Are you a virgin?,'' Alfred Joseph asked one of his male colleagues at the Park Hotel, Delhi. Over a few separate instances, he repeatedly asked his colleague about his virginity, talked to him about how he liked to watch 14-year-old boys get naked, even went so far as to hug him. Joseph had been harassing several of his male colleagues, but he pushed this one a bit too far. A complaint was filed and after an investigation, Joseph was asked to leave the organisation.

Speak to a company about sexual harassment and chances are, you won't get very far with your conversation. Reactions range from how-can-we-speak-about-this-taboo-topic looks to ''we don't have any of that in our company'' comments. Only, there's nothing taboo about S H and no organisation, however evolved it may be, can ever claim freedom from its pernicious influence. On August 13, 1997, the Supreme Court of India directed companies to frame appropriate rules prohibiting sexual harassment at the workplace. And it directed them to form a committee comprising two men, two women, and a representative from a non-governmental organisation to address the issue (and all related complaints).

Not all organisations have complied. Park Hotel is one that has, and as A.K. Sinha, the hr manager at The Park, Delhi, puts it, ''We are not too embarrassed to talk about our cases; our people need to know their work environment is safe and protected.'' Not every company feels the same way.

Those that do, belong-in nine cases out of 10-to industries such as hospitality, it-enabled services, airlines, and software where employees work long hours in close proximity, there are as many women as men, or both. ''Most international organisations have a policy (on sexual harassment) and they expect us to have one,'' says Joydeep Bose, General Manager (Corporate hr), Wipro, referring to how companies that do lots of business with international clients can't help but have a policy. MNCs have policies too, often handed down (much like the 10 commandments) from their global HQ, although some, like Gillette have modified these to include the nuances of the Supreme Court's order. ''MNCs are culturally broadminded and believe in equal opportunity,'' says a spokesperson for Citibank India. ''The problem is in local corporations where there are no rules, no code of conduct.'' That remark reeks of corporate imperialism, but it could well be true. ''There are few women working at Ranbaxy,'' says a spokesperson for the pharma major, ''so we don't have an official policy.'' Then, almost as an afterthought, ''...it is something that needs to be addressed.''

The Devil Is in The detail

The policy is a Miranda of sorts: anything you say or do could be held against you. The Supreme Court's order, and the definition that can be distilled from it covers everything from gender-based insults to textual or graphic representations of a sexual nature to abusive remarks to unwelcome demands for sexual favours.

The emphasis of the order, and the policies of the few companies that have policies on sexual harassment is on the act and its impact, rather than the intent of the perpetrator. That may sound fair, but isn't always the case as it-enabled services company Spectramind discovered. A woman worker was a habitual absentee. Her immediate manager (a man) repeatedly asked her whether she had a problem, but she offered no explanation. When the time came for her appraisal, the worker told him that she would file a case against him if he didn't give her a decent appraisal. Pushed, the manager used an expletive and the woman promptly filed a complaint of sexual harassment. ''The manager was trained to handle these issues, but he was pushed and he snapped,'' says S. Varadarajan, Vice President (HR). Spectramind issued a written warning to the manager and made him apologise to the woman. However, it also counselled the worker and told her that there was no intent to harass on her manager's part.

Companies filled to the gills with young people just out of college face the brunt of this: campus-lingo resembles the kind of language popular with the makers of B-grade Hollywood and Bollywood motion pics. That kind of free-and-easy language may be alright in college or even among friends; at work, it could be construed as sexual harassment. Is that nitpicking warranted? ''We need to incorporate new thinking into our perspective,'' agrees Varadarajan, ''but there needs to be some discipline at the workplace.'' Still, as Sushma Chawla, the Head of the Women's Cell at Indian Airlines says, it might be better to err on the side of caution. ''Everyone's thinking is different; sometimes people don't understand the context of certain remarks and misinterpret them.''

Context is a killer, especially for multinationals. The Indian culture is a high-context one; the American one isn't. Gillette discovered this to its disadvantage. The company's global network is accessible to employees and distributors who can not only access data, but also chat online. In one instance, a man in a small city in India was online at the same time as a woman in the US. He began to make polite conversation with her, asking her how her day was, how she was and other small talk. The woman found it odd that he was asking her personal questions and complained. ''She didn't understand the context,'' explains Arun Sehgal, VP HR, Gillette, ''and we had to clarify that over here it is normal to make polite conversation.''

There's no doubt that having a policy on harassment will help. ''It provides a platform for women who are harassed to discuss the issue,'' says Sapna Srivastav, Associate Vice President (HR), HTA. Adds Gillette's Sehgal: ''We want to ensure that our employees feel comfortable talking about this problem.''

The American experience with sexual harassment has shown that sometimes (not always) mediocre workers don the mantle of the sexually harassed to cover up their inadequacies. The Supreme Court's order doesn't really take cognisance of this fact, but as the Spectramind experience shows, it hasn't escaped the attention of Slackers Inc.