Senior Sampats

You’d think with dad’s parents visiting us for the summer, mom would be nervous and on her best behavior, playing the part of a well-dressed Zee TV soap bahu to perfection.

But the woman’s genuine, if nothing else, and also a bad actress - so she treats her in-laws with the same informality she reserves for her parents. In other words, grandma cooks and mom eats; grandpa walks me and mom sleeps in; and the grandparents mind the children all day while mom shoots e-mail and writes mindless memos at work.

Dutiful daughter-in-law that she is, mom promptly surrendered the kitchen to grandma the day she arrived. She threw open her pantry, the refrigerator and cupboards, brought out spices from storage, and asked grandma to unleash her culinary creativity.

A superlative cook, grandma can whip up fare for a party of two or twenty in roughly the time it takes mom to peel one onion.

Not wanting to disrupt grandma's well-oiled rhythm, mom stays away from the food preparation area, salivating instead in anticipation, as aromas fill every nook and cranny of the house.

She assuages pinpricks of guilt by consoling herself that grandma would be bored without kitchen duties, and grandpa would be equally frustrated if he couldn't brew his own coffee or wipe the kitchen countertops to his liking.

With the arrival of grandparents, not only has mom’s domestic workload reduced by three-quarters, but the children have found new principal pals, as well. Mom heaves a huge sigh of relief when the kids bypass her and run to grandma for imaginary bruises and rumbling tummies. The little ones still need mom for chauffeuring and arranging play dates, but grandma and grandpa bear the brunt of temper tantrums and hourly arguments over ESPN or the Disney channel.

As if holding down the fort weren't enough, dad's parents are also the kind of people who keep their opinions to themselves. They do not comment on mom lolling around in shorts, her erratic sleep patterns, dubious choice in movies, religious indolence or even her missing mangalsutra.

“How did you get so lucky?” envious cousins often ask her.

Mom has no idea.

She shrugs and reaches out to knock on wood instead.

Time Management

While riding their scooters around the house one evening, Little Niv., Kuki’s five-year-old playmate, announced to no one in particular, “My daddy keeps kissing my mommy. On the lips!”

(Note her use of the present continuous tense to show that the activity is a recurring one.)

Perhaps that’s why Niv.’s parents, the charming Krishnans, constantly bemoan the lack of time in their busy lives.

P.S.: My own humans suffer from no such distractions, of course, but still claim to be crazy busy.

Tag Times Two

Not that it matters much, but it appears that the rules of this meme game (it was noon and now Lakshmi who tagged me) involve posting six or more fascinating facets of my personality. And I’m supposed to tag somebody else in return so this chain never dies - sort of like the scam grams from Nigeria that show up in my inbox or the spooky-looking host of Unsolved Mysteries who, I’m convinced, is really a ghost.

I’m afraid of rejection from people I don’t know well, so I tag mom, who’s only too happy to talk about herself - even when she hides behind her dog.

1. Mom dislikes shaking hands. She’s convinced that she fell sick the first week at work because she shook at least 263 hands in greeting. Now you see why this woman can never be president.

2. She doesn’t like to touch door handles in public for the same reason. After every trip to the restroom at work, mom walks out with the white paper towel she just dried her hands with to open doors. And since there’s no trashcan nearby, she has to walk through a sea of cubicles holding on to a damp paper towel, all the while praying she wouldn’t be introduced to someone and forced to shake hands.

3. Mom attracts static electricity the way Paris Hilton attracts controversy.

4. The smell of coffee makes her barf (yes, she’s probably from another planet). The scented candle overdose at Pier 1 gives her a headache; perfumes make her sneeze; and the fecal stench in public restrooms is enough to make her faint. Given her sensitivity to odors, I’d say she was a dog in her last life. But her partiality to the smell of musk cologne on a faintly sweaty body has me thinking that she could very well have been a doe.

5. Mom is a self-proclaimed dishwasher queen. With Hercule Poirot-like precision she will arrange cutlery and plates in such a way that the dishes are never tempted to run away with the spoons.

6. Politics and religion are to mom as romance and foreplay are to dad – completely pointless and a sheer waste of time.

7. Despite dad’s undisguised disinterest in romance, Lifetime television, office gossip, family melodrama, celebrity news, Michael Bolton’s music and this blog, if she had to do it again, mom would pick him in a swayamvara of 10,000 suitors with her eyes closed - he'd probably be the only guy there with a laptop and no cologne.

Self-Love

I could have sworn someone tagged me awhile ago. Was it The Visitor? Or was it my imagination?

Somehow, the guilt of not responding is weighing down on me and causing a bit of acid reflux – quite like when mom procrastinates to call visiting elders from India despite constant reminders from her parents.

Therefore, in the interests of my health, let me tell you a few things about myself that I’m sure you’re dying to know.

1. I sniff crotches. That’s how I say hello. And I think it’s more sincere than the fake smiles and the breezy how-are-yous exchanged by sworn enemies in mom’s friends’ circle.

2. The nose knows. I can tell you your entire medical history in one sniff – ask me the date of your last period; current medications you’re on; the last time you were intimate, and with whom; your ovulation cycle; etc.

3. I drink from the toilet on occasion - when my water bowl’s empty. As far as I can tell, it tastes no different from mom’s rasam.

4. I can hear the rustling of a loaf of bread in my dreams. I might be fast asleep upstairs, but the sound of a plastic wrapper in a sound proofed basement can rouse me from the deepest slumber.

5. I think mom should quit her job and stay home with me. She and I are both happier that way. Mom was born to live life as a pampered princess, not as a corporate slave. Dad, on the other hand, suffers from no such delusions, so he’s well-advised to continue working and keep the hearth fire roaring.

P.S. How embarrassing would it be if nobody actually tagged me and I just sat and wrote a whole post about myself?

Man Booker Prize Can Wait

Who has the time to write when there’s so much to read? And I’m not just talking about the updates to my favorite blogs or the 85, mostly Viagra-related, e-mails in my inbox when I returned.

I’m trying to revive a lost habit – reading books.

For some reason, Amrita’s laboring under the false impression that I’m actually erudite. Er … does reading agony aunt columns and the comics page while perched on the throne count? How about the ability to immediately spot the word “sex” in a sea of syntax?

Based on empirical research and observation of Generation Yers in my vicinity, it appears that reading seems to be a dying art - disappearing almost at the same rate as the endangered Bengal tiger.

On her recent flight to and from New Jersey, mom noticed that roughly three-quarters of her fellow passengers whipped out their laptops in the waiting area and as soon as they were airborne. The few people who weren’t fixated on a screen the next five hours were either fast asleep or trying hard to ignore Kuki’s singing - which could be heard well above the drone of the airplane engines.

Even the toddlers onboard had their own viewing devices with headsets. And the sight of two desi dudes sitting VERY close together, trying to concentrate on Tabu on a shared laptop while studiously ignoring looks from curious passengers, is forever etched in mom's mind.

“Good lord, don’t people read books anymore?” mouthed mom to dad, from across the aisle and over the heads of her two children.

Dad adjusted his headset and stared at her blankly.

That does it! I'm very tempted to put my wordsmith ambitions on indefinite hold.

If my book falls in a literary ocean, and no one is around to read it, will it still make a splash?