It happened in a bus today. My team mate and I were returning home after putting in a good day’s work at a Brazing unit somewhere outside Madras. The only seats available were on the last row, under the rear window panel. We were a bit uncomfortable, so we asked this old cracker, sitting alone on a seat in front of us that was meant for two, if he could swap seats. He refused before we finished requesting and turned the other way, I thought we heard him mumble something. I moved to the seat next to him, and he began saying something about the seats at the back row reserved for “ladies.” Then began a monologue, where he expressed his disgust at the whole idea and how women misused the feature. He related an incident where four men had occupied the seats and three women had come aboard, one old woman and two in their 30s perhaps. One of the men offered the old lady his seat while the others sat. The two women blatantly asked the other men –”Does it not occur to you to get up and offer your seats to us?” He then asked, facing me , what the ‘ball-talk’ was about equality, and if women wanted to be equals all the time, how about having only as much right to seat as a man? The only thing I stood by was that reserved seats for women on a public transport was not a sign of modern society, and neither is it a sign of a growing one. They should just have two seats reserved for the physically challenged, that’s all.
The man then went on to talk about his work, a machinist at a well known manufacturing firm. He was cribbing about not having an air-conditioner at work. The whole time we just waited to learn where he’d get off. I finally asked him about it, and soon enough his destination was in sight. Any longer and my friend in the back seat would have probably exploded. He got off and my friend took his place next to me. Our destination was about forty minutes away, we napped. Phew!
Our slightly lazy superhero commutes on a bicycle, and loves it. Its funny that flabby people would rather use a fixed bicycle at an air-conditioned gym than ride one out in the open, and feel the wind, and the distance, and the effort.
Meanwhile, yes there hasn’t been an effort to type out a post, but there was an article(as promised) which was posted a month or so ago. You will find it in the “Showers” page, look closely, there are sub-pages in there. Its a take on the whole pointless task of classifying and separating things and people alike, and is also music to my comrades– the Mathematically dyslexic. Its perfectly alright to hate all of Mathematics. Haven’t you heard of Kurt Godel? Google him. I can’t believe he is missing in all math texts, but then I can. What we see and read about in textbooks is just mass hypnosis. The mathematical community didn’t think it would be right to change all the rules so suddenly, just because it was pointed out so late, so they omit all talk about it. How different are they from those that tagged Galileo a heretic?
