Serving ladies who lunch

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: BOSS is amazed at the numbers, and so am I. Thanks to liberalisation, the number of ladies groups who come to lunch during the slow late afternoon hours and stay on for high tea till it is almost dinner time, has grown by leaps, bounds and chiffon sarees with low neckline blouses and even lower midriffs. Triple fried snacks and expensive salads with fancy French names are flying off. All you have to do is call it ‘seven-grain with herb butter’, or something like that, and you can charge whatever you want.

Many of these ladies are also in the habit of bringing in a bottle of vodka, so the consumption of sweetened fruit juices has gone up, making boss a very sweet and happy man indeed, and by that boss means the imported brands. Actually, now we can charge what we want for bottled water and soda also, so all-in-all, this business is welcome. We have even started charging for ice-buckets, though these are domestic, and the shape of the ice is often very interesting.

But what is even more interesting is the profile of these ladies groups. No longer are they only ‘kitty-party’ types. No, things have moved on, and now they are all about this commission for women and that special interest group for poor people and yet again committees on improving something or the other. Very serious type people, sometimes, but with all that vodka, sometimes they talk too loudly. Or leave things behind.

Once some of them even left a few documents behind, and I got a good peek at them. These were about the Nithari episode. Everybody is currently blaming the UP government. But it seems the National Commission of Women knew about this way back in July 2006, and did not take it up further because the police were busy with local elections. Till January 2007. After which, all they did was write another series of letters.

Was it due to lack of resources? Could be. After all, the NCW spent only Rs 69 lakh on travel. And Rs 6 lakh on maintaining cars. Then they went through Rs 1.4 crore on rent and office expenses. And much more on salaries. But they could not find time to visit Nithari for six months.