I have a pink towel and I guard it with my life. Extreme tactics you think?? Wait till you have to live as the lone Venusian in a house full of Martians!! When you do like I do you’ll know that you simply have to, guard it with your life I mean, if you don’t want the said pink towel to turn into a dirty brown rag in the blink of an eye. So after my bath you’ll find me sneaking upstairs with my pink towel to dry it away from where the Martians’ unclean hands can reach it. When it is dry I spirit it back in and hide it where no Martian eye can ferret it out. Do you think I enjoy this sprinting up and down the stairs at my age with a sciatica ridden leg?? Sigh!! The extremes a woman has to go to keep her pink towel pink!!

I have been living ages and ages with the Martians and have grown old trying to reform them to Venuvian ways. The result?? Zilch! It’s all very well to have three males treating you like a Queen! Ahem....Only the tiara and other trimmings are missing!! Your wish is their command, that’s when the boys are not treating you as the maid cum cook cum odd jobs person. You are the centre of attraction because you are the only one of your species around. So it is easy to have your way especially with a few tears thrown in, some wily wifely charms as also motherly blackmail. But… but, life is so boring!! I am tired of seeing nothing but manly trousers, muddy shoes, rugged shorts, sweaty t-shirts or dirty towels littering the place! I am bored seeing the blue jeans, the black jeans, the grey trousers and the check shirts. No frilly top, a ruffled skirt, a dangling earring or a dainty pink towel anywhere in sight.

Pink towel!!!!! Ahhh how absolutely deliciously girly that sounded!! I shuddered looking at the gray and brown ones littering the place. Gosh, they all looked the same!! I am sure when they started out in life as respectable towels, though not perhaps a pretty pink in color, they hadn’t all looked so drab and so much alike!! The more I looked at them the more visions of being wrapped in a soft and luxurious pink towel, like those gorgeous models from the Bombay Dyeing advertisements, came to my mind. Of course unlike them my intention was not to use the pretty pink towel as party wear. All I wanted was to come out of my bath and be wrapped in a soft pink one, luxuriate in its softness and enjoy being a Venusian. Ahhh! I wanted a pink towel and I wanted it now!!

Off I went the next day on Mission Pink Towel. Why pink you may well ask!! Pink, the wisdom handed down the ages states, is the color for girls, while blue it is for the boys. I had no intention of questioning this age old wisdom for now. So, there I was at Parthas, with the salesman spreading out towels in all the colors of the rainbow and its different shades. I had eyes only for the pink one. Oooooooh. It reminded me oh so much of a lovely scoop of strawberry ice-cream!! Soon I returned home with a smile on my lips, a song in my heart and the pink towel in a carry bag.

After my bath the next day, having luxuriously wrapped myself in its soft fluffy folds and dried myself, I draped the pink towel on the aluminum rack in the balcony to dry. I sighed contentedly, looking at its pinkness. How utterly cheerfully pink it looked, still does for that matter, in the bright sunlight that filtered in through the huge leaves of the breadfruit tree. I felt totally like a girl again. That is when to my dismay I saw it.

One of the young Martians after washing his hands in the corner sink was making straight for my pink towel. The other was close behind.

“Hey you!!” I yelled for all I was worth. They being the younger Martians I was at liberty to indulge in a lot of screaming and yelling and rolling of eyes at them.

“Oh no. NO!!!!!! You don’t touch my pink towel!!” I said with all the possessiveness of a tigress for her cubs, except in this case the cubs were at the receiving end while the pink towel was being aggressively protected.

“What?? Oh ahh uhh!” came the absent minded reply of one Martian.

Horror of horrors he had already wiped his hands on it leaving I am sure all the greasiness from the food he had just had!!

“Can’t you use the hand towel??” I turned on him and in the blink of an eye the other one also had wiped his hands!! Sob sob!! The young Martians now grinned at me and disappeared. They had seen too many of Mom’s tantrums when it came to messiness and untidiness that this rolled off them like water from a duck’s back.

While I was still brooding over this one, in came the Senior Martian and merrily pulled the towel off the aluminum rack. This bit was tricky. I could not Hey you! him nor roll my eyes or yell or scream. I simply had to think on my feet and fast. I smiled sweetly and said,

“Darling, I have kept another towel for you inside!”

“What’s wrong with this??” he looked quizzically at the pink towel.

“Err... ummm… err” I hemmed and hawed.

More quizzical looks came my way.

“Errr… it’s mine you know!”

There I had said it!! Gulp. So far there has been no yours and mine in this our house between the Lord and Master and his Mistress. Everything had been ours. I had sprung something new on him! But then a girl had to have a pink towel!!  I giggled nervously searching frantically for my next line.

“Yours??” he asked eyebrows raised.

“Ha! Ha!” I giggled some more.” Of course its mine!! Pink is for girls!!” I put forward my argument, hoping the ‘for girls’ would do the trick.

“Ha! Ha!” he said in reply and made off for his bath with the pink towel leaving me crestfallen, fretting and fuming.

I stopped giggling and changed gears to brooding darkly. I now realized I had to resort to more drastic tactics to keep my pink towel pink and to myself. Nothing but subterfuge was going to work. That is how it happened that…..

I have a pink towel and I guard it with my life.