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Women are all over the News making Headlines nowadays. They have crashed all ceilings – glass, concrete, real and false. To think that just a century back most ‘advanced democracies’ didn’t give their women voting rights! Everyday these days there is an updated list of ‘Most Powerful Women on Earth’, with many Indian women on the top 5 or 10. And whatever our many Yadavs say or do, women are bound to break the male chauvinistic swine ceilings of our Legislatures and the Parliament. Men used to refer to their wives jokingly as ‘Home Ministers’. We now have in AP an iron-willed Lady Home Minister for real. And Didi will surely be gunning for the HM’s Portfolio next.
Yesterday’s DC carried this great news item: A newly married woman was taken to Bombay on the pretext of honeymoon by her hubby, left in a friend’s home, deserted. The friend appeared before her and claimed that she was sold to him for Rs 40,000. The lady had a secret cell phone on her person and was rescued duly by her friends and Police. There, there! Empowerment of Women by Technology!
I was curious about the figure of 40,000; not a very round sum, so lots of haggling must have gone on before the Deal was closed. This at once reminded me of the most atrociously funny story: ‘A Sale’, by Maupassant. Can’t resist narrating it:
18th century France: A woman appears in Court to depose on charges of ‘attempted murder’ by her husband and his friend. One night the two come home punch drunk when she was shelling beans. Her husband offers her 100 sous to drag an empty barrel and fill it up to its brim with water, which she gladly does. Then another 100 sous to strip to her bra, panties and stockings, which she does (one whole franc for ‘nothing’ must have been irresistible). The two chums then lift her bodily and drown her full and whole, and release her; upon which, scared out of her wits she runs and fetches the Police who find the two ‘full’ men in an uproarious brawl.
The husband is a pig-breeder and his friend a bartender. The husband badly wanted 1000 francs ‘by Thursday’ and his friend, a widower, badly needed a wife. The husband offers his wife for sale and his friend readily agrees to buy. The pig-breeder quotes a price of 2000 francs per cubic meter but settles for 1500. To measure the precise ‘volume’ of his wife the pig-breeder employs the ‘Method of Displacement of Water’: They just have to drown her in a barrel-full of water, and measure the water that runs away. The bartender wonders how they would measure the volume of the water that ‘runs away’. The pig-breeder answers: “Simple! Just take her out and refill the barrel with water and count how many pails it takes to do that”.
Everything goes swimmingly; only they can’t agree on the precise count of pails that had gone in while they filled up the barrel, both being ‘tight’. And no possible way of repeating the ‘measurement’! Then the woman arrives with the Police.
The story ends beautifully:
“At the end of an hour the Jury returned a verdict of acquittal for the defendants, with some severe strictures on the dignity of marriage, and establishing the precise limitations of business transactions.
Brument went home to the domestic roof accompanied by his wife.
Cornu went back to his business”.
Being a student of Physics, I was glad that the sozzled pig-breeder didn’t offer to ‘weigh’ his wife when she was in water: Archimedes says that objects could lose their weight while floating or immersed in water.
Prof MSS at IIT KGP used to pose this teaser to newly joined Faculty, in the Departmental Tea Club, especially if he (or she) happened to be a Theoretical Physics Ph D; by way of ‘Orientation’:
“Where and ‘How’ does its ‘lost weight’ go when a Hilsa fish is lying laidback in its river?”
Draupadis Please! Your Fishy Call!
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Women are all over the News making Headlines nowadays. They have crashed all ceilings – glass, concrete, real and false. To think that just a century back most ‘advanced democracies’ didn’t give their women voting rights! Everyday these days there is an updated list of ‘Most Powerful Women on Earth’, with many Indian women on the top 5 or 10. And whatever our many Yadavs say or do, women are bound to break the male chauvinistic swine ceilings of our Legislatures and the Parliament. Men used to refer to their wives jokingly as ‘Home Ministers’. We now have in AP an iron-willed Lady Home Minister for real. And Didi will surely be gunning for the HM’s Portfolio next.
Yesterday’s DC carried this great news item: A newly married woman was taken to Bombay on the pretext of honeymoon by her hubby, left in a friend’s home, deserted. The friend appeared before her and claimed that she was sold to him for Rs 40,000. The lady had a secret cell phone on her person and was rescued duly by her friends and Police. There, there! Empowerment of Women by Technology!
I was curious about the figure of 40,000; not a very round sum, so lots of haggling must have gone on before the Deal was closed. This at once reminded me of the most atrociously funny story: ‘A Sale’, by Maupassant. Can’t resist narrating it:
18th century France: A woman appears in Court to depose on charges of ‘attempted murder’ by her husband and his friend. One night the two come home punch drunk when she was shelling beans. Her husband offers her 100 sous to drag an empty barrel and fill it up to its brim with water, which she gladly does. Then another 100 sous to strip to her bra, panties and stockings, which she does (one whole franc for ‘nothing’ must have been irresistible). The two chums then lift her bodily and drown her full and whole, and release her; upon which, scared out of her wits she runs and fetches the Police who find the two ‘full’ men in an uproarious brawl.
The husband is a pig-breeder and his friend a bartender. The husband badly wanted 1000 francs ‘by Thursday’ and his friend, a widower, badly needed a wife. The husband offers his wife for sale and his friend readily agrees to buy. The pig-breeder quotes a price of 2000 francs per cubic meter but settles for 1500. To measure the precise ‘volume’ of his wife the pig-breeder employs the ‘Method of Displacement of Water’: They just have to drown her in a barrel-full of water, and measure the water that runs away. The bartender wonders how they would measure the volume of the water that ‘runs away’. The pig-breeder answers: “Simple! Just take her out and refill the barrel with water and count how many pails it takes to do that”.
Everything goes swimmingly; only they can’t agree on the precise count of pails that had gone in while they filled up the barrel, both being ‘tight’. And no possible way of repeating the ‘measurement’! Then the woman arrives with the Police.
The story ends beautifully:
“At the end of an hour the Jury returned a verdict of acquittal for the defendants, with some severe strictures on the dignity of marriage, and establishing the precise limitations of business transactions.
Brument went home to the domestic roof accompanied by his wife.
Cornu went back to his business”.
Being a student of Physics, I was glad that the sozzled pig-breeder didn’t offer to ‘weigh’ his wife when she was in water: Archimedes says that objects could lose their weight while floating or immersed in water.
Prof MSS at IIT KGP used to pose this teaser to newly joined Faculty, in the Departmental Tea Club, especially if he (or she) happened to be a Theoretical Physics Ph D; by way of ‘Orientation’:
“Where and ‘How’ does its ‘lost weight’ go when a Hilsa fish is lying laidback in its river?”
Draupadis Please! Your Fishy Call!
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Sir,I am unaware of a process that decides the sex of the Hilsa fish.
ReplyDeleteThe first few lines, gave a premonition of a man's deep seated grudge against the other clan and I felt urged to playrole Phulan devi inspite of being a "bhaat e mach e bangali draupadi"(fish and rice and bengali and draupadi) by ethinicity.
I was sadly mistaken. Humour and quality wit has surpassed all boundaries of the man -woman empowerment conflict. I am short of words to appreciate this blog.Would love to read more.