Courage to Say No

by Raana Mahmood

  Dr. Sheela knew everything about my mistreatment by Arif and about my divorce, and she gloated regularly at my expense. In between seeing patients, she would make snide remarks about why I had such difficult times with men, often giving me suggestive advice for pleasing men. I did my best to keep from exploding at her. I stayed calm, thanked her, and moved away as quickly as I could.

  Ignoring her only deepened the crisis as far as she was concerned. She would go out of her way to find me in the clinic and ask me how I was doing. She knew I was grieving, but her concern wasn’t genuine. I took her words as a way of mocking me. I tried a fake smile, but sometimes when I pushed myself to smile, tears rolled down my cheeks instead. I hated crying in front of her, but my heartbreak was profound. She laughed and turned away.

  The only relief from her was when Captain Arif arrived, and the two of them disappeared into her room and shut the door. I didn’t care what they did together, but I still did not understand why they felt compelled to drag me into their dirty game.

  One morning news spread like wildfire about Captain Arif and Dr. Sheela’s affair. It became such a public scandal that the local newspapers even published a story about their infidelity. The affair became known after the fire broke out in the gas plant premises of Karachi Terminal. The large blaze erupted in the early morning. It was quite a sight, and journalists, firemen, and police officers from all over the city converged on the scene. Just as the fireman arrived, Dr. Sheela and Captain Arif arrived together at the same time. With the doctor and the General Manager standing together, appearing every bit a couple, those around them began to ask questions.

  One journalist sensed a salacious story and began to question the two. The reporter dug into the details about their affair and published a damning story about the two of them. The story reported that when the fire broke out sometime after midnight, the two of them had been sleeping together inside the building. This embarrassed them both, and they became the objects of ridicule throughout the company. But even in their shame, they would not stop harassing me.

  The furor died down after a couple of months, but not Dr. Sheela’s contempt for me. One day she came into my office and asked me to come into hers.

  “Someone is here to see you,” she said.

  I refused to follow her. “Please leave me alone. I have a patient to see.”

  She kept insisting, implying she was doing me a favor. I finally relented, thinking maybe she’s had a change of heart, and wanted to be nice to me.

  I opened the door to her office, and Furqan, the man I had met many years before in art school, sat in her office, a sheepish grin on his face.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He stammered, “I was invited. Your friend told me you wanted to speak to me.”

  “I didn’t ask you to come here.”

  “Listen to me please.” He stood pleading with hands. “Come in and let’s talk.”

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  He pulled out an envelope. “I have a gift for you. It is five crore.” (In Pakistan, 1 crore equals 10 million rupees; 5 crore equals about USD $350,000). “Have you ever seen five crores?”

  He was quiet. It was absurd that he was offering it to me, and in Dr. Sheela’s office. I feared this was all a setup of some sort. Besides, what was this man doing here with all this money?

  “Where did you get money like that?”

  “I inherited it from my father. I want to give it to you.”

  I felt reluctant to carry on this conversation any longer. While I didn’t want his money—his offer stank of desperation—I knew this entire meeting was a trap of some sort. Dr. Sheela stood behind me, her arms crossed, watching. Others from the office stood behind her.

  “Furqan, I didn’t ask you to come here. If Dr. Sheela invited you, that is wrong. You can only come here on business. You’ll need to leave. Thank you anyway, but I have a house and money. Please go.”

  I returned to my office, out of breath. I closed my door and slumped into my chair to compose myself. I could not believe how low this woman would stoop to embarrass me. I calmed my breathing and straightened my hair. Patients were at my door. It was time to get back to work. I opened my door and greeted a woman with a smile and ushered her into my office. I refused to let Dr. Sheela and her tricks overwhelm me.

  I received a formal reprimand the next day for conducting personal business in my office and distracting the entire staff. I was indignant but not surprised. Furqan had just become another pawn in her game of intimidation. Since I already had several other letters of reprimand in my file, I had to answer this letter. Arif had gone to great effort to collect several letters that were included in my file. Though it was difficult to fire a doctor who had been through the interview process, I knew he was setting me up. If I couldn’t explain what happened convincingly to satisfy the head office managers, I knew that one day it would be easy for him to fire me by showing all the complaint letters in my file.

  I sat down to write. In my letter, I tried to explain my background with Furqan, how he regularly has chased me from place to place, and how I didn’t invite him to the office. I realized once I sent it off, it was a weak letter. I feared losing my job, but then I discovered that one of the senior executives of Unit C stood up for me. Evidently, when Dr. Sheela made a big production in the office about my visitor, he was outside my office waiting for treatment for his mother. He heard me ask why Furqan had come and who had invited him. He stated that I made it very clear that I had not invited him, and instructed him to leave at once. An investigation ensued, and it was discovered that when Furqan reached the checkpoints and showed his ID, the guards called Dr. Sheela to confirm his invitation. It was clear that she had created the office drama to humiliate me.

  Despite all of this drama, I refused to quit. I believed this harassment would pass.

