Rage Against Time

Summary: One phone call from my landlord has once again put me in my place, or so they think. But I won’t surrender my freedom to come home at 9:32 pm that easily!

It is 9:40 pm, and I have just entered the front gate of my house when I get a phone call from my landlord:

“Hello?”
“I think you are not coming tonight.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I think you are not coming home tonight.”
“I’m downstairs just now.”
“These past two nights, you have not come before 10:30, isn’t it?”
“No, sir. My friends and I watched a movie last night and I didn’t realize it was so long.”
“I think you need to come home by 9:30.”
“Sir…”
“Please lock the gate.”
“Okay, I will do it just now. Good night.”

Conversations like this might be one reason I’m losing all my hair. In my defense, these past two nights have been unique situations: one was a July 4th dinner with friends, and the second was a freakishly long Bollywood movie that started at 7:30.

Part of my “rage” against this phone call is such:

(1) I make a point to not disturb my landlords when I come home late. This is because (a) I believe the other tenant is more understanding, and (b) the landlords have stairs and further distance to travel to open the gate.
(2) For the most part, I’ve made an effort to be home by ~9:30 or 10 pm. I think it would mortify them to learn that, left to my own accord, I would probably regularly come home at 10:30 or 11 pm.
(3) I’m being chastised for not doing anything “wrong” in my book. He spoke to me like I was a bad person for coming home late; like he assumed I was wreaking havoc in Lucknow.
(4) This now-official curfew has little to do with concerns about my well-being. There was one day when everyone had to go out of town, and they requested that I come home right after work that day, not for my own safety, but to guard the house. (This was blatantly expressed.)
(5) I suspect other self-interested motives and sexism at play. I think he may also be concerned about what the neighbors think about a female coming back to his house by herself “so late” at night.
(6) He spoke to me in a pedantic manner, as if he had all the facts and needed to inform me of the error in my ways. There was absolutely no respect, care, or inquiry in his voice.
(7) I don’t feel that they have a right to tack a curfew onto me the way they would their own child. Simply (and harshly) said, I do not see him as an authority figure.

I’ve successfully reached my mid-twenties without a rebellious teenage phase, but it very well might come now, in India. Then again, maybe I’ll be able to convince them to be more lax until August, because I’ll pretty much be under house arrest after that for lack of places to go and friends to hang out with.