Riding the auto with Shukla, Bula and Minati
or Vex and the City


It was a perfectly normal Bengali evening …or should I say Kolkata evening …well since both of them are interchangeable it hardly matters (no matter how cosmopolitan it pretends to be, Kolkata is essentially a very Bengali city)…haa so as I was saying it was a very Bengali evening…overcast muggy and the air heavy with a promise of a momentarily relieving shower…the mugginess was very Kolkatalike (you know, the-shirt-sticking- to- your- back-which- in -turn –sticks- to- the- Rexine seat cover muggy…)
And as millions of Kolkatawasis went about mentally devising and scouting their sashti, saptami ashtami couture I too got into the puja groove…
Armed with my first pre-puja salary cheque I made my way to the Shyambazar branch of my conveniently late -evening -service- providing bank….Shyambazar, as any Kolkatan worth his Golbari chicken will tell you, is the fountainhead of the North Kolkata milieu…thousands…nay millions of middle class Bengalis throng its by lanes for all their daily needs- for their banking needs (like yours truly), for shopping and of course for buying those lovely brocade costumes for their little bal gopals…
As I boarded my auto rickshaw from Ultadanga (a very reassuringly centrally located north kolkata junction…reassuring because its only 5 mins away from my home and the moment I get there I know I am almost home…) I wasn’t even aware of the other occupants of the rickshaw (rickshaws are almost always shared in kolkata)…was unconsciously humming a Himesh Reshamiya song and realized what I was doing (much to my chagrin) only when the something more interesting caught my attention …
The other occupants of the vehicle were discussing their puja shopping and husbands…now all through my growing up years I have been reprimanded, chided and ear boxed for listening to adult women talk …but I still shamelessly do so whenever I get the opportunity…women have so much to tell and most of it is so much more interesting than boring old men discussing their ailments, or if they happen to be bong men, their bowel movements…
So I perked up my ears, put on my disinterested look and eavesdropped to their conversation…

There were three thirty something married women (it’s very easy to distinguish a bong married woman by her shakha and pala) with their kids who were obviously out for some shopping after having picked their kids up from school…

“A ladies night out” …I said to myself and smiled as I pictured them walking down the Shyambazar roads a la Sex and the City …none of them in any way resembled Kim Cattrall or Sarah Jessica Parker of course but they were attractive in their own way …the first one was a squat little lady in a salwar kameez …pretty much the Samatha of the group, loud vociferous and brazen she had an air of wildness about her, the other two were both dressed in sari on wore specs and the other had bad teeth …chingri maach (shrimp) like…
To make things convenient, let’s name them …tee hee…I love naming characters…Samantha is….Shukla…the lady with specs is Bula and the shrimp toothed lady is Minati…

From their exchanges and the obvious familiarity I gathered they have been friends for a long time, maybe they were childhood friends…maybe they went to the same school…maybe they wore the definitive red bordered saris to school and saved precious rupees from their pocket money to buy a grand bottle of Gold Spot and some Hajmola candies every week…maybe they exchanged post card pictures of Govinda (na Mithun is more likely no considering it must have been the eighties) and giggled over his barechestedness as their overworked teacher caught up with some precious sleep in sultry afternoon classes…maybe they had discussed their first adolescent kisses behind closed doors as one of their mothers made omelets and tea for them…

Sigh… I digress…so were we??? Yes they were discussing shopping and husbands…Shukla aka Samantha went on about her purchases and how enthusiastic her seemingly metrosexual husband is to pick up clothes for her…a visibly piqued Minati retorted that her husband was magnanimous enough to give her a free reign of the shopping and didn’t interfere at all, making it clear that she didn’t appreciate any kind of male interference in what obviously is a female bastion…and then Shukla dropped her bombshell she very gleefully announced that her husband picked up skirts and jeans for her and goaded her to wear them… no one had a suitable retort to that…poor Bula seemed quite vexed with the proclamation …she very hesitantly asked if wearing skirts will be considered inappropriate…at which both her friends laughed…and then she went on to ask she whether she will have to buy petticoats and slips to go with them…clearly Bulas quaint world of five sarees and a salwar kameez was shattered forever…I couldn’t help giving them a smile as I disembarked the auto…but they didn’t notice …Minati and Shukla were busy explaining the technicalities of skirt wearing to Bula……