WOMEN’S
LIBARATION
I fly frequently on business. I normally
try to reach the airport well in time to avoid the last minute rush. After coping
with the unpredictable Chennai traffic, there are queues to be negotiated at
every stage which are manned by the people who are not known for either their
efficiency or their courtesy. So I often reach the airport with some time to
spare.
I
was standing in the first queue near the entrance at the airport, clutching my
id and the ticket in one hand and the weather-beaten suitcase in another. A well-dressed
attractive young lady, 35ish, rushed in waving a phablet in one hand. “May I go
in please? I am late”. She pleaded. With
their hearts full of human kindness for the plight of the working woman, the
other passengers readily agreed. The security guard at the gate shrugged. She breezed
through. Likewise, she sashayed through the
second tier of security and the check-in counter.
By the time
I had managed to check in, she had already sailed past the long queue for
security check. When I went past the humiliation of security check, I found her
sitting in one corner, sipping coffee, chatting idly with a colleague/friend. I was surprised. I thought she was late? It turned
out she wasn’t. She was going on the same flight as mine and had ample time on
her hands. All this subterfuge was to avoid standing in tedious queues.
A little
peeved, I couldn’t stop myself from asking “madam! You said you were late but
you weren’t”. She gave me a withering
look which clearly said “mind your own effing business” and declined to favour
me with a verbal response.
She again
managed to glide past the queue for boarding the bus and the final queue for
boarding the flight. When I went in after a while, huffing and puffing after
the exertions of standing in 5 different queues, the lady in question was
snugly ensconced in her seat, chatting idly on her cell phone. She looked at me
with a smirk and turned disdainfully away from my accusatory glare.
My heart bleeds for the battered, bruised and abused Indian woman.
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