Anita was late. Despite having
got up earlier than usual, she had not been able to get out at the time she had
aimed at. She had only herself to blame, of course. Because she had got up earlier, she had blithely taken up an extra
chore: neatening up her cupboard, if you please! How was that for ambition? Of
course that task could not be completed and of course, she had to listen to
Harish’s smug pronouncement on her “disorganised way of working”! It did not
help that she had had to stuff the rest of the clothes back into the cupboard,
unsorted. It seemed like she was proving him right.
Calming herself down and rushing
through the rest of her chores, she finally left for work. The high speed lift
of their building seemed rather slow today, with people getting in and out at almost
every floor. She finally reached the ground floor. Before she could step out
when the doors slid apart, a group of twenty-somethings started entering the
lift, laughing and talking. Something snapped in the usually cool and collected
Anita.
“Excuse me,” she said in a cold,
steely voice, “Can you let me exit please, before you get in?”
“Sorry Ma’am!”
“Sorry Auntie!”
At least the youngsters had the
grace to look abashed. She had half a mind to lecture them on lift etiquette
but let it go. Enough of a skirmish, already. As it was, she thought she saw a
smirk and an eye-roll bounce around the group, as if saying, “Irritable! So
early in the morning!”
She was miffed at being called
Auntie, but realised that in her early forties this was what she should expect
to be called by people twenty years younger than her.
“I guess I should be glad that
one or two of them called me ma’am!” she sighed to herself.
The office day went by in a blur.
The frenetic pace was not new to her; she was used to taking multiple
challenges in her stride. However, she was like the proverbial swan: though she appeared to be gliding serenely on
the water, underneath the surface, she was swimming like mad! But a blip did
come up towards the evening ---- Harish had messaged, asking her to please,
please, pleeeease pick up a gift for his colleague’s housewarming party.
“Done! But you’ll have to get
home in time to drop Ankur to coaching class!” she messaged in reply.
“Sure!” came the text from
Harish.
Anita managed to leave a little
early, promising her team that she would come online just as soon as she
reached home. She then headed to the nearest mall, mentally running through
gift options. Half her mind was on the office task she would have to resume
from home. Preoccupied, Anita was just entering the doorway of a store when a
tart voice arrested her.
“May I?” the voice said.
Anita brought back her eyes to
focus on who had spoken. It was a lady of sixty five or so, who was exiting the
shop just then. Had Anita gone through the doorway, she would have collided
with the lady or at the very least, brushed past her. The elderly lady had
stepped back so as to avoid this, and added, “Excuse me!”
Anita caught a mocking look in the older
woman’s bespectacled eyes. She could almost read the thought running through
that lady’s mind---“Hmph! Look at the younger lot today----no manners!”
Mortified, Anita was about to
protest----did the other lady really assume that she was so boorish as to brush
past a frail old woman on purpose? Then a picture rose in front of her eyes----
the scene at the lift in the morning. It was the same thing, except that this
time, she, Anita had been the unthinking one. And the younger one.
“I am sorry Ma’am! I wasn’t
looking where I was going! After you!” she said pacifically, and stepped well
aside. The other lady, who had seemed ready to judge Anita, was instantly
mollified.
Smiling at each other, they both
went their ways.
*******************
