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Ladies vs ladies

Delhi Metro and its unending chronicles never fail to amaze. Whether ferrying millions of commuters or the stations serving as…

Ladies vs ladies

Delhi Metro (Photo:getty)

Delhi Metro and its unending chronicles never fail to amaze. Whether ferrying millions of commuters or the stations serving as the perfect “adda” for people to hang out, Delhi Metro does it all. The Metro has its own sets of rules and regulations and yes, debates do revolve around their application and relevance. One such debate is whether women, who are allocated a separate coach should be entitled to reserved seats in the general compartment. A colleague was witness to a heated argument that ensued between two women commuters over a reserved seat. Travelling from the busy Rajiv Chowk Metro station to Noida, our colleague spotted a group of women in the crowded train.

He noticed two men sitting on the corner seats that are generally reserved for ladies and requested them to allow the ladies to sit there. While the men politely agreed, to our colleague’s surprise, none of the women wanted to sit there. He then requested the oldest lady in the group to take the seat but she scolded him saying, “Main tumko kya budhi lagti hu? (Do I look like an old woman?)”.

Our colleague was taken aback by her response and was feeling embarrassed before he realised the seat was reserved for old and physically handicapped. Suddenly, a young girl came to his support and retorted that the men were just trying to help. She sat down on the vacant seat and asked another woman to sit next to her. Soon, the young girl began yelling that it was mainly because of some women’s attitude that men were scared to offer help.

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“We have completely confused the opposite gender. Women do have problems but not all men are the same and we should respect and appreciate those who offer us help,” she loudly said before turning to the older woman: “Aunty aap nahi samjhoge (You will not understand). Thank you bhaiyya,” she smiled at our colleague. Really puzzled at all that happened, our colleague told himself that sometimes it is really tough to understand women!

Caught out!

At times keeping friends in good humour requires a lot of juggling, a colleague asserted, narrating the woes of a driver friend. Returning home from a long and tiring day, the driver got a call from a neighbour, who was also a good friend, requesting to be driven to a marriage venue nearby. Reluctant to be out again, the driver made an excuse that he was still at work.

However, nearing home, he realised that his friend would spot him and catch him out. That’s when another friend called him up with the same request ~ to be driven to a marriage venue. Quickly thinking that may be his way out, he asked his friend to fetch some fresh clothes and merrily drove off towards the marriage venue. However, half way through he got to know that he was driving to the same wedding that his first friend wanted to go to.

What happened next left our colleague in splits. Throughout the way, the driver friend kept looking around in case the first friend drove down in another vehicle. Upon reaching the venue, he didn’t park at the designated lot but elsewhere, where there was no chance of being spotted. Though dressed to attend the wedding, the driver friend refused to get out of the car, even to catch a bite for fear of encountering his friend. Lesson learnt, he swore never to give anyone a false excuse.

Caution pays

Better safe than sorry, is the line toed by several scribes in the aftermath of a journalist being apprehended last week by the Chhattisgarh police and charged with possessing pornographic material. In the midst of the storm kicked up by the fraternity at the manner in which the journalist was arrested, scribes were also alerted to the possibility of labelling even harmless jokes, photos and video clips, which are anyway floating around on the various social networking sites, as “porn” material.

A senior scribe, who covers political beats, recounted how he was jittery about the entire episode and quickly scanned his e-mail inbox, Facebook and Whatsapp as well as stored files on the laptop and desktop for any material that may be remotely considered obscene.

He then systematically deleted them, including some humourous yet harmless pieces. Being part of the political beat, he said, one never knows when somebody’s feathers are ruffled. And it’s the provebial wolf and the lamb principle that would then be applied, he added.

Tailpiece

Overheard an elderly gentleman: Cricket matches today appear to be more like a ping-pong battle, with no trace of the techniques and nuances that test matches once offered.

(Contributed by: R V Smith, Kunal Roy, Rakesh Kumar and Asha Ramachandran)

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