  During that time, my son needed dental treatment. When I submitted my request for approval of his treatment, it was denied. I discovered that Arif said he wasn’t eligible. I called him and objected that the very same procedure had been allowed for Dr. Sheela’s children. He said that I couldn’t compare myself with her. She granted favors, and in return, she got what she wanted.

  “It’s an insult to compare me to that characterless woman. I just expected access to the benefits I’d earned from being an employee.” I hung up the phone and took Taimoor to a private dentist.

  Soon after, I heard from other doctors that Dr. Sheela had enrolled in a post-graduate course at one of the hospitals. These courses were essential for a promotion, but they required full-time attendance. So she began showing up each morning at 9 a.m. to sign in on the attendance roster and then disappeared for the rest of the day. She got her special favors, and she made the most of them.

  Dr. Sheela started visiting the head office to meet the new executives. At Dr. Sheela’s insistence, the new Managing Director merged Units A and B, and Unit C, into one. Now the flow of patients increased exponentially at the clinic in the Karachi Terminal. The calm, orderly clinic that I had come to enjoy became an unruly, loud, crowded clinic. Dr. Sheela’s office was across from mine, and a completely new group of faces, people I had never seen before, crowded into her room. The clinic became so crowded and noisy that employees and union leaders began to complain openly in the clinic that they weren’t being treated correctly, or being prescribed the correct medications. My workplace had been turned into a zoo, Dr. Sheela was absent most of the time, and I was examining the patients nonstop.

  I began getting more letters from Captain Arif, stating that my attendance was poor. In those days we didn’t have time clocks, but we would just put a mark by our names in a ledger when we arrived. After receiving letters about my attendance, I checked the ledgers in the office, and Dr. Sheela showed perfect attendance, although on most days she was at the hospital for her post-graduate work or visiting the head office. My marks showed I had been absent for several days each week. Someone had tampered with
our attendance records. After seeing that, I knew I wasn’t long for this job, and began to think about what I would do next to support my son and myself.

  In 1997, in a surprise change of events, Captain Arif showed up at Karachi Terminal and announced that from now on I was the doctor in charge of the clinic. Dr. Sheela had been promoted to work in the head office. I moved into my original office again, and the next nine months were my most rewarding time at Sui Gas. I supervised the staff, reorganized the patient flow to make it less chaotic, and worked toward making it easier for the doctors to treat patients. During my brief tenure managing the unit, I was able to keep the unit on budget and running smoothly. I wasn’t fully able to stop the aggressive behavior of some of the patients and union leaders who wanted special treatment and favors for their family and themselves, but the unethical activities diminished over time when they realized I wouldn’t bend easily to their threats.

  What surprised Captain Arif the most was that I was able to cut costs by controlling expenses, and subsequently not have everyone angry with me. He assumed that I would fail miserably under the pressure of the union leaders and crush of patient requests. He was looking for the final and most significant cause for firing me, non-performance. In this case, I was a great disappointment to him.

  After the calm period, chaos returned. Without warning, Captain Arif removed me from managing the Karachi Terminal clinic and rescinded my promotion to manager. In my place, he promoted Dr. Sheela and the other doctor who was in the running for the chief medical officer.

  When I objected, Captain Arif called me to his office.

  “Dr. Sheela gives me sexual favors. She deserved a promotion. Soon she will be the CMO. If you want a promotion, you will have to do the same.”

  I looked directly at him, with as firm a gaze as I could muster. “I deserved a promotion based on my performance. I’m the hardest working doctor here. I’m the only doctor who was hired based on merit and not political affiliations.” I went on, reminding him of what I’d accomplished in the Karachi Terminal as manager, how many patients I treated, how I controlled the budget and managed everyone fairly.

  He shook his head. “None of that matters.”

  “You have Dr. Sheela. Why can’t you be happy with her? You have a beautiful wife and children, as well. Why isn’t your family enough for you?”

  He said, “Dr. Sheela is married and has four children. If she is willing to be involved with me, why won’t you?”

  “Dr. Sheela is willing to do what you want. Why do you bother me? She’s going to get what she wants; I’m okay with that.”

  “You must do what I want.”

  I stood, my anger burning so hot that I became injudicious with my words. “If you so much as look at me with those dirty eyes of yours, I’ll snatch them out of your head. If you threaten me, I will kill you. That’s my answer to you.”

  He looked startled that I had stood up to him. I knew he was propositioning many of the secretaries and phone operators in the company. He wasn’t used to being turned down. My words had shocked him, set him back for a moment. How could I fear such a mean man, so shriveled in his soul that he had to corrupt everyone around him? I despised everything about him, and I sensed he could feel that I loathed him. As I strode out of his office, I was gripped with a moment of elation, but under it was the knowledge that this man would find a way to strike back.

  A few days later, Dr. Sheela, showed up at my door. Her expression was rather grim. She stood in the doorway as if she didn’t want to come too close. She had a message for me from the head office. “Arif wants me to tell you that he will crush your ego soon.”

  Ah, the game these two played. “No one can crush me as long as I’m alive. And I have no intention of dying soon.”

