Since then, I've been on many such journeys. Watched from the corner of my eyethe flash of their teeth and the rhythm of their hands massaging their tired feet. Listened to their conversations - "don't know what to do with my Raja. Total goonda and the final exams so near. I have to get up at 5 am and sit with him otherwise he won't study." "What did you eat for dinner?" "Ai, are those earrings new then?"I still haven't figured out what some of the curse words mean. But I have learnt who the women are. They work in small hotels, beer bars, restaurants. A few may be nurses or airline personnel. Women on their way home from work. Just like me, or you, but different - and treated differently too.

A 1977 provision of the Bombay Shops and Establishments Act (1948) prohibits women from working in such establishments after 8:30 pm. The present government has reinforced the Act though a notification - a sign of their commitment to an allegedly better society. Both hoteliers and women have been booked under this law, the women frequently accused of soliciting.

In the matter of women's rights - especially economic rights - this is a familiar pattern. One step forwards, two steps backwards. Women are given rights in law. It's bad enough they have to fight a host of social attitudes, which prevent them from accessing these rights in a free and equal manner. But then, the law binds itself up with an intricate chain ofmodifiers, exceptions and permissions, and renders itself meaningless and insincere. So, it gives women the right to divorce, but no defined rights to maintenance or matrimonial property. It balks at recognizing women as natural guardians of their natural born children. It recognizes women's right to a livelihood, then undermines it by stipulating when and where they should work.

Interestingly this law affects women of a lower socio-economic group and is not applied to more "middle class" professions like hotels, airlines etc. These are the very ironic notions of respectability which arrest prostitutes but let their clients go free. For the politicians who have grave things to say about women in "these" professions, I only want to ask: why is waitressing in a beer bar - with all its seamy implications - less moral than misappropriating public money and inciting people to riot?

The present government has been zealous in enforcing this law along with others that keep us in our homes at night. Their reasonsvary from morality to safety.

The message sent out is depressing - that we must assume the city is unsafe and criminal, that crimes against women will be the norm rather than the exception. That the state absolves itself of the responsibility of keeping citizens safe, unless they stay within the safety of their homes, inside the contours of a twisted lakshman rekha. And if you stray and get raped or robbed or randomly roughed up by the minister's son-in-law will the State shrug its shoulders and say "I told you to stay at home didn't I?" Today on the grounds of morality, safety and an outdated law it wants to deny three lakh women the right to the only livelihood they can get. Tomorrow, couldn't the reasons extend to you and me?

How come nobody is talking about the real issues - whether the women have safe transportation, and bonuses and provident funds? Are the conditions of their employment fair ? Or, what are the ways in which we can change a social system which commodifies women and deniesthem equal economic and social opportunities, forcing them into jobs that the same system looks down on and tries to force them out of?

The government strikes paternalistic poses and casts women as damsels in perpetual distress. To be saved. From themselves and an impure fate. And after they are saved and unemployed, will the government put food on their tables, nicely spiced, and provide starched school uniforms for their kids? Did someone say, I don't think so? Say it again.

Say it again and again till Mr Minister hears you. For all those who depict women as dependents and liabilities, I would like to arrange a ride in the ladies dabba some night. See the "dependent" women who work to support themselves and their families. It's time the government stopped falsifying the lives and needs of women who take care of themselves, stopped coming in the way of people just trying to get on. In fact it's time the government did its job - because that's what we are paying it to do. Its job is not to tell peoplewhat moral choices to make, but to provide a safe and functioning city where we can live and work with the freedom and fairness that each of us deserves.

Three lakh women stand to be affected by outmoded laws and hypocrisy. The employers of these women - Indian Hotels and Restaurants Association - have filed a petition challenging this law as unconstitutional. They may be concerned more for their businesses than their employees, but at least they are concerned. The court has admitted the petition and I hope the judgement will be most fair to those who stand to lose the most.

For the chattering ladies of Charni Road and for myself, secretly watching them from my seat on the 1:10 Borivli slow, and for you, who need to come home at 4 am for whatever reason, I hope this provision is struck down and replaced by others that reflect the spirit of the times we would like to live in.

Paromita Vohra is a documentary film-maker, whose most recent work is A Women's Place.