go cashless, like I don't carry cash with me.
01:09But whenever I go out at night, it is a thing,
01:11I always carry like a 500 or a 1000 rupee, like, you know, that much amount.
01:16Because again, you know, it's just in case of emergency kind of thing.
01:20Making sure that I am going out with people that I can trust
01:23and always being in their eyesight.
01:25Don't drink with strangers at all.
01:27I always make sure that my drink, it's like, if it's a bottle, then it's unopened.
01:32And that, I think, stems from the fact that I have been roofied once.
01:37It was traumatizing.
01:40It was every kind of scary.
01:43And that definitely made me a lot more,
01:50like I went from being a cautious person to being a paranoid person when I go out drinking.
01:54I wear comfy shoes because that's kind of my style.
01:58Also, just in case I need to make a run for it.
02:01I always keep a track on how much I'm drinking
02:03because you should always know your limits
02:06and you should never go overboard if you're traveling alone.
02:09I have an exit plan in my mind.
02:12If I'm going with friends who stay in my area,
02:14then it's great because I come back with them.
02:17But otherwise, I will stay with my friends.
02:19We never travel by metro after drinking.
02:22It's usually that we rely on cabs because it's easy to track.
02:26A lot of people do ask me why I make this mental checklist.
02:29It's because this country, it's not safe, especially for women.
02:33As a woman drinking out, I realized out is pretty much anywhere that is not your house
02:40because any place can very quickly become an unsafe space simply because of your gender.
02:45These things, they do make me very angry because, you know,
02:48when I talk to my guy friends, they don't have to go through these things at all.