Do you have a pink chaddi?

 I got a rather fun email forward the other day. It had me scurrying to my sadly overstashed and unappreciated chaddi/banian drawer to ferret through rabidly in the vain hope that I might just find meself a pink chaddi. I should have known better. I found piles of black, starting with the black lacy variety that one had bought when the butt was a couple of handspans to the black double tummy support version that now holds the wall to wall hips in place and prevents the butt from falling to the floor, which is now, along with the horse harness strength four hooked, broad understrapped and triple built in support number bra, my main allies to keep my fat from spreading all over the universe.

But sadly, no pink chaddi. That was not going to get my morale down. I had been considred worthy enough to get an email forward from the Consortium of  Loose, Forward, Pub Going Women. Never mind that I married the first man who dared ask me out on a date, saved virginity by ferocious swatting till, and have not seen the inside of a pub for six years now, since the spawn of my womb was a wriggly zygote. I had to get my hands on a pink chaddi for this noble cause. So I went pink chaddi shopping. I was not going to Etam or Straps for this number, thank you very much. Natraj Market would do fine for me. But I am terrible at street stall bargaining. And it does get a little difficult when you ask a street chaddi vendor, “Pink chaddi hai kya,” and he replies without even a blink, “Aapke size mein nahin hain. Black chalega?” And you then realise that this is a consortium of chaddi vendors who have forced you into populating your chaddi drawer with black and skin coloured variants of the garment. None the less, I persisted. I didnt have to wear it, did I? I just had to mail it. It could be any size. Even child size. So I picked up a small one which was undoubtedly meant for a boy with no hips and no respectable woman would even consider squeezing self into its confines.. A snort from from the vendor, and much offended I moved on.

The next stall, I had a different game plan. I picked up the first pink I spotted. To my horror, it had some cute hearts scattered all over. I almost threw it back in disgust, then thought it being a Valentine Day gift etc, twas rather appropriate so took it up with renewed interest. The vendor deigned to spit his wad of paan cud at a hapless lamppost to state at decibel levels I am sure the entire market place heard, making me sing out like a hapless wronged woman, OHMotherEarthSwallowMeNow, “Yeh double XL mein nahin hain. Extra large us side pe hain.”

“Nahin,” I stated with firm demenour and as stern an expression as I could muster. “Hamere liye nahin hain.”

He nodded understandingly. “Aapke beti ke liye hain.”  Mother Earth was called on again but chose not to respond. The self esteem meanwhile took residence somewhere in the vicinity of my ankles and sulked. Yup. I am looking like the mother a girl who could be wearing adult sized chaddis. Made mental note to find out membership rates of gyms in the vicinity and then sell my fillings and my raddi to join.

Finally, I ended up not buying the fancy heart printed pink number, but slunk off in a funk. Yup. I will go to a store where salespeople are so posh, they wont bother if you pick up a chaddi your arm couldnt go through, as long as you dont trouble them with constant demands to go into the recesses of stockrooms to find stuff in your size.

Seriously though. This is the blog. And this is what you need to do. If you, like me, have been bristling with rage ever since the ridiculous attack on the girls in a Mangalore pub last month and not known what to do about it, this is what you can start with.

http://thepinkchaddicampaign.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49641698651&ref=mf
More power to the pink chaddi. Which reminds me, I need to go shop for one.