If only parents were as grand ...

It’s been an exciting month. No, not because it was my birthday - we all know how that went.

After a long time, I got to spend time with not one, but both sets of grandmas.

Earlier this month, dad’s mom spent a week with us and kept me company. A superlative cook, she indulged the humans with finger-licking food, entertained the kids all day and filled the freezer with goodies before she left.

This week, mom’s parents arrived to spend the entire summer with us. The lure of grandchildren proved too strong for grandpa to resist this time, and despite being the sort who gets bored even before he drops his suitcases, grandpa has decided to grin and bear two months of virtual house arrest.

With the arrival of grandparents, my lazy humans just got lazier.

Mom’s happy to cede her entire household, kids and all, to grandma. Which explains why the beds are made, the laundry’s folded, the toys put away and the plants watered. The telephone rings off the hook, but most of the calls are for the grandparents. Mom is now forced to “just say hello, c’mon!” to a few near, but-not-so-dear ones.

Grandma: “You really need to be more social and stay in touch with your family. For goodness sakes, you grew up with these people. They’ve know you since you were this high.”
Grandpa: “If you behave like this, how will your children grow up to be?”
Grandma: “Look at your cousin. She’s so warm and hospitable. Sometimes, it’s hard to believe you came from my womb.”

Mom was also duly interrogated on the status of her misplaced magalsutra, which is still, irrevocably, lost.

Grandma: “I just don’t understand how you can take it off. Do you have any idea what the price of gold is, these days?”
Mom: “But, but … I didn’t lose it on purpose.”
Grandma (in a hushed whisper): “Does your mother-in-law know about this?”

Despite pleas from their children to travel lightly, grandma and grandpa arrived like the Magi bearing masalas, pickles, sweets, dried fruit, clothes, savories and a Carrom Board.

Upon arrival, grandma discovered that the FAA had tampered with her suitcase. “Those rascals!” she exclaimed in horror, “they’ve broken all the vathal that I’d brought so carefully. This is too much! The last time they broke my brand-new suitcase, and this time, they opened it for no reason at all and broke my vathal.”

“I told you not to bring so much stuff,” said mom, stuffing laddus into her mouth, and reaching for a handful of banana chips.

While the humans pig out on badam halwa and murukku, and sleep in, grandma and grandpa, who wake with the birds, take me along on their daily power walks. Grandma strides purposefully in her bright salwar kameez and black Bata shoes, trying to keep pace with grandpa, who always walks as though he’s trying to catch a speeding bus. “Why can’t the man ever slow down and walk with me?” grandma has often sighed, throughout their 36-year marriage.

Much to mom’s delight, the children are starting to bypass the humans and flock to the grandparents with their concerns. “Bored? Go see grandpa. Hungry? Go see grandma,” directs mom, shamelessly herding the kids away from her, while she reclines on the couch and flips television channels.

The woman’s even outsourcing my hugs. “Not now, Terri,” she says, dismissively patting me on the head. She takes a sip of her cold drink and fluffs the pillows around her. “Go, follow the kids!”