Monday, July 29, 2013

Battle of the Sexes

There was no mistaking. It was deliberate. Surely, she who all these years draped her sari over her head wouldn't have failed to conceal her cleavage so regularly. Clearly, they need regular customers to their grocery shop. Who else could be more loyal than horny men, he thought.

He could see that the Marwadi shop was struggling. It was all too obvious in their pathetic attempt to start a vegetable section when there was a poor lady selling the vegetables next to their store. No wonder, nobody bought from their store and the section was closed within a week.

He wasn't sure whether the struggle was because of the hypermarkets that were establishing themselves all over the city or competition with other stores in that locality.

He was always biased against these north Indians doing business in Dravidian lands. Until few years back there was a store belonging to a Telugu Setty family opposite to the Marwadi store. Dravidian solidarity saw him buying things from that store only. The constant north Indian refrain about inflexible attitude of south Indian shop keeper when an item was out of stock or wasn't available was found to be true couple of times but that didn't deter him. In fact, at least in one such occasion the Marwadi's empty promise when the Setty flatly said no confirmed how absurd that stereotype was. But one fine day, the Setty family closed their doors and left the place.

He was surprised and wondered whether the dark skinned Dravidians lost the competitive edge to the light skinned Indo-Aryans. That doubt proved unfounded when he learnt that the Setty family was in fact the most successful of all the shop owners in that locality but tried their hand in one too many ventures. The debt grew beyond their control and had to sell off their store to pay off the debtors.

A couple of years ago another Marwadi family took over the Setty store. He, without any clear preference to either of them, started buying things from the older Marwadi store as it was ten steps closer to his house. As time passed he observed that the new Marwadis were darker skinned. Dark skin solidarity took over and he started visiting them more often. Unlike the old Marwadis where all family members worked in the store, only two brothers manned the new store.

Of course, he never really completely stopped visiting the old Marwadi store. In one such occasion, he watched incredulously as the young wife of the store owner conspicuously moved her sari exposing her blouse and chest and looked the other way. Now after few more such incidents he felt that crudeness of the act was probably the result of newness. He wondered whether she was instructed by her husband. Was that an order or just a cry of helplessness?

Revolted, he felt he should be visiting the new Marwadi shop only. Few more visits to the shop, he started observing that the store was generally packed with females unlike the old Marwadi shop. He further observed that the dark skinned brothers were also tall and handsome fellas as compared to the old Marwardis where the only thing going for them was the lighter skin. He also didn't fail to notice that one of the brothers used to flirt with the female customers. Maybe it was called small-talk in other societies but in his world it's just flirting which he would never indulge in.

Few weeks later, the old Marwadi store also pulled its shutters down permanently and the family left the locality. He wondered whether it was because females outnumbered males among shop goers or men were no longer desperate as cleavage was becoming ubiquitous thus making sweet tongue stronger than cleavage.