An "Identity Crisis"

Remember all those "politically incorrect" jokes - many of which are, usually, grounded in sadly unavoidable reality - about Negroes and/or Chinese who look all alike? (I wonder, when a Nigerian comes to India, do WE all look the same to him/her?? I guess we would - just imagine, Okolie Odafa, ex captain, Churchill Brothers football team - confuses Aishwarya Rai and Katrina Kaif, thinking they're the same person?!!!) To hell with all that, but just stay with that thought and remember all those politically incorrect jokes.... for a little while.

There I was, seated in the comfort of the drivers' seat of my aged and soon to become dilapidated (getting there - 1 lakh plus kilometres on the odometer) - somewhere in Chembur market, a few days back. A Sunday evening, for some strange reason the bitter-half had decided to venture into this unknown neighbourhood far away from her usual hunting grounds, in search of vegetables and victuals... my role, as a dutiful husband, being restricted (this, mind you, was a truly hard fought victory for me) to being a driver, I parked there, opposite Grand Central restaurant (residents of Mumbai, familiar with Chembur will realise that THIS, ALONE, makes me eligible for a Bharat Ratna - Sachin T, get behind me in the queue please) while the Mrs sauntered off in search of GKW (God knows what)
 

This is evening time, getting on to night... around 7:30 or so. The skies were darkening, the area teeming with a multitude of people moving about in search of GKW (I've explained, already) and I, sitting in my car, lost in the music of Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey and so on.. well, not exactly "lost" in that music, I will confess to keeping a sharp eye, looking out for comely figures (don't tell my wife this! - she's marked in on this mail, honestly, but, like always, she doesn't listen when I talk and she doesn't read what I write!)

Anyway....... sitting in my car, observing "life" (you know!) something "different" caught my eye.... (I won't use the word "peculiar", "odd", "strange" etc because someone may just decide that I'm being heretical and issue a fatwa or something, and that would be a wee bit tiresome, what, eh?)

There were these two, presumably young, women walking past my car. Dressed, from head to toe in a long black burqa, faces covered, just their eyes visible (such beautiful eyes, most women have, no?). I wasn't even LOOKING at them, seriously, just happened to notice them pass my car. And THEN, the "thing" happened.

Coming in from the opposite side, a man and (presumably) his wife, the latter also dressed in a burqa, equally black, equally simple and elegant, (the man, in jeans and a T-shirt, looking every bit the modern Indian, no signs of Islam - a beard minus the moustache, or a skull cap, nothing). The lady stops, greets the pair of burqa clad ladies coming in her direction, and the chat for a while, animated conversations, hands gesturing, voices raised in amused yet gentle laughter, heads shaking, eyes smiling broadly, and then, in a few minutes, they shake hands and move on....

..... while I remain, wondering.....

How, EXACTLY, did the lady figure out who the other two ladies were?!! I mean, go back a li'l while and read that opening paragraph of mine, that politically incorrect one..... if one Chinaman looks like another (or, if an Aishwarya Rai looks just like a Kat K to a Nigerian!), to poor old me, one burqa clad woman looks just like another, no? I mean, come to think of it, wasn't that the whole POINT?!!!!!

Or what?

I was still thinking this, pondering it, WONDERING about it when, off in the distance, a few hundred metres away, in the crowd of thronging people I spotted the wife, returning. I sat up straight, rolled up the windows, switched on the engine, turned on the A.C, and git ready ......... (driver) duty called.... from a few hundred metres away, even in the looming twilight darkness, I could recognise SHE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED..... amen.