Aasthey Ladies!

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During all those decades at KGP, I never traveled by bus. That was because my first impression was scary...on my first trip to IIT KGP for my interview, I was on a rickshaw and watched a fully loaded bus with passengers squatting on its open top. The Conductor was inviting more and more customers to the half-empty ladder shouting: Phaka Aachey! Phaka Aachey!

It was terrifying. For seven of my earlier university years at Vizagh, I was busing, mostly standing and leaning on the foot-board. But never on the top. When the KGP bus used to approach the Railway Tunnel at the Dhobi Ghat, the toppers used to bend and prostrate, much like Sean Connery in the movie Great Train Robbery.

But during our first trip to Calcutta, my friend NP and I boarded a Bus (not a minibus whose roof was not tall enough for NP to stand inside, and which was brash, pretending it was a maxitaxi). When the bus was approaching its first stop, the Conductor shouted: "Aasthey Ladies!", asking the Driver to be cautious because ladies were getting down. Such blatant courtesy to ladies was unheard of in our AP and we just loved it so much that even now, a half century later, whenever we meet up and have to say: "Slow down!" we invariably say: "Aasthey Ladies!" even when there is no lady in sight...not even our wives ;-)...the phrase has become a byword for us.

I suspect that by being overnice to their ladies, Bengalis tried to stand them on a pedestal and enchain them with golden shackles. That is why it took all of 30 years for their stormy petrel to break male dominance in their politics; while their South Indian and North Indian counterparts punctured the sari ceiling decades earlier.

Anyway, the other night I was watching this news clip:

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/225628/bangalore-ias-officers-wife-woman-cop-exchange-blows.html

and inadvertently shouted: Aasthey Ladies! (ask my wife)

I guess I have at best three or four decades left to go, so I have this last wish, to watch our Lady CM and our Lady CPM (so different in their outfits, footwear and bindi-makeup) doing the above scuffle...Bangalore is passe'...

I am back on this man-woman thing and I can only hope I won't rant...stop me if I do. It is trite to say that women are different. The difference is not in degree but in kind itself...like the climates of Kashmir and Kanyakumari.

Anthropologists say that Man got up on his two feet and learned to run much earlier than Woman did. Thurber says pithily: "He needed that head start"

Anyway, today I visited the only corner shop in our new and upcoming locality. It was being manned by a Lady, fortyish, obviously the owner's wife. And asked for a 2-liter bottle of Sprite. Summer will shortly be here and Cola Wars are hotting up. There is a bold legend on the bottle: "Free with this pack: Pocket Maaza". The Lady shoved the bottle onto me and coolly gave me change for my hundred rupee note. I then asked for the Maaza tetrapack. She dismissed me saying: "I don't know...they have not given it with the bottle." I said I get it everywhere and was on the point of shoving her bottle back onto her. She then shouted into her inner chamber: "Arrey Oh! Free Maaza Packet diya kya Sprite ke saath?" And as I was watching keenly for the response, which never came, she opened the drawer below her counter and passed on the tetrapack to me.

I was then reminded of my li'l Ishani in the post:''Cheating":

http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2012/01/cheating.html

No man could ever do this act so artfully (read shamelessly).

While on the topic of ladies fighting, during our first decade at KGP when there was only the SN Hall (no IG et al), its residents always preferred a male Prof as their Warden, although they tolerated the only youthful Lady Prof available as their Asst Warden.

Graying Males were gullible enough...


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