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When I reached IIT KGP in 1965, it was an ordeal to travel to Calcutta. There were no buses, and taxis refused to ply due to poor condition of roads. And the train track was not electrified and most trains used to run on steam engines. The only way to travel was to catch the Puri-Howrah Express early in the morning. And it was never on time. And the couple of passenger trains used to take anything between 4 and 6 hours.
All this suddenly changed when the Jamshedpur-Howrah Steel Express was inaugurated in the late 1960s. This had only one halt between and that was KGP. It arrived at KGP at 8.15 and reached Howrah at 10.15 sharp. And left Howrah in the evening at 5.15 and reached KGP back at 7.15. And it had a classy dining car so we didn't have to bother about catching breakfast and evening snacks.
One of those days my friend NP and I traveled to Howrah the first time together. And took one of those umpteen buses that took us anywhere we wanted. And we enjoyed the bus rides. The crowds were manageable and folks were friendly.
And often on our rides we used to hear the conductor shout:
"Asthey, Ladies!"
And we deduced, like Sherlock Holmes, that this admonition was to the driver to go slow and easy whenever a lady was getting down or getting up...there were no women riding Calcutta buses then...all were ladies...bhadramahilas.
We liked the injunction so much that later on, even these days, we would, between us, say:
"Asthey, Ladies!"
whenever we wanted to say:
"Aasthey!"
whether ladies are present or not...like when walking or eating or talking too fast or loud for comfort.
These days I sit in the front seat of our good old Maruti 800 when my D-i-L drives it on our way to her bus stop. And I keep saying (to myself):
"Aasthey Ladies!"
without the comma.
After she stops our car and gets into her bus, it is I who drives it back to the parking lot of our apartment block...and drive it back to the bus stop in the afternoon to fetch her home. And it is she who again takes the driver's seat...another trait of young lady drivers.
When I was trying to explain this curious phenomenon to my IAS B-i-L, I wasn't sure if I could call myself her driver or conductor or cleaner-boy. He laughed and said the right word...mot juste:
"You are her valet-parker!"
These IAS chaps do have some clever felicity with English, if nothing else.
But I digress.
Once when several of my newly wed sisters gathered in our drawing room at Gudur, their hubbies busy playing cards outside and I gathering wool, my last sister yet to be married ran out of the drawing room like a hart in chase and came to me and sat down quietly by my side.
I could sense that she found herself out of place in the company of newly wed ladies who were not following the maxim:
"Aasthey Ladies!"
...there was a big din there...
And when pinned down she leaked it out:
"They are all boasting about their husbands...so I had to run away"
I, still a bachelor, sympathized with her and lent her comfort.
Thirty years later, when I was a married man myself with a son in the IIT, we were all stuck up at the Main Gate of the Madurai Meenakshi temple waiting for our van to arrive, on our way back to Madras after attending the wedding of my niece.
And there was again this gathering of married ladies in one corner, gossiping.
And my wife tore herself apart from the crowd and joined me.
"What happened? Why did you leave suddenly?"
"Oh, they are all boasting how good and obedient their husbands are to them. One of them says her husband buys her gold every Diwali without fail; another says that he dumps all his salary on pay day in her lap; and another that all decisions in the household are made by her, her hubby being so innocent in worldly affairs..."
"Why did you not join in their boasting?"
"Oh, I couldn't match them...I had nothing to say on the spur of the moment"
Then I whipped out my wallet and fished out a sepia-tinted photo of hers that was sent to me for approval in the pourparlers of our marriage three decades ago. And told her:
"Show this photo to them and ask them if any of their husbands loves them so much as to wear their first photo close to them after that many decades"
She smiled...ladies are so easy to please when cornered.
Here it is...still there...although she is not...
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When I reached IIT KGP in 1965, it was an ordeal to travel to Calcutta. There were no buses, and taxis refused to ply due to poor condition of roads. And the train track was not electrified and most trains used to run on steam engines. The only way to travel was to catch the Puri-Howrah Express early in the morning. And it was never on time. And the couple of passenger trains used to take anything between 4 and 6 hours.
All this suddenly changed when the Jamshedpur-Howrah Steel Express was inaugurated in the late 1960s. This had only one halt between and that was KGP. It arrived at KGP at 8.15 and reached Howrah at 10.15 sharp. And left Howrah in the evening at 5.15 and reached KGP back at 7.15. And it had a classy dining car so we didn't have to bother about catching breakfast and evening snacks.
One of those days my friend NP and I traveled to Howrah the first time together. And took one of those umpteen buses that took us anywhere we wanted. And we enjoyed the bus rides. The crowds were manageable and folks were friendly.
And often on our rides we used to hear the conductor shout:
"Asthey, Ladies!"
And we deduced, like Sherlock Holmes, that this admonition was to the driver to go slow and easy whenever a lady was getting down or getting up...there were no women riding Calcutta buses then...all were ladies...bhadramahilas.
We liked the injunction so much that later on, even these days, we would, between us, say:
"Asthey, Ladies!"
whenever we wanted to say:
"Aasthey!"
whether ladies are present or not...like when walking or eating or talking too fast or loud for comfort.
These days I sit in the front seat of our good old Maruti 800 when my D-i-L drives it on our way to her bus stop. And I keep saying (to myself):
"Aasthey Ladies!"
without the comma.
After she stops our car and gets into her bus, it is I who drives it back to the parking lot of our apartment block...and drive it back to the bus stop in the afternoon to fetch her home. And it is she who again takes the driver's seat...another trait of young lady drivers.
When I was trying to explain this curious phenomenon to my IAS B-i-L, I wasn't sure if I could call myself her driver or conductor or cleaner-boy. He laughed and said the right word...mot juste:
"You are her valet-parker!"
These IAS chaps do have some clever felicity with English, if nothing else.
But I digress.
Once when several of my newly wed sisters gathered in our drawing room at Gudur, their hubbies busy playing cards outside and I gathering wool, my last sister yet to be married ran out of the drawing room like a hart in chase and came to me and sat down quietly by my side.
I could sense that she found herself out of place in the company of newly wed ladies who were not following the maxim:
"Aasthey Ladies!"
...there was a big din there...
And when pinned down she leaked it out:
"They are all boasting about their husbands...so I had to run away"
I, still a bachelor, sympathized with her and lent her comfort.
Thirty years later, when I was a married man myself with a son in the IIT, we were all stuck up at the Main Gate of the Madurai Meenakshi temple waiting for our van to arrive, on our way back to Madras after attending the wedding of my niece.
And there was again this gathering of married ladies in one corner, gossiping.
And my wife tore herself apart from the crowd and joined me.
"What happened? Why did you leave suddenly?"
"Oh, they are all boasting how good and obedient their husbands are to them. One of them says her husband buys her gold every Diwali without fail; another says that he dumps all his salary on pay day in her lap; and another that all decisions in the household are made by her, her hubby being so innocent in worldly affairs..."
"Why did you not join in their boasting?"
"Oh, I couldn't match them...I had nothing to say on the spur of the moment"
Then I whipped out my wallet and fished out a sepia-tinted photo of hers that was sent to me for approval in the pourparlers of our marriage three decades ago. And told her:
"Show this photo to them and ask them if any of their husbands loves them so much as to wear their first photo close to them after that many decades"
She smiled...ladies are so easy to please when cornered.
Here it is...still there...although she is not...
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beautiful piece.. :)
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