Two blonde women, a little boy, and a '?'

Something happened after 10 years yester'. Not the first bit.

Armed with reading and writing stuff, I went over to to a coffee-shop, which I used to visit for long hours during the very first year that I was here. I got myself a cup of coffee and settled down comfortably on a nice long couch made for five people, took out my stuff and started making notes in my head and wrote down almost all of them in my notebook, having a nice quiet and almost splendid time, which was broken every now and again by the very loud voice of a woman with an interesting accent and her sometimes loud hoots of laughter. She had curly blond hair, was wearing some bright make-up, and was slightly on the heavier side although she carried herself with a confident swagger. She was sort of gently flirting with her ex-students, treating them like her willing slaves, and sharing stories from her love life in an unnecessarily loud way. Sadly enough, deaf as I am, I couldn't pick up any interesting bits - and the harder I try to hear, the less I can - and so I just kept hearing her rather raucous voice with some clear words in between. I wouldn't have minded at all of course if I'd taken a liking for the woman but there was something about her manner and demeanour that I simply didn't like. She wasn't wholly unpleasant but I've known people of the same sort. After a while I went out for a smoke and then visited the restroom. When I was washing my hands, a loud and importunate knocking made me jump out of my skin. I always find it odd yelling 'Yes - who's there?' while inside a restroom (I don't need to know and I'm not letting you come in...so kindly wait), and I didn't want to grunt so I pulled out a paper towel to wipe my hands when I saw and heard the door handle being furiously manhandled almost as if someone were trying to break through the door.

I flung the door open, and a bespectacled woman of indeterminate age with a bright shock of blond hair looked at me, and with a fuzzled, frightened, shocked and somewhat righteous glare in my direction, she spluttered "...but...but..this is the women's...." I peered at her and stared at her with a stare (I actually could stare down at her for she was a rarity. Someone shorter than I happen to be). Her voice petered off. "I...I...knocked twice....there was no-no answer. Nobody said anything....So I tried the door-handle." She still stared at me not able to make out any longer 'what' I was. I gave her yet another 'look', swished my skirts and thumped off in my boots without a word.

I always got the 'looks' while in Calcutta - on the buses and on the metro - but I'd never before been mistaken for a member of the opposite sex while dressed in a printed blue skirt, an obviously female cardigan, and a bright blue scarf. Maybe she missed the billowing skirt or maybe she thought I was a cross-dresser. I don't know.

*******

In summer something completely different happened. One of those things that I'll remember with fondness. There was this charming little brown-haired, thin, bespectacled boy of 7 who had come for a barbeque hosted by our neighbour. Guha and I had gone outside for a smoke after almost everyone had left. I had earlier noticed that the little boy had been the only one who had been glancing at me with enormous curiosity and bright eyes, and I knew he would say something. Sure enough he came over to me and with a disarming frankness, asked, "How old are you?" I grinned and said, " I'm 679 years old." He fidgeted and mumbled and hanging from the stair railings, said "Nu-oh." "Really." I said. "What's your name?" he asked me. I told him, and he repeated it after me. I asked him his name and he answered. Then, a little more urgently, he demanded, "How old are you?" I grinned and said, "Okay...okay I'm 98." Guha ventured in on our conversation, when the little boy asked him, "How old are you?" Guha asked him, "...and how old are you?" "I'm 7", said he. "I'm 6", said Guha. "No, you're not. You look old." The little boy turned around and asked Guha, "How old is he?" Guha looked at him and then back at me, and said, "Oh, she's a 1000 years old at least." The young un pointing at me furiously said, "She? She? No, him. She's he. Not she." I looked at him with a huge grin, and said, "No, I'm a she. Really. I'm a girl." He looked at me and said, "No, you're not. You're a boy..." With the grin now threatening to split my face into two, I managed to say, "No, really I'm a girl, and I'm 33 years old." The boy looked at me, and with a terribly disappointed air, that made me want to give him a hug, he turned his back to us. His mum or dad called out to him at that point. He looked back at me and said, "Got to go. Bye..." "Bye Daniel, and take care..." "Grunt" came a reply.