  She shook her head as if to suggest I was too stubborn for my own good. She left without flashing me her usual know-it-all smirk. She didn’t know how this would play out, and neither did I, but I meant every word of what I had said to Arif in his office. He would die before me if he ever forced himself on me.

  One day Dr. Sheela came to the clinic and said, “Dr. Raana, please stop seeing patients. I want to talk to you.”

  She closed the door to my office, and put her face on my shoulder and started crying.

  “What happened?”

  “Doctors suspect I have cancer in one breast.” She had a swelling in her left breast with a greenish discharge. Her tone was so soft, apologetic. She asked me for forgiveness. She knew she had bothered me, harassed me. She promised not to do it anymore.

  I didn’t respond. I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind that this was another of her tricks.

  My silence must have made her fear I wouldn’t forgive her.

  “I swear to God, I will not bother you again.” Then she began weeping.

  It didn’t surprise me that this woman could so easily crumble under the threat of disease and death. She had no faith, and what religion she did have, she had made a mockery of it with her behavior.

  I spoke quietly to her. “Yes, I will forgive you.”

  Before she left that day, she pleaded with me to pray for her. I assured her I would. She knew I prayed every day at lunchtime. Maybe I was the only person she knew that prayed. She called me from the head office every day, asking for a prayer for her health.

  This went on for about a month while she was under investigation. I prayed for her, asking God to heal her. One day she called me, ecstatic; she was cancer-free. The lump was benign. My days of calm were over. After that, it didn’t take her long to forget her promises.

  I sent a complaint letter to Dr. Iqbal, the CMO, detailing all the threats I had received from Captain Arif. When I didn’t hear from him, I visited his office. He saw me, listened, and with a straight face, he looked at me and said, “I’m sorry, but there is no way I can help you. I’m powerless in this situation.”

  I left his office in disgust, but not despair. It was weak men like Dr. Iqbal that held places of power in Pakistan. They were in their positions not because they deserved it, but because they had friends in high political positions. They feared power as much as they refused to use it for good, to help those who worked for them. Pakistan rots from the inside out because of weak men like Dr. Iqbal.

  Many other females in the company faced the same sexual harassment as me. Dr. Sheela had opened up a Pandora’s Box of extortion and compromise. Captain Arif became emboldened to pressure secretaries, telephone operators, and other women in the company. If a woman sought opportunities to move up, promotions they could not earn otherwise, they secretly became involved in Captain Arif’s activities. He and other managers had turned the company into a brothel. And because the new managing director didn’t take action on any of the complaints pouring into his office, everyone was convinced he was also involved in the sexual corruption.

  Everyone knew about how I had openly resisted Captain Arif’s advances. Soon, other women began visiting my office. Their stories were horrible, but similar to mine. I became a symbol of resistance against the corruption and comprise required of women in Sui Gas. I began to believe that my presence in the company had a purpose. I could help the other women who were enduring the same treatment as me.

  One day, several women were in my office, and as we discussed what to do, one said to me, “Dr. Raana, why don’t you inform Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif about what’s taking place in our company.”

  “I don’t have any access to him.”

  “I’ve heard he is nice and listens to people. If you call or write a letter, he will definitely listen and do something about these people.”

  Another woman said, “I’ve heard he has extramarital affairs, too.” There were rumors that he had an affair with a married woman who worked in the media.

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s the prime minister. This is a semi-government company. He should know what’s happening here.” I promised them I would follow up on the suggestion.

  I began calling his
Islamabad office. Over the next two weeks, no one, not even his assistant, would get on the phone with me. So, I decided to write a letter detailing the suffering and persecution women were experiencing everyday at Sui Gas. After I mailed it, I began counting the days until he, or someone in his office, answered me. My naivety surfaced again: I truly believed that once the prime minister became involved, the culture at Sui Gas would change.

  Captain Arif called me and said he needed to speak with me in his office. I refused to go. He responded with a warning letter. I informed him that I had sent a letter detailing his abuses to the prime minister in Islamabad and that I was expecting his reply soon, and then he will put an end to all this nonsense, and probably his job.

  When I went to his office, it was almost as if Captain Arif had become a different person overnight. He began treating me kindly. He even gave me a promotion, one I surely had earned months before. I was now a senior doctor. While my colleagues and I were waiting for an answer from the prime minister, Captain Arif and his circle acted very scared.

  My hopes rose. There was a chance now at some real reform. I knew the prime minister would answer soon. Javed Khan, my friend in the head office, called me every few days, wondering if I had heard from the prime minister. As the days dragged on into weeks, reality dawned. Either the prime minister didn’t read his mail, or he did, and didn’t care. That last thought sank my heart to the lowest it had been in a long time.

  Captain Arif at last figured out the truth; in the blink of an eye, he turned from an angel of kindness back to his true nature—a perverted devil. Some of the women in the group could not afford to lose their jobs. Once Captain Arif and his circle began to pressure them for sexual favors, they had little choice. The lack of response from the head of government emboldened Arif. There was little secrecy about his dirty game and everyone now knew the rules of that game. If these women wanted to feed their families, they would have to comply with whatever perverse requests Arif and his friends made.