The first lift which I had experienced was from a girl shorter than me. I was in the final year of college then; I had just reached 22 years. She came as a domestic help to our house, a full time maid, to help my mother. She was possibly around 18 years old when she came.
I was 5 feet 3 inches, attaining my limit by then. I was quite thin in my college days, 55 kgs at that time. This girl was short and stocky, solidly built. Pitch dark complexioned ; from the rural adivasi village areas. She was short, about 5 feet 1 inch only and weighed 64 kgs. I know her exact weight, because once this girl had a fever. My mother told me to take her to our family doctor. There in the doctor’s chamber, the doctor had taken her weight in his weighing machine. I had also checked my weight then.
I normally did not have any interaction with this girl. Mala was her name. She was however of a very pleasing personality and used to always have a smiling face. But since I was then a young college going boy and was always busy with my studies, friends, swimming, cricket and football, I totally ignored this girl. I was in my own world.
It was possibly around six months after this girl had come to our house. One sunday morning, my mother told me to help her open a window of our store room, which had been kept closed for a long time. The window was jammed from not being opened for a long time. I tried hard, but it did not open. It was badly stuck. At that point of time Mala had entered the room. She stood beside my mother and was observing my futile efforts to open the stuck window. Then she moved forward; she pushed me aside and said, “Aap hato Bhaiya, mujhey koshish karney do. You move on big brother, let me try.” ( Elder brother is addressed as Bhaiya in Hindi.)
She pushed hard, once, twice and the window flung open. Mala looked at me with a victory smile, “Dekha Bhaiya, I am stronger than you.” She had all her teeth out, laughing at me. It was insulting to me. I, a young boy of 22 years could not open the window, which a 18 year old girl opened on two tries. And she was bragging about her strength. What peeved me more was that my mother was standing and laughing too.
I protested, “What nonsense ! It had come loose because I was trying before you. That is why it opened when you pushed.”
Mala was still showing her milk white teeth on her black face. “Ok, ok, Bhaiya, I accept that you are stronger than a 18 year old girl.”
There was a veiled taunt in that comment. My mother was still smiling. I did not reply, gave a grunt and stormed out of the store room.
We had a two-storey house. The ground floor had tenants. My parents stayed on the first floor. There was a room on the terrace, which was my room. My bedroom, study, everything. Exclusively mine.
About an hour later, I was in my room, studying. Mala came in with a plateful of fruits. My mother had sent them to me. I was still smarting from the morning insult. I said, rather rudely, “Mala, why did you taunt me ?”
Mala replied apologetically, “No Bhaiya, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, I am sorry. But there's nothing to feel bad about this. Look at your weight and mine. You might be 22 years old and I am 18. But only last week we checked at the doctor's chamber. You are 55 kgs and I am 64 kgs, so I am 9 kgs heavier than you. And I do so much physical work all through the day. So it is obvious that I will be stronger than you, even though I am 4 years younger than you. Don't feel bad about this.”
I was all the more insulted by this long lecture of this 18 year old girl. I said, “Ok, I challenge you to arm wrestling. If you beat me, I will accept that you are stronger than me.”
Mala smiled, “Sure, why not ?”
She came forward to my study table. We locked hands, our right hands first. I thought I would surprise her. So as soon as I said, “1 - 2 - 3 - Go”, I put a sudden burst of force to push her arm down. It worked, she didn't expect this move. Her hand was pushed back, but before I could bang her hand down on the table, she recovered. I found that my hand was over hers, but she had checked the fall just 2 inches over the table top. She kept her arm steady, withstanding my push at full strength. For about a minute I tried to push her wrist down on the table. But her hand didn't move even a millimetre. Then I felt an upward push coming from her hand. I was using my full strength till now, but I was tiring. There was a slow but steady upward movement of our clasped hands. She was pushing my hand back and up now. She was looking at me and smiling. I was clenching my teeth and exerting full strength to resist my hand going backwards. Both our clasped hands were again back to starting position, she had pushed her arm up now. Then my hand started going down. Her wrist pressure was tremendous now. Since both our hands were clasped together, I could now see that her wrist was so much thicker than mine. Her bone structure was squarish and solid. Then suddenly, “BANG !!” She pushed my hand with full force on the table.
I gave out a “Ooof !!” and removed my hand from her clasp. It hurt badly. She had banged my hand on the table, hard. Mala looked very concerned. She immediately took my hand in her hands and started massaging the back of my hand.
She said, “Ohh sorry sorry Bhaiya ! I thought that you would put up some more fight, that is why I pushed so hard. I'm so sorry.”
She was saying sorry so many times, I was getting all the more insulted. I said, “Ok let's try with the left hand. That was a fluke win you got.”
Mala smiled. She knew as well I did, that I was just trying to save my pride. She had beaten me fair and square, nothing fluke in that. We locked our left hands on the table.
Now before I could say start, Mala said, “Ok Bhaiya, this time you put your full pressure, I will just resist. I will not bang your hand on the table. Sorry, I hurt your right hand.” She said that with a sad face. I wasn't sure whether she was again taunting me or it was her genuine concern for me. Either way she was assuring me that she will go easy on me since I am weaker than her. That was adding insult to injury.
I started off without even saying ‘Start’. Her arm just went back an inch and then steadied back to the vertical position. She smiled, as if to say that I didn't say start. She was looking at me with a sweet smile, just resisting my full blooded effort, but not even trying to push my hand. I tried and tried, but couldn't even move her arm even a little. I even cheated; I tried to put my body weight behind my push as I leaned towards her side of the arm. Nothing happened. Then with a big smile, Mala just slowly pushed my arm backwards. She did not bang my hand, but gently laid it on the table.
She stood up straight. Then looking at my face, said, “Any other test of strength Bhaiya ? Or you accept that this 18 year old girl is stronger than her 22 year old big brother ?”
I couldn't concede defeat so easily. I said, “Maybe your arm strength is more, because you are fat. But my body strength will be more.” I was actually trying to insult her by calling her fat.
Mala did not react to me calling her fat. She smiled and said, “I have work now. I'll come after lunch. Then you tell me how you want to prove that your body strength is more than me ? But I'm telling you if you plan to wrestle, then in this small space of your room, with the bed, table, cabinets and on the cemented floor, one or both of us can get hurt. If you want to wrestle me, then let's go to the park in the afternoon, where we can wrestle on the grass.”
I said, “But there will be other boys and girls and people in the park.”
Mala said, “So what ? Even if I lose, I won't feel bad. But you think, if you, a 22 year old young man, would want to lose to a 18 year old girl, in front of so many people ?”
I said, “No, we will do something else in my room only. We’ll see who can carry the other for a longer time.”
Mala laughed, “Ok I accept your challenge. Now I must run. I have a lot of work left. I'll come back at 3.30 pm, after I finish my work. Till then think of how you will beat me this time.”
