Evolution of love

Evening stroll

It’s 6.30 in the a.m. on a beautiful Bangalore morning. The cold July breeze nips away at my arms soon as I appear in the atrium of the apartment complex. Nothing like the crisp of the morning air to snap awake still sleepy eyes.
That, and my father’s divine tea. And, the process of thud-thud-thudding down five flights of stairs powered by a frantic Peaches descending with a rapidity that can only be termed maximum-poop-pressure-velocity.
Peaches continues to tug till she reaches her favorite patch of green across the road, sniffs about for a bit and lets loose.
It’s the less fussy job of the day first, a good long tinkle, which she performs with incredibly cute abandon, ears thrown back, her delectable derriere hugging the ground, sparkling eyes fixed on me, brimming with expectation, as if to say, “I’ve got your back through the day woman, you better have mine through this bit.” I smile at her, coo some sounds of encouragement and look around.
It’s still quiet outside, although with frenetic families readying for school and office, I suspect it’s quite contrary inside. The streets are showing the first signs of stirring with a few women and men scattered across the length of the road, walking in for work from nearby villages. I focus my attention on Peaches again. She’s a finicky pooper, no matter how intense the pressure. She needs to find her favorite spot and it takes a fair bit of nose-to-ground to find it. When her nose finally zones in, or when she experiences what I like to call a ‘poopiphany’, she proceeds to run around in these small, funny circles while her bum mimics a homing missile about to explode on a target.
This morning is no different. She dithers and dawdles, sniffs and paws, looking back at me every few seconds for continuous encouragement. I roll my eyes. Upstairs, my tea gets cold. Just my luck to have this insanely adorable, peculiar pooper in my life.
I am about to plead with her to poo quickly when I hear a woman’s shriek and Peaches’ growl almost simultaneously. I pull Peaches back and turn around to find a woman on the other side of the road, a man on a bike right next to her, an odd smirk on his face. At first I think they know each other and are having an argument, but as her volume increases I can hear what she’s saying.

“Bhaiyya, aisa mat karo. Please, bhaiyya. Humara bhi bachcha hai, ghar hai, pati hai.”
I can’t hear the guy, but I can see his lips moving.
The woman speaks again. Her voice is confident and clear, easily carrying across to me, sans any hostility whatsoever. “Bhaiyya, samajh mein aaya na? Aisa mat karo. Please, bhaiyya. Shukar karo humko chot nahi lagi.”
The guy speaks again. The smirk’s off his face. The woman smiles, speaks.
“Aage se aisa mat karna. Theek hai na, bhaiyya?”

The guy rides off. The woman continues walking down the road, smiling good-naturedly.
I didn’t see what happened but I could surmise. Normally such an incident would have filled me with naught but disgust. Today, however, there was something more. The woman’s voice, her pleasant countenance through the unpleasantness and the word ‘bhaiyya’ kept ringing in my ears.
If you’re a woman in India - the vegetable vendor, the watchman, the rickshaw puller, the guy in the mom-and-pop store, the man on the road – they’re all bhaiyyas to you (unless you’re in Mumbai, perhaps). It is a singular word in what it is able to convey so simply. Use it often enough with the same guy and you’ll find the creation of a beautiful bond. Of trust, respect and care. Even when you bestow the title upon a complete stranger you may never meet again, there is an unspoken, underlying duty.
I use it all the time. With my own bhaiyya, and with so many ‘bhaiyyas’ through my childhood and adulthood. Isn’t it strange then, that in a country where this relation means so much, and where the word to describe the relation is used so spontaneously, women are so unsafe?

Is the use of this word preemptive, an attempt to forestall a possible thought of harm?

Is that what caused a change of heart in the guy attempting to harass the woman today?
I’m not sure, but with Rakshabandhan around the corner, it’s definitely worth a thought.

Meanwhile, in my period of distraction, Peaches finished her big fussy job for the morning, meaning the two of us can happily trot back up the stairs. She to her treats, me to my tea.