She was driving a little too fast on the highway, she realized, too eager to overtake a tractor in front of her. The tractor was pulling a trolley, which was cramped well over its capacity with labourers (presumably, heading back to their village after a tiring day in the city). She swivelled in and out of her lane, gearing up impulsively and then breaking precariously, right in the face of oncoming traffic, trying to squeeze her way past.
It was getting dark; she was getting restless and irritated, a bit angry at herself. She was a doctor, posted at a small town outside the city where she lived with her husband and two children. She travelled up and down every day, a distance of forty kilometres each side, in order to go to work. She could have lived in the small town itself, in the campus of her hospital, but that would have meant staying away from her two adorable kids, aged three and five. She had decided to take this extra burden on herself in order to enjoy a peaceful family life. And usually, it was a driver who drove her up and down, but that day he was on leave.
She honked irritably at the tractor that was slowing her down, as she headed for her night shift. She preferred to be off the highway before darkness fell, but she had started late. She didn't want to be late for her night shift.
She managed to overtake the tractor on her next attempt, just managing to slide back into her lane as she approached an oncoming vehicle. The labourers on board the tractor cheered and clapped at her overtaking success, shouting something which was incoherent to her.
She thought she would be relieved. With a clear road ahead, she would manage to reach her destination within an acceptable amount of delay. But what she saw in front of her annoyed her further. There was another tractor, similar to the one she had just overtaken, pulling a trolley that, too, was overflowing with labourers. It was almost as if they had been heaped one over the other.
Again, she faced uphill the task of overtaking this second tractor. The labourers were watching her futile attempts with quite an interest. After all they had nothing else to do! After a couple of attempts, she gave up and began to gesture to the labourers at the extreme end of the trolley.
Get out of the way,
she mouthed, waving her hand to ask them to give way. They saw her and laughed. She was now overflowing with anger and irritability. In that moment, she, uncharacteristically, gestured aggressively.
Get out of my way or I'll beat you to death,
she shouted, her head hanging out of the window she had just rolled down.
The labourers heard her threat. They laughed even harder. Most of them were humoured by this city
memsahib's
meek efforts to gain way. Some of them were furious, how dare a woman shout at them like that? The dissent amongst the labourers was growing, what was this
city bitch
thinking? How dare she order them around?
After a very brief discussion, it was decided that this
city bitch