The Teller

As an individual whose past generations have lived in the sub-continent and the arab world, respect for women comes naturally because of the amalgamation of geographical and religious cultures.
Yes, this means:
- I will leave my seat when I see a "lady" in the bus

- Never take the dedicated "ladies" seat in the bus (which is always in the front) even if I am on crutches. Also, no "lady" will ever give her seat after seeing me in that condition (no, I am not sexist, or rascist, or meanist or any "ist", its a plain, simple fact!!!)

- I will not stand in the "ladies" queue at the counters for bill payment, in hospitals, for visas and immigration, at the police, etc even though there is hardly any "ladies" waiting and the one serving at the counter is looking at a pocket (or purse :S) mirror to check her latest Christina Aguilera look.

- Give the "lady" with 7 kids my place in the queue even though I had been waiting for two hours for my turn and she just arrived. She will take her sweet time with all her kids running around the place. Occasionally she will look at me with a fake smile with something like "What are you looking at? Suck it up biatch! I was here before you :P" written all over her face.

- If I dont give my place to the "lady" in the queue, either:
a. the person in-charge will give her my place and look at me with "Shut the $%#$ up, I can do whatever I want!!"
b. other men will become her brothers and look at me as if I am responsible for giving a bad name to "MAN"kind and I dont know how to care for my sister and her 7 children.
c. other women will look at me and think maybe he got home schooled and had no women in the house, or never got any education in the first place.

- Hold the door for the "lady" at the hotel, at a restaurant, in the elevator, entering the car etc etc

- and the list goes on.

The point of all these scenarios is simply to re-iterate to myself and to the few who read this blog, that I have ultimate respect for women and chivalry is my middle name.
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I went to the bank yesterday for a payment (no, I did not stand in a queue and no lady asked me to sacrifice my place for her).
The first lady (from the wonderful land of the locals) I met: "Hi!, mam, I need to make a payment". -- Chivalry Points = 2, I was nice to her, and I said Hi first.

First Lady: "Sir you need to see the teller, do you have the account number?"
From my wallet I took out a card that had the 16 (or 1600, makes no difference to me because I cant memorize either) digit account number and showed it to her. She pointed me to the teller and I smiled. -- Chivalry Points = 3, unconditinal smile from me while she did not care

Second Lady (first teller, from the wonderful land of the Philippines): "Yes sir, how can I help youuuu?". No smiles, pretty obvious that she was not happy to see me, which was surprising cause I never took her place in any queue ever.

Me: "Hi!, mam, I need to make a payment to this account" handing her the card. -- Chivalry Points = 2. I was nice to her, and I said Hi first

Second Lady (first teller): "Sure, ok". I realized at that point, that to make a payment, in normal circumstances, people need cash. Since there was nothing wrong with the circumstances I went to the atm to get some cash. After coming back I realized that she had already filled out the form with the account details etc.

Me: "Sorry about that. Thanks for filling in the information" -- Chivalry points = 2, I said sorry (even though I was not at fault and ....... come to think of it neither was she, but I will give myself some credit anyway because this is my blog) and also said thanks.

Second Lady (first teller): "Sir, you need to sign here and make the payment there", and she pointed me to a teller sitting right next to her about 34.8 cm away.

Me: Smiled and said "Ok, thank you", and I walked 34.8 cms. Chivalry points = 3, unconditinal smile from me while she did not care.

Third Lady (second teller, again from the wonderful land of the locals), too busy doing her own thing and ignores me completely. -- Chivalry Points = 2, I waited for her without losing it.

After some time she realizes my presence and says: "How can I help you?"

Me: "Hi, mam I need to make a payment" with a smile obviously. -- Chivaly points = 3. I was nice to her, and I said Hi first even though she ignored me.

Third Lady (second teller): "Yes, ok, how much?"

Me: I told her the amount.

Third Lady (second teller): Got up and went to her boss sitting behind her for something. At the same time I noticed the 9-inch (ok, I exaggerate but it was at least 5 inch) heel she was wearing and that too when she was all wrapped-up in an abaya. Realized that simplicity and hypocricy go hand in hand, kept quite and looked down. Chivalry Points = 10, I did not check her out and looked down.

She came back and then started writing something on the paper which was filled up by Second Lady (First teller). Its not like I have a problem with looking at women but I feel a little out of place knowing that they feel uncomfortable if a man is looking at them while they are busy doing something. Human behavior is at the peak of its honesty when it knows that no one is watching. However once it knows that someone is watching, it gets very conscious. So I continued looking down on the table or the pen or something wherein she got a feeling that I was not looking at her.

She looked up and saw me staring at the paper. I dont know what went through her mind, she smiled. Chivalry Points: -27 because she smiled and I was dumbstruck thinking "what went wrong?" or a part of me wanted to believe or think "what went right?".

I think she felt that I was checking her out. Nevetheless, I looked at her and gave her half a smile because this was very unusual and as a person who has ultimate respect for women I could not just stand there and let my chivalry go down the drain without giving her a response. She then looked at me, and smiled again. I gave her half a smile. She then smiled again. I gave her half a smile. She smiled again. This happened 6-7 times (and for some reason I tell myself that it happened many more times). I wanted to believe there was a connection but then snapped back to earth and just ignored what happened. Chivalry Points: -400, she smiled, and even though I smiled back, it does not count because she is a lady.

After the smile and the half-smile episode, to my surprise, she asked me the one thing all men want to hear from a woman at least once in their life. "Sir, can I have your name and phone number?" In normal circumstances such questions dont make a difference to me because I really dont care giving out my phone number to anyone especially to women (or ladies). Not because, "Oh!! nothing unusual, I am so cool anyway" but because I know that they will never call or there has to be a very non-flirtitious, non-romantic reason for them to ask my number. In this situation however, circumstances were not normal. I had the backing of all the smiling behind me.

In anticipation, I asked her for a pen and wrote down my name and phone number. I realized only after a few moments that it was the same form that was filled up by Second Lady(First teller) and I was writing my name and number in areas on the form that said "Customer Name (required)", "Customer Number (required)"

I left the bank without any hope. I narrated this story (with less details of course) to a friend and he was so negative about all positives that I had thought about. He said: "Maybe she took the name and number to call the police because you were checking her out".

I've not received any calls yet and for some reason I am really happy about that.