So I feel safe while travelling home in the middle of the night with him. “I chose this career also because my brother is a bouncer at the same establishment. Is safety ever a concern, I ask her, especially when the shift ends and it’s time to call it a night. “My husband’s income was not enough to provide good education for the girls.” Her job earns her Rs 8,000 a month, plus tips. “Whenever he called me at night, I would tell him that I was asleep and so, missed his calls,” she says. Her husband, Jeevan, lives in Kurseong-a 45-minute drive from Siliguri. When Tamang took up her first gig as a bouncer, she couldn’t get herself to tell her family about it for the fear that they might not be okay with it. Women have come to me to say that they feel safe when they see a female bouncer in the bar.” Tamang’s secret to staying fit, agile and strong? Doing all the household chores herself! “If a person smiles at me while I’m on duty, I smile back. Getting compliments for doing what she does comes her way often, especially from young girls. “But since that day, though, I prefer wearing only black on duty,” she laughs. A man came up to me and whispered, ‘My girlfriend is not with me today.’” Tamang’s learnt to handle such situations adeptly, and it wasn’t long before the man was effusive with apologies. ![]() “One day, I wore a colourful T-shirt with a pair of black jeans. There are days when Tamang has to handle “over-friendly” men, who try to chat her up by commenting on her clothes. When I tapped her on her shoulder for emphasis, she rudely asked me not to touch her and proceeded to complain to her friend.” Staying calm and explaining rules in such situations takes immense patience but on a couple of occasions, Tamang has not hesitated to drag especially errant patrons out of the nightclub. “I told her she wasn’t allowed to bring drinks to the dance floor. “A few days ago, a woman with a glass of alcohol came onto the dance floor,” she says. With a freeflow of alcohol at her workplace, things do get eventful. The men apologised to her had it been a male bouncer in her place, Tamang believes the situation might have escalated. “I had to use my full force to separate them.” She speculates that being a woman actually helps in such situations. “I had to intervene as there were no male bouncers that night,” she says. Recently, two inebriated men started fighting with each other near the dance floor. Things can get chaotic very fast, she says. On most nights, you will find her standing sternly, eyes alert as a hawk for any signs of delinquency. But if the situation spirals “out of control”, she is authorised to drag the troublemakers out of the club. “Staying calm is one of the first things I learnt on the job,” she tells me. ![]() She took up the profession two years ago, to give her daughters a good education. Tamang’s day begins when others’ is winding down, with Fridays and weekends being the busiest. Their male counterparts tally to around 15. ![]() In this neck of the woods (northeast India), there are about six women bouncers. At 5”1’, strong but not muscular, Sangita Tamang, aged 33 and mother to two teenage girls, is one of the few female bouncers in India.
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