My take on International womens' day...

In order to reach home from kandivili station which is approximately 3 kms away, i need to take a share auto. I have to get into a 'damu' auto because it passes by a stop which is close to my home. Though Lokhandwala is a posh area, damu nagar is the habitat for the lower-class to work for the residents of our township. So u can very well imagine what kind of crowd i get to share the auto with,majority of the time.

The auto-wallahs are too undoubtedly foolhardy as well as stupid. Since there's always a huge crowd at the station and a great demand for the autos as it is the only way for us to reach home, especially at peak hours in the evening,most of these autowallahs tend to seat 6 to 7 people in one auto. There will be 4 people squeezed in behind and 2 guys on eiher side of the driver in the front and then there'll be another guy who will manage to fit himself somehow in the front,weight and waist permitting. The passengers dont mind as most of them are lukhas anyways. Only the office-going blue-collar, straight-jacketed residents of Lokhandwala and the women object to these kind of 'mass'-transport.This makes the auto-drivers disinclined to take women passengers and the women get stranded everytime, everyday.

It so happened that on 8th, the Int'l womens' day, I was as usual shouting myself hoarse, yelling"damu. damu.." at every auto that was passing by me near the station at the last stop. One driver passed by me and another female standing beside me who also wanted to get into a 'damu' auto, shook his head while we said 'damu' and then assented to another guy standing few steps away from us who was also shouting 'damu'. This engraged me somuch so that i ran after the auto-wallah all the while demanding whether he was 'damu' or not. He kept on going ahead and finally stopped some 25 metres away as he couldn't shake me off. Even then he kept mum while i repeatedly asked"' yeh damu hai kya?" The driver as well as the lukha within had the nerves to pretend to be deaf. I started haraunging the lukha and told him to shift aside so that I could climb in because I knew it was a damu auto. He kept pretending to be a statue, and finally said "What you telling me.Tell him, no!"I was so stupefied at this 'English' that i burst laughing at him and then floored him with my best English as possible; "Hello if you don't know english then dont speak like this.Mujhe bhi hindi aati hai.Chalo ab shift ho'"

Suitably chastened, he finally shifted, looking helplessly at the driver.On top of all this drama, the auto -wallah had the gall to say.."Madam, aap lady paasenger hai, isliye hamne mana kiya ,kyunki abhi char sawari ko lega." I finally brushed him off saying that "lady passenger ke liye itna respect hai, to unko mana hi kyun karte ho?"
Finally the victory was mine as not only did he have to take 3 passengers, the 3rd was the same lady beside me who too had wanted a 'damu'!

Yippee..this was my struggle and my success on March 8th. Unfortunately, these situations happen eveyday, everywhere , everytime with all women.
Who said being a woman was easy...

P.S. On a lighter note, here are some resons why i would like to be reborn as a woman..

1. Women are not only the fairer sex but also the luckier sex because a woman is 'woo-man' someone who gets to woo a man as well as can be 'wooed-men' someone who can wooed by a man. Unfortunately, since in India because of the atrocious sex ratio, men will always outnumber women and thus rarely will a guy get an oppurtunity to be wooed by a lady unless he is a stud like John Abraham! So not only do we get the cake, we get to eat it too...
2. A woman can equally be ease in her sarees and skirts as well in his shirts and jeans. On the other hand, i cant envision a guy getting a chance to wear a skirt unless he is lucky enough to be in Scotland(either by birth or money)... :-)
3. Women are often considered as a weaker sex, which is entirely wrong. as i have learnt from personal experience that being considered weak can really prove to be advantageous many times, if you know how to use your charms well...

So Happy womens' day...Bless us all...