Day x

A train traveler

Rushing in to get a window seat

A must if you want to beat this heat

Sarees flying, purse swinging

Some humming, some cursing

This is a first class ladies compartment

In which travel ladies who shop in large departments

Cold, aloof, unsmiling faces

Though wearing some lovely laces

Unwilling to share their seat

With four people instead of three

A pregnant lady stands near

Nobody offers her a seat, my dear

Her legs paining, body tired and aching

She could not jump in as her legs were shaking

She got down at the next station

Rushed into the 2^nd class

Was pushed inside by the crowding mass

Hey look out, she is expecting

Cried a commuter to another

Make her sit, says a grandmother

Pushing, jostling to make way

The lady then sits, while granny says

You shouldn’t be standing so, my dear

Feeling faint, are you, but never fear

We are there till this journey ends

No jostling, pushing you need to fend

I was happy with what I had written. It had brought tears in my eye about the prudishness of the ladies traveling in the first class vs the ladies the second class. And, I had just given up my window seat to a pregnant lady (hope she was. I was having second thoughts as she was now jumping up and down her seat trying to keep her bag on the stand above the seat. Is she just fat or she is pregnant. I blanked these thoughts from my head and gloated over good “deed” I had done for the day). Feeling happy, I moved near the door and stood there, my short hair blowing all over my face, and making me look exactly like a woman caught in the eye of a cyclone (“How to you think of such similies” asked my husband, Areen when I excitedly showed him what I had written in the train. Do you think you would have a chance to hold a mirror in front of your face and see your self when you were caught in the eye of the cyclone? And, by the way, your GK is quite horrible. And you call yourself a geography student? Didn’t you know that the eye of a storm is supposed to be calm?).

Next to me, a lady was complaining to her friend about her husband. He never looks at me now-a-days, she said. “Just spends most of his time with his mother. When he was courting me, he kept staring at me and kept saying how beautiful I was, how he wanted to hold me, kiss me, me, etc. Now he keeps looking at his mother saying how well she cooks, how lovely the saree looks on her”. Her friend cooed politely and agreed with her.

I went home and told Areen about how brutal men were. They chased you, worshipped you, loved you, etc before they proposed and then once they got the girl to agree and marry him, they considered their duty done and turned their face to their mother and became the little boy that their mothers loved, going “maa” “maa”, sounding just like the baa baa of the goats. What is the difference between a man and a goat, I philosophized. Men should be born as goats, I came to the conclusion. Areen looked at me and gave me a very concerned look. Aha, I thought, “Mr. Know All agrees with me and has no answer, at last”. I gave him a feminist look. He said “Dear Aanya, ever thought about making love to a goat? Try being kissed by a goat or why not take an initiative and kiss a goat yourself. Share your experience with me and maybe we can have a discussion on this later”. He gave me a grim smile and switched on the TV. He looks exactly like a goat with a goatee, I think. You stupid TV watching Goat, I cursed and abused him mentally. “Kiss a goat and then we can discuss about men and goat, Areen smiled and said. Men! I thought. Just irrational goats!

Areen slept in the sofa today. When he came to kiss me goodbye, I sulked and told him that he reminded me of an old goat. He said he will try kissing me good morning to see if my vision improved.

Day X+1

I told Areen in the morning when he tried to nudge me awake that he smelled like a stinking goat.

I am in no mood for a joke today. I have a big meeting of the egos today. I am meeting some four people, senior professionals with many years in the business, and am planning to interview them. The clash of the egos has to be handled well. Sridhar Mukhi, Anand Lodha, Tirinya Ganesh and Ritesh Malwani. I of course, call them, Mr. Mukhi, Mr. Lodha, Mr. Ganesh and Mr. Malwani. I know Ritesh for many years now. But either they are called by the first name or everyone by the last name. Ego clashed, otherwise. I dreamt last night that all four were screaming at each other while I was standing on a table doing a belly dance and was about to say something to calm them when at this crucial point, the Goat at home, woke me. I was not in a pleasant mood, of course. The smelling goat went to brush and I woke with my hair all upright due to tension. Hope the meeting goes off well.

Driver called to say he can’t come today as his wife’s mother’s aunt’s cousin is getting married. When I asked why he could not have told me about this earlier, he said that the cousin had eloped yesterday with boyfriend. Parents were pacified through midnight and invitations over phone were being done today. Jet age, jet elopement and jet marriages, I thought. How lucky.  I asked the goat if he can drop me a the cab stand. The Goat said “ if you can stand a smelling goat next to you for 10 minutes in the car, I will”. I checked if I should sit behind in the car. The goat said “I can be a goat and drive the wife to a cab, but I refuse to be a driver goat”. I slammed the bathroom door and went to change. The goat slammed his bathroom door harder. The matter was settled. He would drop me to a cab stand and I would sit in the front seat next to him!