My orthodox hard boiled Haryanvi grandmother would have committed suicide, on hearing the news about Bhuri Kalbi’s daughter, surviving a premature birth, slipping through the toilet bowl of a running train near Ahmadabad, in Gujrat. Also, she would have been not at all pleased, with tidings from Bangalore about three years old Laxmi, surviving a surgery involving separating two of her extra limbs, around Diwali last year. “It’s only the boys who death and disease like to visit and not girls” was her eternal lament.

My grandmother would also have caught by the neck Dr. Alexander Jacob, the Director of Kerala Police Academy I visited recently, for how dare he took pride in boasting, “Out of the sixteen-hundred women recruits, we have 400 post graduates including 47 Doctorate holders and the rest 1200 are graduates.” My PSO Robin Ignatius would have been literally lapped up and profusely consoled for his sob story, by my Grandma since “the poor boy” rued, “The girls in our state do not let us go ahead of them, neither in quality nor in quantity. You know they are 1080 for every 1000 of us.”

The in-flight experience on my way back had a weakling in me exposed inside out on my ‘gender sensitivity’—sensitisation can be taught. Minutes before the take off, the air hostess maneuvered hard to close the door when it swung swiftly off the latches. The engineer, a young Sikh, was sent for, who fixed the door. Only thing required was to use some extra muscle and a hard push.

Leaving instructions with the air hostess, he went out to see if she could close the door herself from inside. She could not; but was undeterred in her resolve to do the job trying umpteen times. Foolishly we kept fastened to our seats. Lending a helping hand to the damsel might also not have been appropriate for she had to learn to be enough plucky. When she finally closed the door, all passengers on board clapped. I noticed perspiration on the girl’s face and some kind of a dislike for being applauded. “Isn’t this remarkable display of equipoise and self respect? Gutsy girlie!” I mumbled to myself.

After about an hour of being air borne, the plane hit turbulence. The passenger occupying the window seat in our row became a bit apprehensive and anxious. He flashed an uneasy smile on his face and indulged in a kind of self reassurance saying, “Shouldn’t he have stabilised the plane by now. “It is not a he, but she! Didn’t you hear the Captain’s announcement in a sweet voice?” I quietly whispered into his ears. Wham bam! I invited trouble for myself. All through the flight this man kept praying with his seat kept in upright position and making restless body movements.
Having touched down at New Delhi and the plane being in taxi mode, I had a mischievous but mild dig at my friend, “Was it not a very smooth landing!” “That’s alright but could she have shown enough mettle and grit in case, God forbid, the plane was hijacked?” “Have you washed off your memory the sacrifice of Neerja Bhanot, a flight purser on a Pan-American flight, who laid down her life in 1986, rescuing three children and was posthumously awarded the prestigious Ashok Chakra.” I reminded him. Shame was writ large on his face when he looked at me, grinning.

While disembarking I could not resist the temptation to have a peep into the cockpit when the pilot happened to turn her face towards me and smiled as if to say, “Hum kisi se kum nahin! Safe journey back home, Sir!”